A letter from a 93-year-old woman in Bartahatchie leads to living room in Brooksville. There on Thursday afternoon I heard stories about long-ago teenagers dancing barefoot in a local dance hall and learned some of the finer points of making Jerusalem artichoke relish.
Several readers responded to last week’s column about my unsuccessful efforts to locate Mrs. Leonard “Jerri” Ross, who lives on a road in Monroe County with a Caledonia zip code and is not listed in any phone book.
One of those readers, Thomas Jefferson “TJ” Wilkins of Brooksville, phoned and said Mrs. Leonard’s daughter, Kathy Brackett, is the pastor of his church, Brooksville United Methodist.
Turns out, Wilkins, too, has received a letter from the prolific Mrs. Ross. Wilkins sent home a jar of Jerusalem artichoke relish with his pastor, and thus the letter.
Wilkins, now retired, owned a general mercantile store in Brooksville for 25 years and raised cattle. We had a wide-ranging phone conversation, at the end of which, I asked how I could get a jar of that relish.
“Come down here and I’ll give you one,” he said.
TJ and Dorothy Wilkins, both 90, have been married 60 years and live in a brick ranch-style house on Oliver Street with a Himalayan-mix cat named Sammy. Wilkins’ nephew and his wife, Bill and Bonnie Wilkins, live next door. They were on hand for my visit on Thursday afternoon. Bill is TJ’s collaborator in the relish making.
TJ grew up on a 160-acre farm west of Brooksville adjacent to Land of Lakes, one of six children. The place was called Sunnyside, and most of the food they ate, they produced.
“Mom was a good provider,” TJ said.
Once a year Willie Hopkins Wilkins made Jerusalem artichoke relish. The Jerusalem artichoke, a species of sunflower, is a tuber that resembles ginger root or an Irish potato. Native to North America and cultivated by Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans, this root vegetable is a prolific spreader.
Two raised beds provide a perennial supply of tubers for Bill and TJ’s once-a-year production. Bill loved the relish since he was a child, and Grandma Willie made sure he got a jar from each batch. The relish is sort of a mustard-based chowchow, though with a more crunchy texture and a slight nutty flavor.
“It will make the sorriest hot dog delicious,” Bill said. “I have a friend who will use the whole jar on four hot dogs.”
With Grandma Willie’s death in 1968, relish production ceased. About three or four years ago Bill brought up the idea of taking up where his grandma left off.
“I told Unk I want to learn how to make this,” Bill said. “I was scared it was gone after Unk was gone.”
The first challenge was finding a peck of Jerusalem artichokes. A Macon tomato farmer procured 30 pounds of them at a Jackson farmers’ market. The first three attempts to make the relish were busts, TJ said. Then they got it right.
They use Grandma Willie’s recipe, a two-day ordeal that requires a lot of chopping: eight quarts of Jerusalem artichokes, eight large white onions, 12 large bell peppers and a small bowl of red peppers. The scraped and cut artichokes have to soak overnight in brine. They usually make it — TJ calls it “artichoke pickle” — in the late fall after the plants have died back.
“We give it away,” said TJ “I got a lot of nieces and nephews.”
After Bill and Bonnie left, TJ, Dorothy and I talked on a bit longer. Both have broken bones in recent years and are on walkers, yet their spirits remain undiminished — they make it to the American Legion Hut in Columbus two nights a week for bingo.
“I’m living on borrowed time,” said TJ, “but we’re enjoying it.” Then, looking over at his wife of 60 years: “my high-school sweetheart.”
Dorothy smiled, all the while petting Sammy, nestled in her lap.
Birney Imes is the publisher of The Dispatch. Email him at [email protected].
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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