THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 9, 1995 TAG: 9503080194
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: JOHN PRUITT
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
It's always been fascinating to me how the smallest things can trigger memories of long ago.
Once upon a time, ``long ago'' just didn't mean that much to me, and I have to admit to grimacing or rolling my eyes - at heart if not in action - whenever a family member or acquaintance went on one-too-many strolls down memory lane.
Now, though, we once-intolerant youngsters have ``become'' our parents, and we're no less prone to begin a conversation with ``Remember when. . . ?'' than they were.
The difference now is that I treasure the times my family, especially my mother, gets into a topic with that familiar, questioning introduction.
All this stems from a visit last week to Holland Produce, my favorite Suffolk store. A visit there is a step into the past, with its homemade sweet potato or apple turnovers, potato salad, collard greens and Smithfield ham sliced so thin that light almost passes through it.
Just writing about it puts the taste buds in motion. It's little wonder that my mid-afternoon repast put me to thinking about the sweet potatoes and collard greens of my growing-up years on Tangier Island.
My father must have loved sweet potatoes as well as anyone who ever lived - particularly Haymans - the green-flesh variety my aunt and uncle would bring over from the Eastern Shore in the fall, after farmers had ``given up'' their fields and opened them to gleaning.
They'd bring several bushels, which they'd distribute among various relatives, and my mother would spread them out on cardboard under the beds of our unheated bedrooms or, wrapped to protect from freezing, in an outbuilding. That way, we'd have them just about all winter long.
My father particularly liked them still warm from baking. Holding the potato in his left hand, he put a bit of butter on the potato with his right, then bite off a piece, skin and all. He'd do that until he was holding the potato by the smallest, inedible end, then it was on to another.
At our house, sweet potatoes went with everything, including stewed beef and Irish potatoes. But the Haymans were the last - and, he practically always announced - best part of the meal.
My grandmother baked them in a black, tin oven that sat on two burners of her oil cook stove, then she'd put some of the potatoes in a plate on top of her Tin Lizzie, the wood stove that heated the kitchen. When we children came in out of the cold, she'd have us hold a potato to warm our hands, then peel it and eat it - We weren't about to eat the skins! - to warm our stomachs. She was nothing if not practical.
My uncle delighted in telling how he had given newcomers to his Harborton neighborhood some Haymans as a welcoming gift. When he next saw them, he said, he asked how they'd liked the potatoes.
Well, they said, they really appreciated the thought, but the sweet potatoes were spoiled. They'd turned green inside, and the family had disposed of them.
Later, when our family moved to Suffolk, I heard a variation of the story. In that instance, the gift had been a Smithfield ham that a New York family had tossed out because it was moldy. Still, my uncle stood by his story.
And, he'd add, he could guarantee that if my father had been anywhere nearby, nary a Hayman would have gone to waste. ``Dumb Northerners!'' he'd declare.
Although my father died several years ago, and my uncle died this year, Haymans continue to be standard fare for my mother, aunt and their families. The Haymans are almost as good as the sweet memories they evoke. Almost. by CNB