Food For Thought

I’m learning the locations of the different supermarkets and other food stores in and around Birmingham.  While I was willing to go to different areas to do some of this shopping, I was not prepared for the culture shock that went along with it.  In metropolitan Denver I was accustomed to getting food from supermarket chain stores that carried the same items with minor variations among them.  So shopping in a store in Longmont was much like shopping in Lakewood if the stores were part of the same market chain.  The reality in Birmingham is something completely different.

The first disagreeable surprise came when I made up my shopping list and arranged to patronize the stores in my immediate area.  I was told that I should be ready to drive a little way to find one and that quality would vary widely.  The surprise came when I learned that many of the items on my list would not be carried by local grocery stores. 

“Raymond, you’re going to have to go where white folks live to get that stuff.  You ain’t gonna find any of it in the local stores,” my brother John told me.  “We’ll have to go over the mountain to find it.”  Going “over the mountain” meant going south of Red Mountain, the huge uplift that skirts Birmingham on its southern edge.  So “over the mountain” we went, but my quest was only just beginning.

The store we shopped in the town of Homewood didn’t have half the things I wanted.  I was looking for the same kinds of mushrooms, chili peppers and green leafy vegetables I could find in a Colorado grocery.  The only mushrooms available were the white button ones.  So I wasn’t happy to come up empty in my search for oyster, portobello and shiitake mushrooms; anaheim, pablano and serrano chilies (although this store did have jalapeños); as well as chard and kale.  Even shallots were absent.  I hunted to no avail and my grumbles and curses only provoked John to laugh out loud.

“What did you expect?” he asked.  “People don’t eat that kind of stuff here.  We’ll have to go to an Asian or Mexican market to find what you’re looking for.”  The long face I made prompted John to laugh some more.  I bought a few items and then John drove me back home.

I was still determined to find a store that stocked most of what I wanted.  So a few days later my sister-in-law took me out on another foraging expedition.  We went over the mountain again and back to Homewood but to a different supermarket than the last time.  This store was much bigger, and I was able to find a few other items that I had wanted, but once again the vegetable selection was not up to my standards.  I looked in vain for different mushrooms, shallots, chard or kale.  But Anji urged me not to give up.  “Let’s try one more place, but it’ll be expensive,” she suggested.

We found a Whole Foods store, a chain that specializes in organic foods and a wide variety of produce.  At last!  I knew Whole Foods from my Colorado years but never knew the chain had expanded into the Deep South.  Here were all the mushroom varieties I wanted and more.  Here were the chard, kale and other leafy plants.  Here were the different cheeses, nut butters, fruits and meats I craved.  The cost, however, was beyond my means right then and there, but finally I had found a market that carried what I wanted and was within fairly easy reach of my home in Birmingham.

So I came back to the city satisfied that even though I would have to drive a bit farther than I would like, I had found a store that carried the kind of food I wanted.  We made note as well of the locations of the Asian and Mexican markets and I will be paying them a visit in the near future.  To be honest, I would never have expected to see any kind of cultural market around here.  However, Birmingham’s ethnic makeup has changed since I moved away and there is now a place for specialty stores catering to foreign food lovers.  But my food adventures weren’t over quite yet.

Last Friday, Anji and I went on another excursion to a large supermarket in Birmingham’s West End.  This store is close—about 5 miles/8 km away—and so will be easy to get to.  The store did carry kale, but no chard.  There were only button and crimini mushrooms available.  It also had the standard greens any Southern market has:  collard, mustard and turnip greens.  But I was stunned by how big the bundles were, at least twice as large as anything I had seen in Colorado and at half the price.  There was one other surprise here that once again emphasized that I am living in Alabama and not Colorado.

We went to the seafood case and I rejoiced in the wonderful assortment of fish that was available and at prices much cheaper than what I was used to paying in the Rockies.  I had to remind myself that with the Gulf of Mexico only a five-hour drive from Birmingham, some of the fish I was viewing was yesterday’s catch.  My mouth watered when I thought of all the seafood dishes I would now be able to cook and enjoy.

One of the fish for sale was Gulf red snapper—my favorite fish when I lived here before.  Another fish that I was glad to see was grouper.  The display case featured both whole fish as well as fillets, and I was told that if I bought the whole fish the staff would fillet and dress it for me.  I liked that and said that when I came back to make a purchase I would very much appreciate it if they would also give me the head, fins, tail, bones and any guts.  The staff and Anji all looked at me as if I had gone completely out of my mind.

“What on earth would you want that junk for?” I was asked.

“Why, to make seafood stock out of them,” I replied, surprised in turn by their question.  “This is the kind of stock that goes into fish stew, different fish and shellfish chowders, bouillabaisse and other fish soups.  You put those things into a pot of water, add the appropriate vegetables and seasonings, boil them down, strain the liquid, and you have a stock.”

“Well,” they answered.  “It’s obvious that you are a real cook.  Nobody here would ever think of doing anything with them except to throw them out.”

Chowder, bouillabaisse and fish soups don’t figure prominently in Southern cooking, particularly that of black Southerners.  Neither do chili peppers, exotic mushrooms, chard and kale or alums like shallots.  I had to remember what community I live in now.  Getting some of the things I want means going “out of the community” as Anji put it or “to the white folks”; but I’ve learned that black as well as white folks often won’t have what I seek.  When it comes to food, my tastes have been shaped by a culture and experience that might as well have been on the other side of the world.  Getting the ingredients for some of my favorite meals is going to be a combination of grocery shopping and scavenger hunt and will probably involve driving all over Birmingham and beyond.

On the other hand, I will have an abundance and diversity of seafood I could only dream of in Colorado.  Besides that, there are many wonderful dishes that make Southern cuisine particularly delicious and I’ll have the ingredients for them close at hand.  I can’t wait to make genuine jambalaya, dirty rice, gumbo, shrimp creole and other good things.  The possibilities are endless and I plan to have as much fun in my Alabama kitchen as I did in my Colorado one.  

There was also one other bonus I got on the drive back home from this particular market.  We stopped at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.  I was addicted to those doughnuts when I lived in Alabama before.  Only once in all my years in Colorado had I got a hold of some and that was in a shop located halfway between Boulder and Colorado Springs way back in 2001.  Seeing one again and being able to load up on some of my favorite varieties offered sweet compensation to the exhausting hunt for the other food items.

Cooking and eating in Alabama is going to be an adventure.  Gathering the ingredients as well as acquiring the necessary utensils, implements and appliances will be a challenge as well.  But if the conversations I’m having with my family and friends are any indication, I think we all will benefit from the exchange of recipes and information.  My first big family dinner is going to be a blend of foods and flavors from the Rockies and the Deep South; and I think everyone is going to really enjoy it.

On Dynamite Hill

ON DYNAMITE HILL

The American South has many places worthy of historical commemoration and Alabama has its share of them.  I had thought that my first visit to such a site would be in Montgomery, the state capitol.  It was only after I got back that I remembered that I lived on one of them and so I want to write about it first.

My neighborhood in Birmingham was once on the front lines in the long struggle for civil rights in the United States.  Many of those who lived on Center Street and the streets that crossed and flanked it took part in fighting for voting rights, ending racial segregation, and working for “justice for all.”  Those who did so often paid a high price for their bravery.

When people think of the civil rights struggle in America, without a doubt the first name to come to mind is Martin Luther King, Jr.  He started his campaign against racism in Montgomery in 1955 but no city had a bigger role in the movement than Birmingham and my family and neighbors were prominent in the fight.  Some took part in the freedom marches.  Others got involved in state and national politics to work for change.  Still others followed the words and example of Henry David Thoreau and engaged in acts of civil disobedience.  The reaction from the powers-that-were in those days was swift, decisive, violent and often even murderous.

My neighborhood in Birmingham’s Smithfield community came to be called “Dynamite Hill”.  Starting at the intersection of Center Street and Eighth Avenue, North the ground steadily rises, reaching a crest on Eleventh Court, North.  This area was home to some of Birmingham’s civil rights leaders, whose activities, workplaces and addresses were all a matter of public record.  So when these people began “agitating” and “stirring up trouble” in the view of the authorities, it wasn’t long before Birmingham’s political elite denounced them.  When denunciation didn’t make them back down, harsher actions were taken.

The notorious Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization founded in 1868, got involved.  First they used their time-honored act of terrorism:  slipping onto people’s property at night, erecting a wooden cross and then setting it alight.  The burning cross was the trademark of the Klan and it had been used for decades to threaten and intimidate anyone—black and white—who wanted to change the established order.

The cross burnings only made civil rights leaders bolder.  They refused to end their activities.  So the Klan took to planting bombs on their property.  As far as I can remember, nobody was killed but damage to homes and property was extensive.  So many homes and buildings were bombed that the area was called “Dynamite Hill”.  But the Klan didn’t confine its attacks to Dynamite Hill.  Many more homes, businesses and even churches were targeted giving the city the ugly nickname of “Bombingham”.

The climax of this terrorist campaign came in 1963, probably the most tumultuous year for the civil rights movement in Birmingham.  That year saw the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sunday, 15 September.  The blast killed four girls attending Sunday school that morning.  In another instance, peaceful demonstrators who demanded the right to vote were set upon with water cannons and fierce attack dogs in Kelly Ingram Park.  Many were beaten and jailed regardless of age or sex.  While all this was happening, Birmingham’s civic and political leaders did nothing to stop the violence or punish those who carried it out.  Indeed, many of them encouraged it, hoping that they could coerce any and all who wanted to change the established order of things into compliant silence.

Among the various events to occur then, the city’s police commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor, decided to pay a personal visit to Smithfield; but he had no intention of talking to its residents or engaging in any kind of peaceful dialogue.  Connor somehow got hold of an old army tank and lumbered up Dynamite Hill accompanied by a retinue of armed police officers and attack dogs.  Connor positioned himself in the turret, glaring hatred at my neighbors, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  He swiveled the gun around, pointing it at homes and shouting hate speech.

Far from running and hiding in fear, the neighborhood defiantly turned out in force to watch Connor roll past.  Nobody responded to his actions but looked on silently as he rumbled by.  One of my aunts told me later that while she wasn’t scared, she did wonder how somebody could have that much hatred in his heart.  My immediate family did not witness Connor’s tank ride because my father was in the Army and serving in Okinawa, but my parents anxiously watched these events from afar as they unfolded in their hometown.

While Bull Connor failed to end the civil rights movement in Birmingham, black residents still had to take precautions to protect themselves.  One of my neighbors recalled one of the measures families took to prevent tragedies.  It was common for the Klan to wait until nightfall and then ride through black neighborhoods and engage in drive-by shootings.  So that meant nobody slept in bedrooms which faced the street, choosing instead to put their beds in a house’s back rooms just in case there was an attack.

In 1973, Bull Connor died a broken, bitter and lonely man.  His fall from grace was complete as Alabama decided to embrace justice and equality, ending segregation, voter disenfranchisement, and other evils.  In his heyday, Bull Connor was arguably the most powerful man in Alabama.  When he died, the state’s political establishment, including George Wallace, the governor who was most energetic in his enforcement of the old segregation laws, boycotted his funeral.

On Good Friday, I went for a walk on the slopes of Dynamite Hill.  I didn’t hear the crackling flames of burning crosses or the boom of exploding bombs.  Instead there was the noise of traffic on the busy Interstate highway beneath the Center Street viaduct and melodious birdsong in the air.  Roses, sweet clover, honeysuckle and other flowers swayed in the breeze and wafted their scents to my thankful nose.  The old civil rights warriors have passed away now although their houses still proudly stand, monuments to the history which occurred nearly a half-century ago.  The neighborhood was getting ready for Easter, reposing in a well-earned peace.

But that peace must not be taken for granted.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, something that is easy to relax when there is no clear and present danger to threaten it.  There are still those of various persuasions who would deny liberty to others and they must be opposed.  That is true not just in Alabama, but many other places in the world.

For now, I could enjoy another glorious spring day in the Deep South.  I have been back less than a month and I am allowing myself to gradually assimilate.  Life is profoundly different here than in the Rocky Mountain West, Good Friday’s news about blizzard conditions in Idaho and Montana being just another reminder of this.  Today I chose to remember what happened on Dynamite Hill and rejoice that the courage of my family and neighbors has made life better for all of us.

South By East

SOUTH BY EAST

This is my first entry into the blogosphere with an offering which I will call “South By East” and will detail my life and times in the American South.  The title arises from my move away from Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West back to my family in the South.  The American South generally refers to the states south of the Pennsylvania state line and the Ohio River.  The bulk of them lies east of the Mississippi River as well with the exception of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Most of them seceded from the United States in 1860-61, actions which brought on the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.  They formed a block called the Confederate States of America but were at last utterly defeated and re-assimilated. 

The Confederacy was composed of eleven states, all of which sanctioned and promoted black slavery.  But not all slave-holding states joined the rebellion.  Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri all remained in the Union.  Of these four, Kentucky and Maryland are considered genuine Southern states.  We must include West Virginia as a Southern state as well because it was once part of Virginia but declared its independence and was admitted to the Union while the Civil War still raged.  I give this synopsis for my readers who are not Americans and so may be unfamiliar with this aspect of American history.

The term “Deep South” mostly refers to the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.  Those are the states where Southern culture is most pronounced and celebrated.  Most families with any roots in the South refer to the region as “home” no matter how long they have lived elsewhere.  I hope this blog will help its readers appreciate the reasons for that sentiment.  Sunday, 1 April 2012, was my first full day “down home”.

There are so many variances between the South and the Rocky Mountain West that it is difficult to decide how to start discussing them.  Comparison and contrast will feature prominently in my writings.  But I do not intend to do so in a way that will make it seem that one place is superior to the other.  There are different features to both regions and I want to detail them for my readers.  Some of the observations will be on the history, culture and geography that I will explore.  Others will focus on demographics, climate, botany and zoology that I will see.  Photography will be an important component of the blog as well because I want my readers to see what the South is like and to learn to appreciate it for itself.

So I will start with my return to Birmingham, Alabama by way of Atlanta, Georgia from Denver, Colorado.  The morning I left Colorado was a clear and cloudless one, the end of the driest March in Denver’s history.  Not only was the state suffering from a drought, but it was accompanied by unseasonably warm temperatures which had prompted many trees to flower and leaf six weeks early.  In addition, a big fire had broken out on Denver’s southwest side that had consumed more than 4,000 acres/1,600 hectares, destroyed or damaged nearly thirty homes, and killed two people. 

I flew over the brown and parched Colorado landscape on a southeastern rumb line to Atlanta.  The Rockies towered over the dry grasslands but they weren’t wearing the snowy mantle one would have expected for the end of March.  The snowpack was far from being heavy and unless conditions change this portends a bad fire season for the coming summer.  But that is something that will no longer directly impact me, and my touchdown in Atlanta soon gave abundant evidence of this.

My arrival in Georgia put me in a landscape that was completely in the embrace of Spring.  Green grass, fully leafed trees, profuse flowers and blooms, and abundant moisture on the ground and in the air showed that the South was as lush and fertile as ever.  I had forgotten what a real Spring looked like but this beautiful Georgia afternoon was a wonderful way to get reacquainted with it.

Then there was the drive down with my brother and one of my nephews to Birmingham, Alabama which displayed more vernal bounty.  Dogwood trees, called “the bride of Spring” by many, were arrayed in showy white blooms.  Azaleas had blossomed, and the medians of the highways were festooned with two of my favorite southern flowers:  red clover and primrose.  The woodlands were a bewildering collection of deciduous and coniferous trees and I recalled the fact that both Georgia and Alabama contain more tree species than grow in all of Europe.  Indeed, more than one hundred different kinds of trees grow in Alabama alone and that number includes twenty-two different oak species!

We drove southwest, but not toward snow-capped mountains.  Instead the landscape was covered with flowers, forests, watercourses and the last heights of the Appalachian Mountains, the range that runs out of northeast Alabama all the way to Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, more than 3,000 miles/5,000 kilometers, and is the dominant mountain system in eastern North America.  The explorer in me rejoiced as I thought of all the possibilities that lay before me if I would only reach out and embrace them.

But the drive to Birmingham involved exploration of another sort.  I was getting to know my brother again.  We have always been close and loved each other, but six years had passed since our last meeting and that was a brief one in Colorado.  Those six years had made me almost unrecognizable to him because I had lost some 60 pounds/27 kilos in that time.  So he walked right past me in the airport the first time he saw me, but then realized his error and called out to me.  That was somewhat amusing.  As for my nephew, he is the younger of Joe’s two sons and doesn’t know his Uncle Raymond at all except by name.   He was only five years old the last time I saw him and an infant before that.   John Raymond—named after my youngest brother, my father and me—gave cautious answers to my questions and slept through much of the two-hour drive.  Nevertheless, we established a connection that I fully intend to strengthen in the months and years that lie ahead.  After all, he is part of the newest generation in my family and one of many reasons I have returned to the South.

We reached Birmingham without incident.  There had been changes in the eight years since my last visit, but many of the old landmarks were still in place.  My mother’s house is showing its age now, especially since she can no longer really care for it.  Still, I was very happy to see it again.  Roses were already in bloom and the front yard had plenty of sweet clover, wild pinks and buttercups growing in it.  There is no way any of these flowers would be already blossoming back in Colorado.  The elm trees had fully leafed out and the pecan tree in the back yard had done so as well.

To say that my mother was overjoyed to see me would be putting it very mildly.  Her welcome was proof that I had never stopped being her child and that she had missed me terribly.  At the same time, I realized that she is now an old woman and needs as much care and attention as I can give to her.  She can no longer walk unassisted and suffers from different aches and pains.  I had to remind myself this was the same woman who had been physically active and vibrant not too many years earlier.  Her grandchildren had no idea she had once been as young and vigorous as they.  It would appear that my return could not have been timelier and that caring for an aged parent was now going to be a very important job.

My brother and nephew stayed for a couple of hours or so and then drove back to Atlanta.  After they left, my mother and I stayed up a long time talking.  She was simply bubbling over with gratitude, thanking God that I had come home.  For my part, I now understand that my stay here will be an indefinite one.  I owe that much to my family and to me.

Sunday April first was spent in meeting family and neighbors.  Although more than thirty years had passed since I moved to Colorado, my welcome was very warm and enthusiastic.  Indeed, I haven’t been hugged and kissed so much since I was a small boy.  Most of the people I knew from decades ago were grayer and a little slower.  Then there were new family members to meet:  a niece and nephew who had never known me; cousins once- or twice-removed; children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of various relatives and neighbors; also cousins whose names I knew but had never personally met as well as reacquainting myself with the old neighborhood.

Some folk had passed away during the intervening years.  Only one of my uncles is still living, but he has reached the ripe old age of ninety-nine.  Another aunt will turn ninety-three this year but is now in the grip of Alzheimer’s disease.  She looked at me with a vacant, far-away look in her eyes when her son told her who I was.  She can no longer recognize or remember me.  All I could do was embrace and kiss her and be content she let me do that.  That was a very sad moment especially when I remembered the vigorous woman she once was.

So I am back in Dixie with new experiences awaiting me.  Colorado is now in the past and Alabama is my present and future.  I am determined to make the most of my life here and take full advantage of the opportunities it will offer.  I want to share that life with you because I believe good things are waiting.  I plan to range throughout the East, not just the states in the Deep South, armed with my computer, camera, and a burning desire to soak it all in.  I hope you will enjoy these journeys with me.