Pass the Crowder peas, please!

When he was growing up “down on the farm” in rural Washington County in “Middle Georgia,” Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald columnist Loran Smith wrote: 

“There was nothing like a summertime vegetable plate at noon, which we called ‘dinner.’ Leftovers were set out for the evening meal, ‘supper.’”

“My favorite, when it came to peas, was Crowder peas,” he said.

 

Smith, who is now 85, remembers rising “early in the morning and taking a galvanized tub out to the pea patch and pickin’ a ‘mess of Crowder peas.’”

“We’d all sit around on the back porch, click on the “static afflicted radio” and let Hank Williams and Eddy Arnold help us shell those Crowders in time for dinner.”

Eddy Arnold

Smith still savors the sight of seeing “those Crowder peas dripping with rich, dark potlikker as they were dipped into a serving bowl for the family table.”

Potlikker is the Southern term for “the juice that remains in a pot after greens or other vegetables are boiled with proper seasoning, such as salt fat pork,” he said. “Delicious, invigorating and soul-and-body sustaining.”

A few years ago, Loran Smith interviewed fellow Georgian Patricia Maxwell on the subject of Crowder peas. She is a descendant of Lt. Col. John Terrell Crowder of Monroe County, Ga. He fought in the Civil War with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Col. Crowder’s land was on the Little Towaliga River. He was a vintner as well as the Crowder pea inventor, Maxwell has claimed. Maybe true, maybe not so much. A good story, nonetheless.

 

“Crowder peas, butterbeans, iced tea and a nap – the good things in life. Often, we don’t appreciate them when we are young,” Smith wrote.

(College football fans may recognize Loran Smith. He has served nearly 50 years as a sideline reporter and radio commentator for the University of Georgia Bulldogs.)

 

For southern Crowder peas in a can, consider Bush’s. The family-owned company was formed in 1908 in Chestnut Hill, Tenn., near the French Broad River in the Smoky Mountains.

 

Andrew Jackson (A. J.) Bush was born in 1867. A. J. graduated from Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., and returned home to Chestnut Hill to become a school teacher.

 

He and his wife, Sallie, raised six children. They established the A. J. Bush & Company General Store in 1896 to bring in additional income.

In the early 1900s, A. J. began construction of a textile hosiery mill. When word of his plans made their way to the Stokely Brothers Tomato Cannery in Newport, Tenn., about 10 miles east of Chestnut Hill, the four Stokley boys approached A. J. with an offer.

If he would provide the building and staff, the Stokely brothers would provide the canning equipment to open a cannery instead of a hosiery factory. A. J. agreed, and the new cannery opened in 1904.

In 1908, A. J. bought out the Stokely brothers’ interest and formed a new partnership with his two eldest sons, Fred and Claude, known as Bush Brothers & Company.

Soon thereafter, Bush added blackberries, peaches, hominy and green beans, products grown locally in Tennessee.

Fred Bush became Bush’s president in 1931, “inheriting the difficult task of shepherding Bush Brothers through the Great Depression. World War II. The great postwar economic expansion that followed fueled Bush’s transformation into a diversified food processor.”

 

Committed to introducing new products, Bush’s positioned itself in 1952 “Bush’s Best,” targeting its brands as “a convenience food for busy cooks.”

 

Crowder peas were added to the product line in the mid-1950s, and now the company boasts: “Our Crowder peas are always crowd-pleasers!”

Crowder peas are also available in the frozen food section: 

 

 

Another leading brand is show below:

Some sources say this was the favorite of Elvis Pressley, who consumed vast quantities of Crowders. 

His favorite recipe was a simple one. 

Add onions, butter and water. Heat and dig in.

Southerners chow down on Crowder peas

Crowder peas grow readily in southern soils and are cousins of black-eyed peas.

Selena McKoy, an agricultural specialist with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service center in Harnett County, said Crowder peas are true beans, or legumes, and “thrive in brutal heat, overbearing sun and poor soils.”

 

These beans “can excel in the areas of your garden bed where other ornamentals or vegetables fail. Once the plants begin bearing – anywhere from six weeks to four months after planting – they will bear until the first killing frost,” McKoy said.

“Crowder peas blanch and freeze beautifully, and you can also dry them. If you can’t put any away, you can make a few large harvests, then till the plants under to improve the soil texture further.”

At Specialty Produce, a wholesaler in San Diego, Calif., Crowder peas account for just one of more than 1,000 items of produce in the company’s 32,000-square-foot warehouse. Its website offers in-depth commentaries about all its fruits and vegetables.

“Crowders have a bright green shell when fresh and then turn to a pink and rose hue when dried. The pods range from 8 to 10 inches in length and contain anywhere from 12 to 18 small globular brown beans.”

 

“The Crowder pea variety got its name from the pea’s tendency to ‘crowd into its shell.’”

 

Dried, canned and frozen Crowder peas “can be found year-round, sold as a processed bean or as a value-added ingredient in soup and bean mixes.” Crowders “are high in protein and contain the amino acids, lysine and tryptophan.” They are also a good source of dietary fiber as well as vitamins A, C and K.

Crowders “can be cooked quickly, simmered for 30 minutes or until fork tender, or they can be slow cooked for hours to allow the broth to develop a richer flavor.”

“Okra can be added to impart a thicker consistency to the broth.” The beans take on the flavor profile of what they are being cooked with. Crowders “pair well with onion, tomato, corn, garlic, fresh herbs such as sage oregano and parsley and chili peppers.”

 

Having originated in Africa, Crowder peas “were quickly adopted as a favored crop as a result of their adaptability to the hot and steamy climate of the American South.”

Mike Barnhardt, editor of the Davie County Enterprise-Record, published in Mocksville, N.C., recalled the social aspects of shelling Crowder peas with his grandfather, while “listening to Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson Sr. calling an Atlanta Braves’ baseball game on the little Philco radio that sat at the base of the end table.”

 

Someone who really likes to cook Crowder peas is Kathryn Doherty of Charlotte, N.C., creator of the “Family Food on the Table” website.

Doherty discovered that Crowders are “the perfect, Southern soul food staple – easy to cook and great with fresh tomatoes.”

Look for Crowder peas during the growing season at farmers’ markets, she advised. They are usually packed in plastic baggies. “Sometimes they are sitting out on display, sometimes they’re in a cooler on the floor. Sometimes they’re hidden behind the stall, and you have to ask for the little gems.”

“Like many old Southern dishes, the vegetables are the stars of the show,” she said. “You can use some leftover bacon grease, a small piece of salt pork, fat back or a jarred ham base. Once the beans have cooled slightly,” Doherty said, “add in 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes and 1/4 cup green onions, then taste and add salt and pepper if needed.”

“We like ours with hot sauce – lots of hot sauce.”

Crowder peas and lima beans

Bake yourself a ‘Sock It To Me Cake’

One of life’s great little pleasures is a big ol’ slice of “Sock It To Me Cake,” a Southern delicacy.

Jocelyn Delk Adams got the original Bundt cake recipe from her grandmother, Maggie Mae Small of Winona, Miss. Affectionately known as “Big Mama,” Maggie Mae called her precious little Joceyln “Grandbaby Cakes,” as the story goes.

 

About 5,000 people live in Winona, located off Interstate 55 near “middle Mississippi.” The town is about midway between Memphis, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss. Traveling south, if you get to Possumneck, you’ve gone a tad too far.

“Big Mama always baked a gorgeous centerpiece cake – no matter the occasion,” Adams said. She used Winona tree-picked fruit, eggs from Winona farm-raised chickens and fresh-churned butter, thanks to Big Mama’s Winona-based cow, Betsy.”

“Watching Big Mama make these recipes – and learning how to make them myself – taught me so many lessons about baking and life,” Adams said.

 

“I learned forgiveness, because things don’t always turn out perfectly. I picked up patience, which is especially necessary when baking cakes. I also learned a lot from Big Mama’s baking intuition. Her instincts were always spot on. She never required a timer; just a whiff of a cake’s fragrance in the air was enough for her to know it was ready.”

Adams, who lives in Chicago, now uses “Grandbaby Cakes” as her brand for kitchen creations and has written a cookbook with that title.

“I didn’t realize I had the ‘baking gene,’ as my family calls it, until my 20s.” Now in her early 40s, she says: “I can’t stop baking! In my kitchen, I sing, I dance and I eat my way through so that each moment of the day is truly a moment for myself.”

“This Southern ‘Sock It To Me Cake’ recipe pairs a moist and buttery cake texture with a cinnamon-brown sugar-pecan swirl that is to die for! The vanilla glaze brings it all together perfectly. If you love buttery flavorful cakes, you will love this one even more. Simple, decadent and downright irresistible!”

“This retro cake was very popular in the 1970s, especially in the South, because of its funky name,” Adams said.

Indeed, “Sock it to me” was popularized first within the music industry, as background vocalist repeated the phrased hurriedly during Aretha Franklin’s 1967 recording of the Otis Redding song “Respect.”

 

“In 1968, after hearing Franklin’s ‘Respect’ on the car radio, television producer George Schlatter was convinced by his wife to use ‘sock it to me’ in his new, hip comedy show ‘Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.’” wrote Tom Maxwell of New Bern, N.C., a contributor to the Daily Meal.

“The phrase was made famous by its star Judy Carne, who would utter it before enduring some visual calamity, like being dunked in water or falling through a trapdoor,” Maxwell said.

 

About the same time, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels sang a whole rowdy song about “Sock It to Me-Baby,” one that created quite a stir, causing the tune to be banned by a number of radio stations.

 

Back to her cake, Adams said, “Housewives everywhere loved this cake because it was a simple recipe, convenient and delicious. It’s sweet, nutty, light and full of spice. Absolutely perfect.”

“Start with a golden, buttery yellow cake mix. You will also need sour cream, vegetable oil, white sugar, eggs, a little water, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Use milk and confectioners’ sugar for the glaze.”

Sock it to the calories and fat and boost the protein by using yogurt in place of sour cream.

President Nixon endured a career of ups and downs

President Richard Nixon was often described as being “awkward” and uncomfortable in the limelight outside the Oval Office of the White House. Katelyn Fossett of POLITICO Magazine commented that Nixon’s staff “struggled tirelessly to humanize him for public consumption.”

When Nixon appeared on the television comedy show “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” during the 1968 presidential campaign to deliver the classic “Sock it to me,” catchphrase, producers were kind to him.

 

The line had been popularized by cast member Judy Carne (shown below). “As a running gag on the show, Carne gamely bore the brunt of such pranks as having buckets of water thrown at her or being dropped through a trap door,” which were set in motion whenever she said: ‘Sock it to me,’” wrote Ben Zimmer of The Wall Street Journal.

 

“Nixon wasn’t doused by water, dropped through a trap door, bombarded with marshmallows or subjected to any additional indignities – much as some in the audience might have enjoyed it,” Zimmer said.

After Nixon moved into the White House in 1969, he was occasionally called on the telephone by “Laugh-In” character Ernestine Tomlin, the nosy switchboard operator (played by Lily Tomlin). She familiarly referred to him as Milhous, which was Nixon’s middle name.

One monologue inquired about Milhous’ astronomical telephone bill, with 175 extensions at his residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C., and the number of long-distance calls being made to foreign capitals.

Ernestine dryly asked: “Don’t you have any friends in this country?”

 

Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew became a liability. 

He was the butt of many jokes. Nixon weathered a lot of political storms as well. Yet, he was easily re-elected in 1972, defeating Democrat George McGovern (shown below) of Avon, S.D., in one of the largest landslide victories in American history.

 

Gerald Ford was selected as Nixon’s second vice president

Nixon’s demise was his connection to the Watergate scandal. He resigned from office on Aug. 9, 1974, the first president in American history to voluntarily vacate the presidency.

 

Through it all, Nixon remained loyal to Duke University in Durham, N.C., where he had earned his law degree in 1937. It was not a reciprocal relationship. 

In 1954, when Nixon was vice president to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the left-wing leaning faculty rescinded an offer for Nixon to be the commencement speaker, refusing to award him an honorary doctorate degree.

Nixon was rebuked once again in 1981, when Duke’s faculty group vehemently opposed an effort, which was championed by Duke president Terry Sanford (shown below), to establish a Nixon memorial library on the Duke campus.

 

The wisdom of that decision still haunts the Durham community. The economic benefits that presidential libraries bring to their host communities is enormous.

After Nixon died in 1994, at age 81, the university did offer a tepid memorial tribute to the former president. It was authored by Pamela B. Gann, dean of the law school, and published in the Duke Law Journal. She wrote, in part:

“President Nixon had a distinguished and innovative record in international affairs during his presidency. His 1972 visit to China was probably his greatest foreign policy triumph, creating the opportunity for the United States later to establish formal diplomatic relations with China for the first time since the Communists controlled China.”

Pamela Gann later served as president of Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.

“President Nixon will be considered by many to be the most interesting president in this century in the conduct of foreign affairs, both as president and as a subsequent senior statesman,” Gann wrote.

In 2013, Mousa Alshanteer, a Duke freshman from Trinity, N.C., wrote an essay suggesting that Duke University should exercise some forgiveness and not downplay his status as an alumnus.

Antique farm machinery takes center stage in Denton, N.C.

For a good time in early July, hitch your wagon to one of the old-timey tractors that will gather at the Denton FarmPark in rural southeastern Davidson County, N.C., for the annual Southeast Old Threshers Reunion.

A huge tractor parade on July 1 is followed by a five-day festival with nonstop action from morning to night. More than 1,000 tractors will gather daily on Tractors Row. Here, farm families will renew old friendships and kindle new relationships with first-timers who want to experience life down on the farm.

It’s a really big deal, as the Denton event attracts nearly 60,000 people who come from all sections of the country.

The idea for the Denton FarmPark was hatched in 1970 by farmer Brown Loflin. It started as a fundraiser for a local rescue squad. Loflin had a number of hobbies, and one was flying airplanes.

He and Howard Latham were co-owners of an airplane. They decided to get a few other pilots to join them and offer airplane rides at the grass-field Denton airport on July 4, 1970. Included in the ticket price was a meal of chicken pie and green beans. People loved it.

As the lines grew longer each year, Loflin added a demonstration of wheat threshing “to ease the impatience of people waiting for the plane ride.” He began hearing from collectors of antique farm machinery who wanted a place to put their collections on display.

The focus of Loflin’s annual event shifted away from airplane rides in 1980 to concentrate on threshers, tractors and other equipment used in the agricultural world.

 

A thresher is a piece of farm equipment that separates grain seed from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Mechanization of this process removed a substantial amount of drudgery from farm labor. The first threshing machine was invented circa 1786 by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle.

He and his wife, Ruby Loflin, converted the airport property into the Denton FarmPark, and the Southeast Old Threshers Reunion was christened. The Loflins started adding new “attractions” that were consistent with the Americana theme – an old farmhouse, machine shop, craft barn, general store, an old country church, post office, service station, blacksmith shop, radio museum, doll museum and grist mill.

Today, multi-purpose exhibition buildings, a music pavilion, food and beverage service stations and restroom facilities make the property a true “event center.”

In 1982, the Handy Dandy Railroad began operation, making a 1.5-mile loop around the 170-acre park. Cowboys ride the train to assure that a group of bandits roaming through the woods doesn’t rob the train. 

 

Additionally, demonstrations occur all around the park to show people how things work. Musical performances are offered daily. This year’s lineup of artists: Nu-Blu; Caroline Owens (shown below); Jack and David Reid; Mountain Highway; Jason Crabb; Karen Peck & New River; Just a Lil Grace; Almost Country Revival Band; and Rick Alviti – the Ultimate Elvis Tribute.

 

Hundreds of vendors will have booths. Camping is available on site. Children’s activities include a petting zoo and pony rides. Fireworks are scheduled for July 6th at 9 p.m.

 

Brown Loflin died in 2019, but his wife, Ruby Loflin continues to carry on the family business, assisted by her children, Karen Loflin Miller and Keith Loflin. The Denton festival has grown into the nation’s fifth largest event of its kind.

Visitors are encouraged to also spend some time at nearby High Rock Lake, which is Davidson County’s prime recreational destination. The reservoir along the Yadkin River is one of North Carolina’s largest lakes.

The Loflin family invites people to return to the Denton FarmPark for the Christmas season and climb aboard the “Country Christmas Train” to view the extensive holiday lights display.

Magically, during the yuletide season, Tractor Row is transformed into Candy Cane Lane.