Holiday time is upon us. Not long ago, using “eternity” as a guideline, Mama Haynes prepared special food from generational handed-down recipes for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.
As kids, in the early 1960s, my brother Jim and I helped Mama Haynes “shell” peas or cut snap beans. Several types of peas were served at almost every holiday dinner, with blackeye peas always in a big bowl at the center of the table come New Year’s Day. Eating them was supposed to bring good luck, although none of my relatives ever won the lottery.
I can still recall the unique odor associated with shelling green peas, unlike anything I’ve smelled other than perhaps one counterculture product. The fragrance was very strong if a pod full of green peas was especially fresh. I’m not a hemp user, but I’ve driven by a few marijuana greenhouses in California, and the pungent sweet aroma coming from them is close to the same. I believe my grandparents’ name for marijuana was loco weed. My folks called it Wacky Tobackie.
Jim and I would sit on Mama Haynes’s back porch, simultaneously talking and shelling with her. By the end of the process, certain fingers would be green from pinching hundreds of pods until they were all shelled. Soap and water removed some of the green chlorophyll, although some staining remained. It was no worse than having dirt or grease embedded in my skin, a daily ritual. No biggie.
Both of my grandmas would mash their own potatoes using hand-crank mixers. I’d assist on rare occasions but it wasn’t one of my favorite tasks. The procedure was labor intensive. Mashed potatoes in a box took care of that problem, but they’re not near as good as the real thing, not even the Idahoan brand.
When making a cake or a pie, that was a different story where mixing ingredients was concerned. I’d gladfully help out and even “sift flour” as it was called. Mama Haynes made the best pecan pies, with the nuts gathered locally from Lamar County pecan trees or sent to her from my Aunt Katrulia. Aunt K’s family owned a pecan orchard near Grand Bay, Alabama.
I helped open the unshelled pecans using a small hammer to crack the shell. The object was to remove the “meat” of a pecan in one piece. It took practice. When she wasn’t looking I often smashed a pecan to smithereens just to see how flat it would go.
Mama Haynes’ pecan pies were made using a special syrup named Golden Eagle. This delicious ingredient is manufactured in a small town in Alabama called Fayette, with the company in operation for almost 100 years. Fayette was originally called LaFayette after the famous Revolutionary War hero, Marquis de LaFayette.
Incorporated in 1821, my brother was born there and I often joked as a boy that he looked Fayette, although I was the chubby one.
After my family moved to Alaska, shelling peas with Grandma Hankins and Mama Haynes became a thing of the past. On holidays, Mom would use her electric mixer to make fresh mashed potatoes, while she still made the scrumptious pecan pies using Mama Haynes’s recipe.
I’ve been craving an authentic Alabama pecan pie for several years now. Some time ago I ordered a jar of Golden Eagle and had it sent via UPS to Arizona. That delicious syrup ultimately came to be used on pancakes, waffles, and biscuits. Why it was never turned into a pie is forgotten history.
This fall, the Golden Eagle Syrup Company announced that they’d be making a select number of large pecan pies, and that immediately caught my attention. Ordering up one before they were all spoken for, it should be here in time for Thanksgiving. With two of my grandchildren traveling from Minnesota to see us, I wanted them to partake in a part of the holiday I’d been accustomed to while young.
The distance this pie has to travel via the United States Postal Service to Lake Havasu City is 1,717 miles. I’m not sure if it’s coming by truck or plane, but when it arrives it’ll be greeted with open arms. My wife wanted to know why I didn’t just order a jar of Golden Eagle, and have her bake a pecan pie. Joleen makes excellent pies but there’s more to having this specific pie than she understands.
My grandparents on both sides of the family lived in Vernon, Alabama, which is only 18 miles from Fayette. There’s something about folks living in that neck of the woods that makes this pecan pie significant to me. It’ll be as close to one of Mama Haynes’ pecan pies as I can get.
Grandma’s hands might not have made it, but the recipe used by Golden Eagle is one and the same as hers.
I like to write junk... 