Muscadines

Growing up in northwest Louisiana, I have memories of the vacant lot next to my family’s house.  The remains of an old fence bordered our yard and the adjacent lot, and a thick muscadine vine, covered much of the fence.  I don’t recall the time of year the vine bore fruit, but I remember vividly my brother and I picking the thick-skinned berries for my mother, eating one for every five that we collected.

 

We didn’t worry about washing pesticides off the muscadines before we ate them because there were no pesticides at the time – at least none that we knew of.  As I recall, the purple skin was too sour to eat so you simply popped it open and ate the pulp inside, less the seeds of course.

 

A blackberry bush grew adjacent to the muscadine vine and we collected and sampled them when they were ripe.  My mother made jam and jelly with all the various berries my brother and I gathered - jam and jelly devoid of preservatives.  The vines and bushes provided a bit of shelter from hot Louisiana sun – shelter for critters such as grass snakes, stink bugs and stinging scorpions.  My brother and I collected them as well.

 

Today, there is a new fence between my parent’s house, and the newer house that occupies the once-vacant lot next door.  Gone are the muscadines and blackberries, replaced now by mown grass, brick and concrete - at least for the outward world to see.  The muscadines still grow on that vine, their thick purple skin still as sour as their insides sweet.  There they will remain till the last remnant of my vivid childhood memories waft away like wispy Louisiana clouds racing from the sun.

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