Jimmie crack corn…
Eric,
Early on I understood this minstrel’s message; the protagonist was preparing a mash to make moonshine! Grain cracking for grist is a necessary step to convert starch to fermentable sugars by enzymatic conversion. On occasion farm hands enlisted me into collecting wild black cherries (
Prunus serotina) to enhance their chicken-feed based concoction. We called the cherry by its Ukrainian folk vernacular, “katchi-zrubee,” meaning dirty (stained)-teeth. Shell-corn was easily poached from my father’s old mill, Richland Grain Co.
During 1978, President Carter amended the 18th amendment (1919) to the US Constitution making it legal to again homebrew beer. Until this exception, beer kits had a bizarre set of instructions that went something like this: “do not boil the wart for one hour, do not add 2-ozs. Kent Golding hops … or else the resultant product would become Federally-prohibited beer.” I was a freshman at Cook College when laws changed, and promptly petitioned the Dean for permission, as “head of household,” to brew beer in my dorm-room. Drinking age was still 18, and officials (who could hardly keep a straight face) permitted for the first time student practice of zymurgy arts at Rutgers.
There is a long-standing tradition of Pinelands homebrewing. From its inception in 1908, throughout Prohibition, and even to this day, Richland General Store has always been South Jersey’s brew- and winemaking supply center. Gary, the current proprietor, could provide some insight into local concoctions. Archie, former owner, is also has a wealth of local knowledge on the art of beer making. Here are some thoughts on beer adjunctive:
1) Fruits and berries were traditionally added to flavor wheat beers. ‘Black Diamond’ Blackberries, developed from native dewberries (
Rubus sect.
Eubatus), are an heirloom cultivar well worth seeking out. Margaret Mead’s (1972) autobiography,
Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years, memorialized these blackberries that were cultivated at the family’s “Six-Acre Farm.” Wild black cherries are full of character, and were widely employed around these parts for flavoring wines and spirits.
2) Raw licorice was often added to local brew, which added spiciness and made for better head (suds) development, especially when malt was extended with other grains like corn or rice. Milmay was the site of a large licorice (several
Glycyrrhiza spp.) plantation. Waldeck Farms (for owners Walker and Decker, c.1915-1925) was a World War I boondoggle established to provide McAndrews & Forbes (Camden) with raw material for flavoring cigarettes, snuff, and confections when licorice shipment from Europe came to a halt. I’m also under the impression that early fire extinguishers used licorice as a sudsing agent, hence its use towards beer-head enhancement.
3) Sassafras has long been as a flavoring in the Pine Barrens. We enhanced root beer extract with Sassafras (
Sassafras albidum) roots when making our batch, as did Cumberland County’s Charles Hires. Whether he developed his brown gold in Millville or Vineland is open to debate (
http://www.co.cumberland.nj.us/content/163/241/597.aspx). Yeast-rich raisins were used to start fermentation for carbonation. It wasn’t unusual to hear a bottle-pop or two from the pantry if the carbonation process became too robust. Be warned, you now must use store-bought Sassafras extract that is safrole-free, a constituent that is believed but not known to cause liver cancer.
4) Other flavorings to consider: eastern red-cedar (
Juniperus virginiana) berries (
esp. German recipes); yarrow (
Achillea ssp.); wormwood (
Artemisia absinthium), Russian.
Cheers,
Spung-Man
Figure 1 (
A) Photograph of ‘Black Diamonds,’ an heirloom cultivar originated by George Liepe, (c.1908: The Black Diamond Blackberry, promotional brochure for Geo. H. Liepe, Cologne, NJ. 4 pp.). (
B) Post card of Margaret Mead’s childhood home (now gone), used as a base by her mother to studt local Italian farmers during planting and harvesting seasons in an effort to debunk the eugenics movement (
see Meade, E.F., 1907: The Italian on the Land: A Study in Immigration.
Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor.
70.[reprinted in 1992, Hammonton Historical Society. pp. 1-78]). Her house was on the east side of Fairview Avenue between Third Road and Packard Street, Hammonton, NJ.
