April 11, 2025 • 22 mins
There's something to be said for doing your own thing, and in this episode, Brent's saying a lot. His brother Tim is literally churning out homegrown goodness from his own kitchen and during a recent visit, he clued Brent in on what he was doing. Brent's also sharing a listener story that's definitely worthy of a second helping. It's a feast for your ears on this week's "This Country Life" podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share, spam onions, grits and butter. I find
it very gratifying to see folks make it at home
what they used to buy at the store. I've always
(00:49):
said that life is cyclical, and eventually we go back
to where we started. Radio was first, then movies, TV,
and now podcasts are like video all over again. Watching
a podcast is like when radio turned into television. But
media isn't our focus today. It's homemade groceries, one of
(01:12):
my favorite subjects.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And I'm going to.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Tell you all about some things my brother Tim does.
But first I'm going to tell you a story. This
story comes from our friend Avery Settler Check, an aspiring
actor living in New York City. Avery is a native
(01:34):
of Jacksonville, Florida, and was blessed with a grandfather to
make some fond memories with this story. Speaks of food,
and food is kind of our theme today, sowing Avery's
words and my voice.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
As a young boy, I spent much of my time
with my papa. My mom, a recent widow, nurse and
mother of three, could certainly used the help, and her
dad was one of the many people to answer that call.
He was an iron worker, a barber, a gospel singer,
a TV cameraman, and even an aerial photographer. He had
(02:13):
more jobs than a job fair and was retired by
the time I popped up, so he had plenty of
time and stories to share with me. Papa taught me
all of the cool things in life, like flea markets
and action movies and painting your own initials on all
you tools. Well of all the things he and I
did together, hunting was by far my favor. Each fall,
(02:37):
we'd pack up his camper, haul it up to the
club and set up shop. Then throughout the season he
would pick me up on Friday and take me to
the club where we would run dogs on Saturday before
I tailored it back for church on Sunday morning. I
loved every second of it. Riding on the toolbox, talking
on the c B, and holding my four ten in
(03:00):
anticipation of that big buck I just knew was coming
my way. But most of all, I love spending time
with him in the woods. However much I loved everything
else about these trips. Our crowd jewel was always food,
specifically our snacks while we.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Were out in the woods.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Papa loved food, especially anything fried and salted, and as
a growing boy, so did I. We would stop at
the only gas station for miles, and while we filled
up on ice for the weekend, we'd get an order
of three potato wedges. Now we only got three because
he swore they'd swell up in your stomach. I still
(03:42):
wonder if that's true. When we were hunting, though, we
were just about always eating, And I'm not sure if
that's the way the other guys did it, but that's
how we did. Before the dogs were even barking, we'd
break into the viany sausages and peanut butter and crackers
and free doos, not to mention the coveted you Hoo
cans that would be faulted with a bologna sandwich for
(04:06):
lunch and a cookout for dinner, and that's how it
went for us. As much as we loved hunting and
took it seriously, the opportunity to eat a snack and
talk was the main event. One day, Papa and I
had the rare occurrence of hunting and a stand together
running dogs was the perfect high energy version of hunting
I needed as a kid, lots of commotion and movement,
(04:28):
no major need for being total quiet. Hunting up in
a stand meant that I, as a hyperactive eight year old,
had to be completely still and quiet for multiple hours.
It's this exact reason that on this day my grandfather
and I sat in what we called the condo stand.
The condo stand was a completely boxed instructure, high off
(04:51):
the ground with the drawstringed wooden flat windows and bolted
and swivel chairs, perfect for a kid and this disabled grandfather.
As always, Papa brought a knapsack of snacks and with
the first hour or so we tried to be good,
but the wind was whipping and we were cold and bored.
To better enjoy the moment, my Papa declared chow time.
(05:16):
On this day, I, ever, his provisions were running a
little low and from the bag he procured a sleeve
of saltine crackers, a can of spam, an onion, and
a bottle of hot sauce. Now I had never had spam.
I was a fan of veiny sausages, and I looked
at him with a look that said.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Papa, what is this about?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
He looked back at me, equally dumbfounded with the options
we had, and shrugged his shoulders with a mischievous wealth,
we might as well and smile with a fancy flourish.
He opened that can of spam and began to prepare
our olders with his pocket knife. He peeled back the
onion and began cutting small pieces to lay on what he'd.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Created before us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
He topped that cracker off with spam, onion, and tabasco,
and with a slightly worried look he had to be
wanting to try. He got one and we toasted the
two together and then set them down the hatch. Then
the strangest thing happened, to our surprise and delight, it
was good. It was like a Michelin star restaurant in
(06:23):
our very own hunting stand. We started laughing out loud together,
not caring a liqu about the hunt, and eventually ate
the whole can of spam.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
One cracker at a time.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
We laughed the whole way home, and for weeks laughed
recounting that story to others. Over the years, we laughed
about that day, saying, man, we must have been starving
or something. As I grew up, Papa's health got worse,
and although we still spend lots of time together, we
weren't able to hunt anymore. Now I'm an adult, living
(06:56):
worlds away in New York City, pursuing my dreams, and
I think back on those days. Often I were spent
with my grandfather in the woods, eating food, swapping stories,
and sometimes hunting a deer. There, my grandfather taught me
about life. I asked him things I was too afraid
(07:16):
to ask my mom, and I learned how a man
should view the world. But most importantly, I had someone
to listen to me, someone who told me he was
proud of me and let me know how much he
enjoyed spending time with me and how much he loved me.
My grandfather has to mention now, and it can be
difficult to have conversations because he will always ask me
(07:39):
things like where do you live? Repeatedly? But one thing
he always remembers with ease is our hunting trips. If
I bring up the spam to him, a big smile
lights across his face and he says, boy.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
We sure were hungryuldn't we?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And according to Avery Settler check of New York City,
that's just how that happened.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Avery.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I appreciate you sending in that story. I liked it
from the first time I read it, and I've been
saving it for just the right time. That's a story
that fills my heart thinking about y'all filling your bellies
with a spam and onion cracker. Thanks buddy. We were
(08:35):
having breakfast at Joe's Diner and sheared in Arkansas, just
me and my brother Tim. It's a spot that's about
halfway between where each of us live and the spot
closest to that point where a man can get a
platter of eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, and a bowl of
grits that'll fill your crawl well enough so that your
next meal will be called supper. The waitress calls us honey,
(08:58):
laughs at our dumb jokes, and keeps the coffee smoking
hot while we entertain ourselves with whatever the meeting has
been called for normally just an excuse to share a
mail together and laugh. We were having an in depth
discussion on timeless topics that are important to us and
should be important to everyone that cares about the quality
(09:18):
of their lives and the pursuit of happiness in America,
and that topic was grits. Historians agree that folks have
been grinding corn as long as eighty seven hundred years
before the reason we have Christmas. The evidence comes from
Central America and Native American tribes in the southeastern portion
(09:38):
of this nation that were grinding corn down to a
coarse powder that we now call cornmeal. Contrary to the
beliefs of a few folks from New Jersey who were
blatantly lied to by an Arkansas duck guide over thirty
years ago, there's no such thing as grit fields or
grit bushes.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
If that reference is to.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
O'bsecure for you slipped back to episode one seventy three
of This Country Life entitled Grits, Rhinos, Monkeys and Ducks.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
That shit is clear, that right up.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But grits have been a staple in our diets forever.
I don't remember a time when they weren't available at
home or just about every place. We just worthy of
sitting down to have a meal that served breakfast. The
waitress brought out our food a company by two bowls
of grits that were still bubbling hot from the stove,
and we looked at one another and Simon tanously said,
(10:31):
they'll thick it up in a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
To eat their own.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
But it's customary and our family to eat grits with
a fork and running grits they just won't fill the bill.
So while we waited on the grits to thicken, we
dove into our breakfast. In our conversation, I need to
bring you some of the grits I've been making. Hold
on there, Timmy, you've been making your own grits. Oh yeah,
(10:55):
butter too. And for the next hour we talked about
all this stuff he was doing at home that was
better than going to the store. And it opened up
a whole new list of questions I had for how
he was doing it now obviously to everyone now, even
the duck hunters. New Jersey grits are made from ground corn,
but not just any corn. There are six major types
(11:18):
of corn grown in the US. Dent corn is primarily
used for livestock, feed, fuel, and corn starch. Podcorn is
a wild variety and the corn that modern day corn
was derived from. Sweet corn is what we mostly eat
when it's prepared on the cob, and flour corn for
making corn flour, pop corns for popping, and flint corn,
(11:41):
which is what works best for making grits, homney, and
corn meal. But before the corn police issue warrant from
my wrist, what I just stated is that the exact
law of the land, there are just the major types
of corn, and there are varieties within those types that
cross over for each type of use. Tim's favorite corn
(12:01):
to us to make his corn meal and grits is
a variety called butcher red, which is a dent corn
that has a beautiful, deep red color. Some even refer
to it as bloody butcher red, regardless of what you
call it. He showed me a picture after picture of
the process he uses and the gristville.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
He does it with.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's an electric stone grinder he bought off the anterwebs,
and when he first told me he bought it online,
I thought that kind of took some of the nostalgia
out of it. But I quickly realized that the Google
search of today is no different really than posting up
in the country store and asking the propriety for something
they didn't have, but they could order it for you.
(12:44):
Tim's raising his own corn too, from seed to cob.
It keeps him busy, and what could be more rewarding
than growing your own corn bread? I dare say nothing,
but as good as those grits were that had finally
cooled to the point of a few degrees south of
molten lava, Tim said, the grits he made it home
were ten times better, and it turns out they're better
(13:06):
for you. Consuming fresh stone ground corn in any form
preserves the vitamins and minerals and the nutrients that are
lost over time to degradation. Here's the process that Tim
uses now. Once he picks the corn, he drives it
out for about a month. There are several ways to
do that, from just hanging the corn in the shuck
out in the sun, to removing the shucks and drying
(13:28):
the cobs in a controlled environment, which is what he does.
He said he can keep the bugs out of it
and allow for proper drying without the chance of it
getting mulled. By using his designated corn drying room. Corn
drying room. You built a corn drying room, now, dummy,
I keep it in the guests bedroom with the ceiling
fans set on Hurricane I put all the cobs in
(13:50):
the laundry basket and stir them around every few days
so I know that they're all getting there.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Ah okay, I got you.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Now, after about four weeks of pamper in the guest's bedroom,
he'll take the corn that's sufficiently dried and run it
through a corn sheller. Now his is an old, antiquated
handpired apparatus that he has mounted on a wooden box
to catch the colonels once the sheller removed it. It's
pretty sporty to watch for anyone that's ever wondered how
(14:17):
that process works, and you can see it demonstrated about
a million times on the University of YouTube just by
searching it up. The cob is fed down through the
top and a gear that was exposed teeth knocks the
kernels off and fall into the bottom of the box,
while the cob is eventually turned and run out the
back to fall on the outside. Mister Lester E. Denison,
(14:40):
the Connecticut got the first patent on a corn sheller
in August of eighteen thirty nine. The one Tim has
is a David Bradley brand. It's made out of cast
iron and was manufactured from around nineteen hundred to nineteen
forty nine. Series and Roebuck bought the company in nineteen
ten and eventually started churning out garden tractors instead of
(15:03):
corn shellers. You can find them on the internet, yard
cells and flea markets in perfect working order. Should you
decide to grow, dry and grind your own corn, now,
if garden is your limiting factor, you can buy corn
that's ready to grind that someone else has already drived
and removed from the cob by the sack full. Now,
(15:24):
if you're wondering what the yield is, Tim said that
he averaged about four cobs to the pound of shelled corn.
His gristmeal is electric and has two options for making
the cornmeal. The wheels that grind the corn are called burrs,
and he has stone burrs and steel birds. Stone birds
are said to be slower because they aren't uniformly smooth
(15:44):
like poly steel is, and most commercially ground corn is
done with steel birds because it's faster, more efficient, and
can produce a finer grind. Traditionally, stone ground corn retains
the nutrients of flavor, and the steel burs may literally
squeeze it plumb out of it. And after adjusting the
(16:04):
space between the birds and multiple trips between them, Tim
finally got his setting that he prefers. But the ground
corn is still not one hundred percent uniform, and what
he did next was pretty cool. Took an old tea
strainer and poured the ground corn in it and shook
it back and forth, sifting the smaller grind into another
(16:25):
container while keeping the larger ones in the strainer. The
small ones he uses for his corn meal and the
larger one he uses for grits. Tim said that when
he makes corn bread from that corn meal and takes
it out of the oven, it has a blue or
a purplish tint. I looked that up when I got home.
It's not that I don't trust my brother, It's just that,
(16:47):
like President Reagan said, good policy to have is to
trust but verify. It turns out he wasn't kidding. Turning
purpleness from the presidence of what's called anthos, which changed
color with heat. Now what's an antho cyan? And I'm
glad you asked. It's just the pigment that causes colors
(17:10):
to be colors, and in this case it's what makes
butcher red corn. Red grits are just bowled corn until
you add salt, black, pepper, and butter. I could do
without pepper if I had to, I wouldn't like it,
and the more peppers are better for me. But the
other two, man, they are mandatory. Not letting Tim's comment
(17:31):
of my making my own butter, slip asked him what
critter he was milking to churn since he didn't have
a cow. He ignored that question and showed me a picture.
It was a nineteen fifties Jim Dandy electric churn that
he bought at an online auction. I don't know what
I'd ever seen one. I've seen regular churns, and I
(17:52):
even participated in the churning with my maternal great grandmother,
Lizzie Watanita Beard Play, so we called Mama Player. She
was born in eighteen ninety three and might have stretched
to five feet tall, but it would have been a
pretty good stretch to get her there. I can remember
(18:12):
thinking I was grown standing beside her, and she died
when I was seven. She never broke one hundred pounds
her whole life. I don't remember her ever wearing anything
except cotton dresses and apron and those little faded blue
cats shoes, unless, of course, it was Sunday and it
was a fancier dress and leather shoes.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
But she had a porcelain.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Stone ware churn that set on the back porch. The
handle and dasher was worn thinner around the middle by
the countless trips up and down, by years and years
of churning. It was an arduous process, the one that
was both necessary and part of farm life. By the
time I hit the ground in nineteen sixty six, my
(18:56):
mama player had an electric churn, but she kept the
old one around and let me take a turn at it.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
When I was just a pup.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
We would feed the chickens from the feed. She towed
it in her apron, holding the bottom edge up to
the form of pocket.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Then we gathered eggs and headed back to the house.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
She'd already milked the cow by the time I made mustard,
and it had been set long enough for the cream
to rise to the top. That's where that sin comes from,
if you didn't already know. The cream is then skimmed
off the top and poured in a churn, and then
a dash or handle is brought up and down into
that cream, agitating the cream until a portion of it
(19:36):
solidifies and turns into butter. And the liquid that's left, well,
that's butter milk. I catch a lot of greef from
my Yankee friends at me Eater when I referred the
whole milk as sweet milk. But if you've ever tasted buttermilk,
you'll know where that comes from. I didn't make it up.
It's a label for whole milk that I've heard all
(19:57):
my life. My daddy hated it, but he would buttermilk
right out of the ice box.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Pretty sure.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I told you all about that in episode one twenty
nine Hauling. Hey, it's a good one you should listen
to if you haven't. But I've seen him come in
from the barn that we just filled with square bells
and the blistering heat and chug buttermilk straight from the
jug while I was gulping water from the kitchen sink
as fast as it would run out of the spigot.
Look it gives me the ev GeV is just thinking
(20:26):
about it. But if you didn't know how all of
that went down and where buttermilk and butter comes from,
consider yourself educated. Tim said he wasn't using the churn
he was using a big upright kitchen aid mixer. But
he's also minus of cow, so he buys whole heavy
whipping cream from the store raw if he can find it.
(20:50):
Starting out with two cups of cream, and you'll wind
up with about three sticks of butter and a cup
of fresh buttermilk. The process is fairly simple by letting
the large wists do all the churning for you, allowing
you to concentrate on other things. But don't stray too far.
You can literally have all that done in less time
than it took.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Me to tell you about it.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I watched the lady on YouTube knock it out in
about fifteen minutes. Just search for making homemade butter and
you'll get all kinds of recipes and instructional videos. Now,
to me, the neat thing about making your own grits
and making your own butter isn't limited to just the
production of healthier foods and the satisfaction of providing something
(21:33):
better for your family. It's the education that I got
from doing just a minimal amount of research into something
that's now obscure, that was once commonplace in almost every home.
These things are simple, but they're important to pass on
to the folks who are going to be picking out
our nursing homes one day. Now you add a child
(21:54):
or a grandchild into the mix when you're doing these projects,
and who knows, y'all just might find your own spam
and onion salmon. As always, thank you for listening to
us here on the Beggars Channel, and I have an
update about this country life merchandise from our gal on
(22:15):
the Prowl Reeve Hansen. Folks, we're not months away. As
I reported in Era last week. We're supposed to have
the first ones this very month. I'll be sure and
keep you posting and who to blame if it don't happen.
But until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Y'all be careful
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share, spam onions, grits and butter. I find
it very gratifying to see folks make it at home
what they used to buy at the store. I've always
(00:49):
said that life is cyclical, and eventually we go back
to where we started. Radio was first, then movies, TV,
and now podcasts are like video all over again. Watching
a podcast is like when radio turned into television. But
media isn't our focus today. It's homemade groceries, one of
(01:12):
my favorite subjects.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And I'm going to.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Tell you all about some things my brother Tim does.
But first I'm going to tell you a story. This
story comes from our friend Avery Settler Check, an aspiring
actor living in New York City. Avery is a native
(01:34):
of Jacksonville, Florida, and was blessed with a grandfather to
make some fond memories with this story. Speaks of food,
and food is kind of our theme today, sowing Avery's
words and my voice.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
As a young boy, I spent much of my time
with my papa. My mom, a recent widow, nurse and
mother of three, could certainly used the help, and her
dad was one of the many people to answer that call.
He was an iron worker, a barber, a gospel singer,
a TV cameraman, and even an aerial photographer. He had
(02:13):
more jobs than a job fair and was retired by
the time I popped up, so he had plenty of
time and stories to share with me. Papa taught me
all of the cool things in life, like flea markets
and action movies and painting your own initials on all
you tools. Well of all the things he and I
did together, hunting was by far my favor. Each fall,
(02:37):
we'd pack up his camper, haul it up to the
club and set up shop. Then throughout the season he
would pick me up on Friday and take me to
the club where we would run dogs on Saturday before
I tailored it back for church on Sunday morning. I
loved every second of it. Riding on the toolbox, talking
on the c B, and holding my four ten in
(03:00):
anticipation of that big buck I just knew was coming
my way. But most of all, I love spending time
with him in the woods. However much I loved everything
else about these trips. Our crowd jewel was always food,
specifically our snacks while we.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Were out in the woods.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Papa loved food, especially anything fried and salted, and as
a growing boy, so did I. We would stop at
the only gas station for miles, and while we filled
up on ice for the weekend, we'd get an order
of three potato wedges. Now we only got three because
he swore they'd swell up in your stomach. I still
(03:42):
wonder if that's true. When we were hunting, though, we
were just about always eating, And I'm not sure if
that's the way the other guys did it, but that's
how we did. Before the dogs were even barking, we'd
break into the viany sausages and peanut butter and crackers
and free doos, not to mention the coveted you Hoo
cans that would be faulted with a bologna sandwich for
(04:06):
lunch and a cookout for dinner, and that's how it
went for us. As much as we loved hunting and
took it seriously, the opportunity to eat a snack and
talk was the main event. One day, Papa and I
had the rare occurrence of hunting and a stand together
running dogs was the perfect high energy version of hunting
I needed as a kid, lots of commotion and movement,
(04:28):
no major need for being total quiet. Hunting up in
a stand meant that I, as a hyperactive eight year old,
had to be completely still and quiet for multiple hours.
It's this exact reason that on this day my grandfather
and I sat in what we called the condo stand.
The condo stand was a completely boxed instructure, high off
(04:51):
the ground with the drawstringed wooden flat windows and bolted
and swivel chairs, perfect for a kid and this disabled grandfather.
As always, Papa brought a knapsack of snacks and with
the first hour or so we tried to be good,
but the wind was whipping and we were cold and bored.
To better enjoy the moment, my Papa declared chow time.
(05:16):
On this day, I, ever, his provisions were running a
little low and from the bag he procured a sleeve
of saltine crackers, a can of spam, an onion, and
a bottle of hot sauce. Now I had never had spam.
I was a fan of veiny sausages, and I looked
at him with a look that said.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Papa, what is this about?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
He looked back at me, equally dumbfounded with the options
we had, and shrugged his shoulders with a mischievous wealth,
we might as well and smile with a fancy flourish.
He opened that can of spam and began to prepare
our olders with his pocket knife. He peeled back the
onion and began cutting small pieces to lay on what he'd.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Created before us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
He topped that cracker off with spam, onion, and tabasco,
and with a slightly worried look he had to be
wanting to try. He got one and we toasted the
two together and then set them down the hatch. Then
the strangest thing happened, to our surprise and delight, it
was good. It was like a Michelin star restaurant in
(06:23):
our very own hunting stand. We started laughing out loud together,
not caring a liqu about the hunt, and eventually ate
the whole can of spam.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
One cracker at a time.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
We laughed the whole way home, and for weeks laughed
recounting that story to others. Over the years, we laughed
about that day, saying, man, we must have been starving
or something. As I grew up, Papa's health got worse,
and although we still spend lots of time together, we
weren't able to hunt anymore. Now I'm an adult, living
(06:56):
worlds away in New York City, pursuing my dreams, and
I think back on those days. Often I were spent
with my grandfather in the woods, eating food, swapping stories,
and sometimes hunting a deer. There, my grandfather taught me
about life. I asked him things I was too afraid
(07:16):
to ask my mom, and I learned how a man
should view the world. But most importantly, I had someone
to listen to me, someone who told me he was
proud of me and let me know how much he
enjoyed spending time with me and how much he loved me.
My grandfather has to mention now, and it can be
difficult to have conversations because he will always ask me
(07:39):
things like where do you live? Repeatedly? But one thing
he always remembers with ease is our hunting trips. If
I bring up the spam to him, a big smile
lights across his face and he says, boy.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
We sure were hungryuldn't we?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And according to Avery Settler check of New York City,
that's just how that happened.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Avery.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I appreciate you sending in that story. I liked it
from the first time I read it, and I've been
saving it for just the right time. That's a story
that fills my heart thinking about y'all filling your bellies
with a spam and onion cracker. Thanks buddy. We were
(08:35):
having breakfast at Joe's Diner and sheared in Arkansas, just
me and my brother Tim. It's a spot that's about
halfway between where each of us live and the spot
closest to that point where a man can get a
platter of eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, and a bowl of
grits that'll fill your crawl well enough so that your
next meal will be called supper. The waitress calls us honey,
(08:58):
laughs at our dumb jokes, and keeps the coffee smoking
hot while we entertain ourselves with whatever the meeting has
been called for normally just an excuse to share a
mail together and laugh. We were having an in depth
discussion on timeless topics that are important to us and
should be important to everyone that cares about the quality
(09:18):
of their lives and the pursuit of happiness in America,
and that topic was grits. Historians agree that folks have
been grinding corn as long as eighty seven hundred years
before the reason we have Christmas. The evidence comes from
Central America and Native American tribes in the southeastern portion
(09:38):
of this nation that were grinding corn down to a
coarse powder that we now call cornmeal. Contrary to the
beliefs of a few folks from New Jersey who were
blatantly lied to by an Arkansas duck guide over thirty
years ago, there's no such thing as grit fields or
grit bushes.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
If that reference is to.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
O'bsecure for you slipped back to episode one seventy three
of This Country Life entitled Grits, Rhinos, Monkeys and Ducks.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
That shit is clear, that right up.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But grits have been a staple in our diets forever.
I don't remember a time when they weren't available at
home or just about every place. We just worthy of
sitting down to have a meal that served breakfast. The
waitress brought out our food a company by two bowls
of grits that were still bubbling hot from the stove,
and we looked at one another and Simon tanously said,
(10:31):
they'll thick it up in a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
To eat their own.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
But it's customary and our family to eat grits with
a fork and running grits they just won't fill the bill.
So while we waited on the grits to thicken, we
dove into our breakfast. In our conversation, I need to
bring you some of the grits I've been making. Hold
on there, Timmy, you've been making your own grits. Oh yeah,
(10:55):
butter too. And for the next hour we talked about
all this stuff he was doing at home that was
better than going to the store. And it opened up
a whole new list of questions I had for how
he was doing it now obviously to everyone now, even
the duck hunters. New Jersey grits are made from ground corn,
but not just any corn. There are six major types
(11:18):
of corn grown in the US. Dent corn is primarily
used for livestock, feed, fuel, and corn starch. Podcorn is
a wild variety and the corn that modern day corn
was derived from. Sweet corn is what we mostly eat
when it's prepared on the cob, and flour corn for
making corn flour, pop corns for popping, and flint corn,
(11:41):
which is what works best for making grits, homney, and
corn meal. But before the corn police issue warrant from
my wrist, what I just stated is that the exact
law of the land, there are just the major types
of corn, and there are varieties within those types that
cross over for each type of use. Tim's favorite corn
(12:01):
to us to make his corn meal and grits is
a variety called butcher red, which is a dent corn
that has a beautiful, deep red color. Some even refer
to it as bloody butcher red, regardless of what you
call it. He showed me a picture after picture of
the process he uses and the gristville.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
He does it with.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's an electric stone grinder he bought off the anterwebs,
and when he first told me he bought it online,
I thought that kind of took some of the nostalgia
out of it. But I quickly realized that the Google
search of today is no different really than posting up
in the country store and asking the propriety for something
they didn't have, but they could order it for you.
(12:44):
Tim's raising his own corn too, from seed to cob.
It keeps him busy, and what could be more rewarding
than growing your own corn bread? I dare say nothing,
but as good as those grits were that had finally
cooled to the point of a few degrees south of
molten lava, Tim said, the grits he made it home
were ten times better, and it turns out they're better
(13:06):
for you. Consuming fresh stone ground corn in any form
preserves the vitamins and minerals and the nutrients that are
lost over time to degradation. Here's the process that Tim
uses now. Once he picks the corn, he drives it
out for about a month. There are several ways to
do that, from just hanging the corn in the shuck
out in the sun, to removing the shucks and drying
(13:28):
the cobs in a controlled environment, which is what he does.
He said he can keep the bugs out of it
and allow for proper drying without the chance of it
getting mulled. By using his designated corn drying room. Corn
drying room. You built a corn drying room, now, dummy,
I keep it in the guests bedroom with the ceiling
fans set on Hurricane I put all the cobs in
(13:50):
the laundry basket and stir them around every few days
so I know that they're all getting there.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Ah okay, I got you.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Now, after about four weeks of pamper in the guest's bedroom,
he'll take the corn that's sufficiently dried and run it
through a corn sheller. Now his is an old, antiquated
handpired apparatus that he has mounted on a wooden box
to catch the colonels once the sheller removed it. It's
pretty sporty to watch for anyone that's ever wondered how
(14:17):
that process works, and you can see it demonstrated about
a million times on the University of YouTube just by
searching it up. The cob is fed down through the
top and a gear that was exposed teeth knocks the
kernels off and fall into the bottom of the box,
while the cob is eventually turned and run out the
back to fall on the outside. Mister Lester E. Denison,
(14:40):
the Connecticut got the first patent on a corn sheller
in August of eighteen thirty nine. The one Tim has
is a David Bradley brand. It's made out of cast
iron and was manufactured from around nineteen hundred to nineteen
forty nine. Series and Roebuck bought the company in nineteen
ten and eventually started churning out garden tractors instead of
(15:03):
corn shellers. You can find them on the internet, yard
cells and flea markets in perfect working order. Should you
decide to grow, dry and grind your own corn, now,
if garden is your limiting factor, you can buy corn
that's ready to grind that someone else has already drived
and removed from the cob by the sack full. Now,
(15:24):
if you're wondering what the yield is, Tim said that
he averaged about four cobs to the pound of shelled corn.
His gristmeal is electric and has two options for making
the cornmeal. The wheels that grind the corn are called burrs,
and he has stone burrs and steel birds. Stone birds
are said to be slower because they aren't uniformly smooth
(15:44):
like poly steel is, and most commercially ground corn is
done with steel birds because it's faster, more efficient, and
can produce a finer grind. Traditionally, stone ground corn retains
the nutrients of flavor, and the steel burs may literally
squeeze it plumb out of it. And after adjusting the
(16:04):
space between the birds and multiple trips between them, Tim
finally got his setting that he prefers. But the ground
corn is still not one hundred percent uniform, and what
he did next was pretty cool. Took an old tea
strainer and poured the ground corn in it and shook
it back and forth, sifting the smaller grind into another
(16:25):
container while keeping the larger ones in the strainer. The
small ones he uses for his corn meal and the
larger one he uses for grits. Tim said that when
he makes corn bread from that corn meal and takes
it out of the oven, it has a blue or
a purplish tint. I looked that up when I got home.
It's not that I don't trust my brother, It's just that,
(16:47):
like President Reagan said, good policy to have is to
trust but verify. It turns out he wasn't kidding. Turning
purpleness from the presidence of what's called anthos, which changed
color with heat. Now what's an antho cyan? And I'm
glad you asked. It's just the pigment that causes colors
(17:10):
to be colors, and in this case it's what makes
butcher red corn. Red grits are just bowled corn until
you add salt, black, pepper, and butter. I could do
without pepper if I had to, I wouldn't like it,
and the more peppers are better for me. But the
other two, man, they are mandatory. Not letting Tim's comment
(17:31):
of my making my own butter, slip asked him what
critter he was milking to churn since he didn't have
a cow. He ignored that question and showed me a picture.
It was a nineteen fifties Jim Dandy electric churn that
he bought at an online auction. I don't know what
I'd ever seen one. I've seen regular churns, and I
(17:52):
even participated in the churning with my maternal great grandmother,
Lizzie Watanita Beard Play, so we called Mama Player. She
was born in eighteen ninety three and might have stretched
to five feet tall, but it would have been a
pretty good stretch to get her there. I can remember
(18:12):
thinking I was grown standing beside her, and she died
when I was seven. She never broke one hundred pounds
her whole life. I don't remember her ever wearing anything
except cotton dresses and apron and those little faded blue
cats shoes, unless, of course, it was Sunday and it
was a fancier dress and leather shoes.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
But she had a porcelain.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Stone ware churn that set on the back porch. The
handle and dasher was worn thinner around the middle by
the countless trips up and down, by years and years
of churning. It was an arduous process, the one that
was both necessary and part of farm life. By the
time I hit the ground in nineteen sixty six, my
(18:56):
mama player had an electric churn, but she kept the
old one around and let me take a turn at it.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
When I was just a pup.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
We would feed the chickens from the feed. She towed
it in her apron, holding the bottom edge up to
the form of pocket.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Then we gathered eggs and headed back to the house.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
She'd already milked the cow by the time I made mustard,
and it had been set long enough for the cream
to rise to the top. That's where that sin comes from,
if you didn't already know. The cream is then skimmed
off the top and poured in a churn, and then
a dash or handle is brought up and down into
that cream, agitating the cream until a portion of it
(19:36):
solidifies and turns into butter. And the liquid that's left, well,
that's butter milk. I catch a lot of greef from
my Yankee friends at me Eater when I referred the
whole milk as sweet milk. But if you've ever tasted buttermilk,
you'll know where that comes from. I didn't make it up.
It's a label for whole milk that I've heard all
(19:57):
my life. My daddy hated it, but he would buttermilk
right out of the ice box.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Pretty sure.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I told you all about that in episode one twenty
nine Hauling. Hey, it's a good one you should listen
to if you haven't. But I've seen him come in
from the barn that we just filled with square bells
and the blistering heat and chug buttermilk straight from the
jug while I was gulping water from the kitchen sink
as fast as it would run out of the spigot.
Look it gives me the ev GeV is just thinking
(20:26):
about it. But if you didn't know how all of
that went down and where buttermilk and butter comes from,
consider yourself educated. Tim said he wasn't using the churn
he was using a big upright kitchen aid mixer. But
he's also minus of cow, so he buys whole heavy
whipping cream from the store raw if he can find it.
(20:50):
Starting out with two cups of cream, and you'll wind
up with about three sticks of butter and a cup
of fresh buttermilk. The process is fairly simple by letting
the large wists do all the churning for you, allowing
you to concentrate on other things. But don't stray too far.
You can literally have all that done in less time
than it took.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Me to tell you about it.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I watched the lady on YouTube knock it out in
about fifteen minutes. Just search for making homemade butter and
you'll get all kinds of recipes and instructional videos. Now,
to me, the neat thing about making your own grits
and making your own butter isn't limited to just the
production of healthier foods and the satisfaction of providing something
(21:33):
better for your family. It's the education that I got
from doing just a minimal amount of research into something
that's now obscure, that was once commonplace in almost every home.
These things are simple, but they're important to pass on
to the folks who are going to be picking out
our nursing homes one day. Now you add a child
(21:54):
or a grandchild into the mix when you're doing these projects,
and who knows, y'all just might find your own spam
and onion salmon. As always, thank you for listening to
us here on the Beggars Channel, and I have an
update about this country life merchandise from our gal on
(22:15):
the Prowl Reeve Hansen. Folks, we're not months away. As
I reported in Era last week. We're supposed to have
the first ones this very month. I'll be sure and
keep you posting and who to blame if it don't happen.
But until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Y'all be careful
Host
Clay Newcomb
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