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Wild Food and Backyard Feasts - The Magic of a Small Town · Family Tree Food Stories

• 0:00
  Sylvia Lovely: Hi there, Freda Merriweather.
• 0:01
  Freda Marriweather: Well, good morning, Ms.
• 0:02
  Sylvie.
• 0:02
  Sylvia Lovely: It's been such a long time.
• 0:04
  Freda Marriweather: Such a long time.
• 0:05
  Such a long time.
• 0:06
  Like a week, but yeah.
• 0:07
  Sylvia Lovely: I know.
• 0:08
  Well, before that, we spent nearly every day together.
• 0:10
  Freda Marriweather: Every day.
• 0:10
  For 10 years.
• 0:11
  Every day.
• 0:11
  I love it.
• 0:12
  Yeah.
• 0:13
  Sylvia Lovely: W'e're here today, Freda, as you know, with, Family Tree Food
• 0:16
  and Stories podcast, that I do with Nancy May, who is an amazing person.
• 0:22
  And I knew a lot about your mother, outside of Maysville, Kentucky, and you
• 0:28
  did a little video with her one day, and I knew a lot of things about her.
• 0:33
  But that video was just priceless, and you did it on your phone.
• 0:37
  You said the television was blaring.
• 0:38
  It was blaring as usual.
• 0:40
  Freda Marriweather: As usual, every time I go there, it's always blaring.
• 0:43
  I can hear it out the door.
• 0:44
  Sylvia Lovely: And she wasn't about to turn it down.
• 0:46
  No, she said she can't, yeah.
• 0:47
  We're not going to mess with her.
• 0:48
  Freda Marriweather: Right.
• 0:48
  No, not at all.
• 0:49
  I think she must have something going on with her hearing, but it's okay.
• 0:52
  It's okay.
• 0:52
  I live with it now because, I mean, I'm used to it.
• 0:55
  Sylvia Lovely: How old is she?
• 0:56
  Freda Marriweather: My mom just turned 90 in December.
• 0:58
  So she'll be 91 this coming December.
• 1:00
  Uh, we had a surprise birthday party for her, 90th birthday, and
• 1:04
  it really was a surprise and she was upset that she didn't know about it.
• 1:08
  So, no one told her.
• 1:11
  No one told her.
• 1:12
  Sylvia Lovely: Well, now, tell us your mother's name.
• 1:14
  Freda Marriweather: My mom's name is Gloria.
• 1:15
  Polly Medea Rice.
• 1:18
  Sylvia Lovely: Well, that's a, that's a regal name.
• 1:20
  Freda Marriweather: It is.
• 1:20
  she says she's Medea.
• 1:21
  I told her don't tell everybody that.
• 1:25
  Sylvia Lovely: I love that.
• 1:26
  Now, your mother, again, I've heard so many things about her.
• 1:30
  She's like the official adoptee of the town.
• 1:34
  Yes.
• 1:34
  You told me that.
• 1:35
  Now, I know you're, uh, you're one of the, does she have one,
• 1:38
  two, I know she had a son.
• 1:39
  Freda Marriweather: Yes, it was me and my brother, and my brother, passed away
• 1:42
  in a car accident in 1984, so, but yes, it was just the two of us, and my mom.
• 1:47
  And of course, my mom and dad were divorced and estranged, so
• 1:50
  my mom raised me and my brother.
• 1:52
  Sylvia Lovely: Where?
• 1:53
  Freda Marriweather: In Lewisburg, outside of Maysville.
• 1:55
  she's still in the same house that I was raised in and born, I wasn't born in
• 1:59
  the house, but yeah, it's the only house I've ever known is where she is now.
• 2:03
  And she says she will not leave it.
• 2:05
  No matter what, she had to be carried out, and I told her, okay.
• 2:09
  Sylvia Lovely: It's in a bit of a state of disrepair.
• 2:12
  Freda Marriweather: Just a little bit.
• 2:12
  Yeah.
• 2:13
  Yeah, it's an older home.
• 2:14
  I mean, I'm, without telling my age, I'm like up there in the
• 2:18
  60s, so you can imagine the house was there before I was born.
• 2:21
  So, she says it's historic, but I'm not sure, but she says it is.
• 2:25
  She said some slave person used to live there years ago, so
• 2:28
  that to her makes it historic.
• 2:31
  But we haven't got a historic distinction on that.
• 2:33
  Sylvia Lovely: Well, I know as an aside, you're doing some work
• 2:35
  on an old black cemetery that's in back of the house, right?
• 2:38
  Freda Marriweather: Yes, there's an old cemetery that's
• 2:40
  in the back of my mom's house.
• 2:42
  Trying to figure out who owns it and really would love to see it
• 2:45
  maintained somehow, but you have to cross a little creek to get there.
• 2:49
  And back in the day, that's what they did when people died.
• 2:52
  They carried them up there across the creek and buried them there.
• 2:56
  So a lot of old graves.
• 2:57
  And right back when I was young, my brother, uh, He used to take
• 3:00
  me in the neighborhood free and we would go up in the cemetery, but
• 3:03
  he would leave us and we would cry.
• 3:05
  We were scared to death because a lot of the grays were sinking in.
• 3:07
  So we didn't know if we were going to leave the cemetery or not.
• 3:11
  So I am working.
• 3:12
  I like to try to figure something out on that and, and really try to figure out if
• 3:16
  maybe there's someone who, served in the military, perhaps that might be buried
• 3:20
  there and maybe can get some, Government Help, Because She Fits So Better, and,
• 3:24
  that's buried there, but, uh, yeah.
• 3:26
  Sylvia Lovely: Well, that's great.
• 3:27
  Now, you know, Family Tree Food and Stories is all about family
• 3:29
  stories, particularly as they surround food, but there's almost
• 3:33
  no way to separate all that out.
• 3:35
  But what we're going to do today is, I want to give another brief introduction
• 3:39
  to a word that is used often to describe your mother, character.
• 3:43
  She's a character.
• 3:45
  Yeah.
• 3:45
  And what would you say that means she is?
• 3:48
  Freda Marriweather: She's funny.
• 3:49
  Sylvia Lovely: She's sassy.
• 3:51
  Freda Marriweather: She's sassy.
• 3:52
  You never know what's going to come out of her mouth and my husband says I'm
• 3:55
  like my mom, but anyway He said this is what we're gonna have to deal with
• 4:00
  when you get older I'm like, I doubt it.
• 4:02
  But yeah, but she she shoots straight from the hip I think over the years
• 4:06
  she's probably gotten more like that Of course when we were younger, it
• 4:11
  was just my mom Uh, that raised me and my brother and, back then we didn't
• 4:16
  have a car, so we had to hitchhike to Maysville, we call it going to town.
• 4:20
  We had to go to town.
• 4:21
  So we were sending our laundry baskets down by someone who we'd done a ride
• 4:25
  with up on the road and then my mom, my brother and I, we would go down later.
• 4:30
  To the laundromat to wash her clothes once a week.
• 4:32
  So, but we had to hitchhike everywhere.
• 4:35
  And, uh, she, she's a strong woman.
• 4:36
  She really is strong.
• 4:38
  Sylvia Lovely: Now, the town takes care of her, right?
• 4:40
  Brings her food.
• 4:41
  Yeah, there's you said the banker actually does her.
• 4:43
  Freda Marriweather: Yeah, there's a banker friend of ours.
• 4:45
  And she helps her, with paying her bills.
• 4:47
  And you would think mom has a whole bunch of money, but she really don't.
• 4:50
  But it's really sweet of them to do it.
• 4:52
  And, she's got a lot of people that bring her food and takes care of her.
• 4:55
  I mean, she's 90.
• 4:57
  So I'd rather not she do too much cooking.
• 4:58
  So I'm grateful and appreciative of those people who rally around her.
• 5:02
  And it is like a small community.
• 5:04
  I'm not quite sure she would get that kind of service in Lexington,
• 5:08
  I remember a time when, the mayor of Maysville, when we worked together
• 5:12
  at KLC, was, on the board, but she would get her license plate.
• 5:17
  And she would take it down to the mayor's office and have the mayor
• 5:20
  to put her license plates on.
• 5:22
  Now, do you think our mayor here would put a license plate on anybody's car?
• 5:25
  I doubt that.
• 5:26
  But that's the small community.
• 5:28
  People just take care of each other.
• 5:30
  And her highlight was she could get around.
• 5:32
  Well, she'd just go everywhere.
• 5:34
  Everybody knows her.
• 5:35
  they bring her Diet Coke.
• 5:37
  I mean, she just, you know.
• 5:38
  She gets everything.
• 5:39
  I mean, she's like, she's spoiled rotten.
• 5:41
  That's her problem.
• 5:44
  Sylvia Lovely: Okay, now, so we've sort of established that this is a true character.
• 5:48
  Now, you only had to watch that video to have that confirmed.
• 5:52
  one of my favorite parts is when she's leaning over to get a cigarette
• 5:54
  as she's telling you that she's not about to tell you her recipes.
• 5:58
  Freda Marriweather: Exactly.
• 5:58
  Sylvia Lovely: But then you kind of reminded her that.
• 6:00
  She would not be able to take them with her, right?
• 6:03
  Freda Marriweather: Exactly.
• 6:03
  Oh, that's a secret.
• 6:04
  I think she gave me recipes for her macaroni and cheese
• 6:07
  and her scallop cabbage.
• 6:09
  And she said, I can't give you the recipe.
• 6:10
  But I'm like, Mom, when you pass away, the recipe is gone.
• 6:13
  So there will be no secret.
• 6:15
  I mean, I won't know.
• 6:16
  I can't tell my kids If they wanted to know..
• 6:18
  I mean, it just kind of goes with you.
• 6:20
  So, we want to share that so it can continue on, in life.
• 6:24
  So, she kind of went through it.
• 6:26
  And yeah,
• 6:26
  Sylvia Lovely: Well, can you tell me generally one of those recipes?
• 6:29
  Because we could barely pick up on this specific because she was kind
• 6:32
  of like, you know, this is what we did and we didn't write it down and.
• 6:37
  Yeah, all that.
• 6:38
  So what's your memory?
• 6:40
  Freda Marriweather: It was like a spur of the moment kind of a video play I did
• 6:43
  with her, just trying to record history.
• 6:45
  You know, she's 90.
• 6:46
  But she talked about her cat, Scallop Cabbage, and one of the things she
• 6:51
  said, you know, you gotta decide how much, how many people you're feeding.
• 6:54
  Is it going to be a small head or medium head, if it's just a few people,
• 6:57
  a small head, but it need be hard.
• 6:59
  The cabbage need to be solid.
• 7:01
  So I'm like, okay.
• 7:03
  She talked about she boils her cabbage, puts a lot of water, salt
• 7:07
  in it, pepper, boil it, get it half done, cut it up, put it in the dish.
• 7:12
  Oh, so she boils the whole head.
• 7:14
  Boils the whole head.
• 7:15
  She cuts it up, puts it in the dish.
• 7:17
  Put some, save some of the liquid that's on it and pours that on there.
• 7:21
  Um, she said you use butter, stick of butter, not margarine.
• 7:24
  You gotta use stick of butter.
• 7:25
  And a stick.
• 7:26
  You gotta have a stick of butter.
• 7:27
  And she uses the, the cream, the cane cream.
• 7:30
  She won't use the milk we get 2%.
• 7:32
  I mean, she's gotta be, yeah, gotta be cane cream.
• 7:35
  With some milk, salt, pepper.
• 7:38
  She pours all that over there.
• 7:39
  Crackers.
• 7:40
  If you use saltine, you don't need really add a lot of salt because the
• 7:43
  saltine has salt, the crackers had salt in it and pepper, and then you kind of
• 7:48
  put some, like get a stick of butter over top of it and put it in the oven.
• 7:52
  And uh, she said, well delicious.
• 7:54
  Just delicious.
• 7:55
  That's just the way she tells her stories.
• 7:57
  So, but she says the thing is about recipe.
• 7:59
  I can't tell you exactly how much.
• 8:02
  She said, you gotta use your brain.
• 8:03
  She called it a brain quiz.
• 8:04
  That's rights.
• 8:04
  Yeah.
• 8:05
  She said it's a brain quiz, you gotta use your brain.
• 8:07
  She said, I could never ever cook with any kind of recipe because you just got to use
• 8:11
  your brain on deciding how much goes in.
• 8:14
  In where?
• 8:15
  Sylvia Lovely: Is he a taster?
• 8:16
  Did he taste what she made?
• 8:18
  Freda Marriweather: I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure.
• 8:19
  Sylvia Lovely: And how did it taste?
• 8:21
  Freda Marriweather: Good.
• 8:21
  I absolutely love her scallop cabbage.
• 8:23
  It's almost like same way you do scallop oysters, I guess, but it
• 8:27
  would just be creamy because she's going to add that cane cream in
• 8:30
  there, her butter, not margarine.
• 8:31
  Sylvia Lovely: A stick.
• 8:33
  Freda Marriweather: A stick, exactly.
• 8:35
  Yes, yes, but always so good.
• 8:37
  Of course, as she's gotten older, it's hard for her to cook now, but I just
• 8:40
  remember How much I love her scholarship.
• 8:43
  Sylvia Lovely: How often would she cook then?
• 8:44
  Freda Marriweather: Probably quite often.
• 8:46
  Quite often as I was growing up.
• 8:47
  I mean, of course, back in the day, Sylvia, in the country,
• 8:51
  we had everything on the table that could run out in the yard.
• 8:55
  That's what we ate.
• 8:56
  I mean, anything that was out in the yard, even now, will be out.
• 8:59
  She says, Oh, cut that, because I can put that in some grains.
• 9:02
  I'm like, what?
• 9:04
  I don't know.
• 9:05
  That's like weeds to me.
• 9:06
  I don't know about putting weeds in my grains.
• 9:08
  I mean, I don't know what that is.
• 9:09
  But she said, No, no, you put that in there.
• 9:11
  So everything she sees outdoors that could be cookable back in the
• 9:15
  day, that's kind of what they did.
• 9:16
  You know, uh, we had, we didn't have, we had fresh chickens, you
• 9:20
  know, chickens to be out in the yard.
• 9:22
  Go get you one, go get you one.
• 9:23
  And they cut the heads off and they pour things to be running around the yard.
• 9:26
  And I just be, I was a kid, I'm looking like where is this chicken
• 9:29
  going to land, it's running around.
• 9:32
  I mean, even now people will bring her, rabbits.
• 9:35
  I'm like, I'm talking about they've skinned it.
• 9:37
  The rabbit in the freezer shaped like the rabbit is like very disgusting
• 9:41
  to me at this point in life.
• 9:43
  And, but that's just, they bring her, they'll still bring her the
• 9:46
  wild animals that people I love that,
• 9:52
  Sylvia Lovely: And the weeds and all of that, if we only knew,
• 9:55
  I mean, we don't know that now.
• 9:56
  Freda Marriweather: Right, right.
• 9:57
  And as a young kid, I do remember going with my mom and my grandma,
• 10:00
  uh, my grandmother, we'd go out in the fields and cut greens.
• 10:03
  Well, I always said, show me one.
• 10:05
  And then I'll try to find it in the grass because I didn't know
• 10:08
  what they look like, but they did.
• 10:10
  That's just how they did it.
• 10:11
  They, it was just the old way.
• 10:13
  Not everything is so convenient for us now, but back in the
• 10:16
  day, that's how they lived.
• 10:17
  Was getting their foods.
• 10:19
  Sylvia Lovely: Do you now cook some of the same recipes?
• 10:22
  I'm assuming you, you don't go out and pick weeds.
• 10:24
  Freda Marriweather: No, I don't do any of that.
• 10:25
  No, I do cook greens.
• 10:26
  I get them from the grocery store.
• 10:28
  So I do cook fresh greens and always.
• 10:30
  In my mind, acclimated in my mind is you always gotta have a
• 10:33
  piece of old meat of some kind.
• 10:36
  Yeah.
• 10:36
  In your greens.
• 10:37
  Yeah.
• 10:37
  You know, so I would go to maybe get some country ham hawk
• 10:40
  and, and put it in my greens.
• 10:42
  So I try to do a little like her, but I don't cook rabbit.
• 10:45
  I don't fry squirrel.
• 10:46
  I don't do any of that.
• 10:48
  I, yeah.
• 10:48
  Now I love chitlins.
• 10:49
  I do eat that however.
• 10:51
  I don't clean 'em.
• 10:51
  My husband does.
• 10:53
  My grandfather, he would make souse uh, from the hog head, so, Souse,
• 10:58
  Souse, and I think you can still get it in store, but it's probably not the
• 11:01
  same way my grandfather would make it.
• 11:03
  They just kind of grind up the hog head and I'm not sure where
• 11:06
  all else, but my grandfather will always vinegar, salt and pepper.
• 11:10
  And it's kind of cut like in a square, but it's called Souse.
• 11:13
  Yeah.
• 11:14
  The way I was raised was on food from the farm.
• 11:19
  From nature.
• 11:20
  but it's just grown differently.
• 11:21
  Sylvia Lovely: And whatever didn't make it across the road.
• 11:23
  Freda Marriweather: Exactly.
• 11:23
  Turtle.
• 11:24
  You name it.
• 11:25
  Like, Oh my God, frog legs.
• 11:26
  I mean, you name it.
• 11:27
  That's just the way I was raised.
• 11:29
  And my mom said, you should.
• 11:30
  So I forgot where you come from, especially when she
• 11:32
  starts talking about all that.
• 11:34
  And I'm going, Oh God, no, I can't eat that.
• 11:36
  And it's like, you were raised on this kind of food.
• 11:39
  Yeah.
• 11:40
  You know, but she's definitely, definitely a card and, and being 90, I'm trying to
• 11:44
  get as much history from her as I can.
• 11:46
  Oh, please do.
• 11:46
  'cause family is so important to me at the age I am now, is knowing my history
• 11:51
  and knowing my family where I come from.
• 11:53
  Sylvia Lovely: That's so good.
• 11:54
  And that's so Family tree, food and stories.
• 11:57
  And I know you go every Thursday.
• 11:59
  And, My favorite recent story, though, was that you said she thinks she owns
• 12:04
  the seat that she sits in at church.
• 12:06
  Freda Marriweather: Oh yeah, we had that conversation.
• 12:08
  Yeah, she's like, no, that's my, I'm like, Mom, you literally
• 12:11
  don't own the seat at the church.
• 12:12
  And she said, uh, you know, someone comes and sits in it, she's going
• 12:15
  to stand there until they move.
• 12:16
  I'm like, seriously, you can't just go and sit somewhere else.
• 12:19
  I said, that's not very welcoming to people trying to come to the
• 12:22
  church, but she's not any different than A lot of people, older people
• 12:26
  who think the seat is theirs, but you get used to a particular spot.
• 12:30
  I think in the church, it's not so much that you feel it's your
• 12:33
  seat, but if you get there first and you sit there every Sunday.
• 12:37
  And she's the oldest member of the church.
• 12:39
  That's the only church that she's known So yeah, but she's definitely
• 12:43
  Sylvia Lovely: A walking page of history.
• 12:45
  Freda Marriweather: Yeah.
• 12:46
  Every once a week I go down to help her and there's always some
• 12:50
  kind of story, but as I've gotten older I kind of just let her.
• 12:53
  Let her be, let her say the things that she want to say, even the
• 12:58
  things she say to other people.
• 12:59
  It's just so funny.
• 13:00
  I just sit there and look.
• 13:01
  I used to get embarrassed, but I'm not embarrassed now.
• 13:03
  She does not embarrass me.
• 13:04
  I love my mom and, um, uh, we go a long way.
• 13:08
  I mean, she helped, she raised me, you know, she taught me to be
• 13:11
  the person that I am today and,
• 13:12
  Sylvia Lovely: Which is phenomenal, I might say.
• 13:15
  I know you well.
• 13:16
  Thank you, Freda, for this wonderful little moment, and thank you on behalf
• 13:22
  of Family Tree Food and Stories, and Nancy and I, this is just wonderful
• 13:27
  for us, and we'll probably be back.
• 13:28
  We want to hear the constant stories, that are streaming away.
• 13:32
  from this phenomenal woman who will not be with us that much
• 13:36
  longer, so let's soak it up.
• 13:37
  Freda Marriweather: Exactly, and I appreciate what you and Nancy are doing.
• 13:40
  I look forward to seeing all the stories and the things that you have posted
• 13:44
  so far now out on the Facebook page.
• 13:45
  It's just so interesting the things that you all have, and everyone has stories.
• 13:50
  Everybody has stories about Recipes and family, and I just encourage people
• 13:54
  to sit and talk to your older members, find out about your history, find out
• 13:59
  about those recipes, uh, just stories of their lives as they grew up, because
• 14:03
  everybody didn't have it easy, so you want to hear about your family,
• 14:07
  Sylvia Lovely: And they had to make do with what was right there
• 14:10
  at hand, and that's what we're exploring, and there's so many of
• 14:14
  those memories that go around food.
• 14:16
  Freda Marriweather: Yes.
• 14:16
  Sylvia Lovely: You know, even when we're talking about the cemetery,
• 14:18
  there are recipes etched on cemetery stones throughout the country.
• 14:21
  Freda Marriweather: Yeah.
• 14:22
  I saw the article and I'm like, wow, I hadn't thought about that.
• 14:24
  Sylvia Lovely: That's what people are known for.
• 14:26
  Freda Marriweather: Why does it have to be your, uh, the information that's normal?
• 14:28
  Why can't it be that person's favorite recipe?
• 14:30
  Sylvia Lovely: Maybe the scalloped cabbage.
• 14:32
  Freda Marriweather: Exactly.
• 14:34
  Sylvia Lovely: Okay.
• 14:35
  Well, very much for your time.
• 14:36
  Thank you for taking time to talk with me and we will definitely be
• 14:39
  back and so here I am signing off for Family Tree Food and Stories.
• 14:43
  Thank you very, very much.
• 14:44
  Freda Marriweather: Thank you.