Lessons in Preservation

I started canning in earnest in 2010, the year we moved from Washington Street to the Lambre house in Bermuda, where a trickle of Cane River breaks off to become Bayou Brevelle, a little branch that meanders southward and eventually reconnects with Cane River near Melrose. The area is referred to as Isle Brevelle and is closely associated with families of French- and Creole-descended farmers who have worked the land and maintained the circles of family and faith for many generations.

I describe the place because the river, the pecan groves, the cotton fields, the changing of the seasons and the old house itself influence the way we aspire to live our lives.

We moved there right after New Year’s during a days-long hard freeze and were curious about the bare trees around the house. Obviously there were oak and pecan and catalpas, hollies off the front porch, black walnut and towering cypresses hemming the bayou in back. As things started to bud out in the spring, we knew we had a good size pear tree, a fig tree choked with poison ivy and what we thought was some sort of plum.  With us we brought some small key lime and orange trees from the old house that we planted along with satsuma, grapefruit, Meyer lemon, Persian lime and blood orange. We felt lucky about our move to the country and inclined to put down roots.

By the end of May, the plums were pinkish yellow and about the size of an apricot.  It took some research to identify the graceful old tree as a Mirabelle plum, popular in the Lorraine region of France.  The speculation that our tree sprung from a cutting brought from the old country by a Frenchman seeking his fortune in colonial Louisiana may or may not be plausible, but it makes a good story. I set out to make some jelly.

I had a little bit of experience with that. Just about all the women in the family put up vegetables, jams, pickles and preserves. A large pear tree grew in the yard of the house where I grew up.  Mama’s pears were peeled, sliced, cooked in sugar, divided into quart bags and stored in the deep freeze until time to star in one of her pear pies.  My sister Karla and I did this a few times.  Mama also canned figs and made crabapple and dewberry jelly, which was and remains my and my brother’s favorite. 

Few people think of their mamas or grandmas without it conjuring some association with food. Mamaw Pilcher made mayhaw and blackberry jelly (her blackberry cobbler deserves honorable mention here) and peach and plum preserves. Once she made sloe jelly from fruit we picked off a tree at Daddy’s farm.  These were best enjoyed smeared on a hot cathead biscuit like Aunt Estelle used to make. I should also mention that my Papaw, J.C Walker Sr., made pickles from what he grew in his garden and I’m honored to have one of his large crocks.

Mama (and a few others) got a kick out of me making jelly and I was surprised by my own success. The following year, Clay and I put in a small garden, acquired some books on canning and set to it with enthusiasm. We pickled cucumbers, beans, okra, peppers and onions, canned tomatoes, experimented with salsa recipes and developed a respectable pico de gallo.  There was a bumper crop of Mirabelle plums – 80 pounds -- and I made jelly, jam and syrup till I felt proficient enough to experiment, adding apple, cranberries, pear, basil, jalapeno, cardamom, rum or whatever was on hand.  I tried dozens of recipes from the Ball canning book (the Holy Bible of canning) as well as some of my own concoctions.  Not everything was a success (plum chutney – yack) but it was fun. 

An accomplished braumeister, Clay built scaffolds for hop vines and babied them for two years before conceding that hops don’t like Louisiana summers. The fruit was a different story; we wanted to serve cocktails customized with our own juices and syrups and had long, inspired conversations about savory bloody marys garnished with spicy okra, hot green beans and honey-cured citrus rind sourced from within in 30 feet of our door. 

A few times, Walker Roe and Clayton could be lured into the kitchen to mash berries or stir sugar into a boiling pot. One day, Walker snapped a picture of me in my apron and – holy cow! – I looked just like Mamaw.  During its final boil, the jelly turns silky and smells like baking pie.  I like the jewel tones of the coral-colored plum, garnet red strawberry and deep bruised purple of the blackberry shining in their little jars.

On a lark I entered pints of Carrot Cake Jam and Hot Pickle Mix in the Natchitoches Parish Fair and won 10 whole dollars! That summer, Walker Roe and I set up a table at the Cane River Green Market.  We bartered good-naturedly with the other vendors, made a modest profit and visited with all manner of folks during the course of the morning. It truly is a community event.  

Our Belgian friend Christine Ferrell informed me that Mirabelle plums are commonly used to make brandy and I gave that a go as well, beginning the process in July and by Christmas had bottled the stuff and served to guests in little cordial stems. It was terrible. Later, when some grapefruit jelly didn’t set properly, I added some spices, sealed the jar and labeled it syrup, which I presented to mixologist extraordinaire Steven Gruesbeck.  He thanked me by including it in a bourbon-based cocktail he invented and named after me – the Pilcher -- which is about the highest compliment I could ask for.

The COVID years (2020 and beyond) were…stressful…but a silver lining of those dark days was having time at home to cook, garden and make things like bread and pizza from scratch. I propagated a branch of the Mirabelle into more trees and dug around on the riverbank, learning about native plants and herbal remedies. Then came Hurricanes Laura and Delta that felled several 100-year-old pecan and oak trees, followed by a brutal winter ice storm that decimated the citrus, including the prettiest and most productive satsumas.  We’ve replaced many of those and added pomegranate, peach and paw paws that will produce in a few years (fingers crossed) with patience, time and good weather.

In addition to the usual reasons people make preserves – gifts for friends, sharing from your kitchen, locavoring, etc. – it brings me back to the way I grew up, really more the way my parents and grandparents were raised, when people preserved what was available because they had to and appreciated the value of the work that went into it, just like quilting, weaving, woodworking and a number of other necessary but forgotten skills.  

It is naïve to romanticize the endless work that living on and working a real farm was 100 years ago, but it is gratifying to make something that people enjoy that wasn’t produced in a factory. I think my pioneer ancestors and the Lambre women who worked in the old house before me would be pleased.  And I hope that Clayton and Walker Roe might remember planting the garden, gathering fruit and working in the kitchen with me, telling their grandchildren about Mamaw Leah, in a stained apron over a hot stove, wishing they could taste that blackberry jelly once again.