Food from the Earth

Amy's post about peaches triggered some fun memories for me of my grandparents farm.

My grandparents had three daughters who in turn gave them 8 grandchildren. The farm was the center of the wheel of our family. We went there for every holiday and really spent many days there in the summer (not to mention all the days NOT during the summer. What happened usually was that the sisters would arrive with the kids and before the day was over all our families would be mixed up with different kids going home with aunts and some staying at grammas for the night.

It remains in everyone's mind (all 16 of us--grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) as an idyllic place. The location of those golden years of childhood where all is right with the world. Some day I fully intend to write a book about how our lives revolved around that place at that time.

What Amy's peach blog triggered was how as kids we used to eat what whatever we wanted to from the various gardens or trees. If you were hungry there was little need to go into the house. We could stuff our faces with tart fat strawberries or tangy juicy raspberries (mine and Aunt Jaynie's favorites) Or pick an apple or five off the trees to eat. Or pull up some rhubarb and suck the warm juice out of the stem after breaking off the part that was in the dirt. You could pick hot fat purple grapes off the arbor and follow it with a drink from the hose. Come dinnertime the call went out to gather beans...enough for everyone to eat or pick a few cucumbers. Of course the corn on the cob was a forgone conclusion.

Simple delicious fare direct from the earth.