Southern Hospitality

Watermelon Rind Jam

That Mason Jar may not look pretty to you, but to me it is filled with the proof that I am the grand daughter of Mittie Lou and there isn't a blessed thing you can do about it. You see, my granny came from a cotton farm, she could grow anything and can anything. Gatherer...not so much. Anything that grows in my yard is by accident, even when I try. There's a reason I went with Gatherer, not Grower. After granny passed in 2003 one of my most prized possessions was the last jar of figs she canned. I ate the whole thing (not in one sitting mind you) with warm biscuits and tears running down my face. I love her (not loved, LOVE) her with every cell in my body, and every cell it will ever produce. She was a hard woman, a feisty woman, stubborn, and could be mean when she wanted to be, but there was never a doubt in my mind I was loved and cherished.

My aunts, mother, and I are not terribly good at the whole canning thing. Not that we are particularly bad at the process, Gatherer's mother is quite good at it when the mood strikes her but the mood has to strike and it doesn't often. Not sure if my cousin has the skills but she was quite young when Mittie Lou passed. I've mentioned I'm more of a cook than a baker and to me canning is like baking, it requires the exactness of chemistry and I really don't like chemistry. So when covid hit and I had these weekends where we were no longer running from one activity to the next, navigating improv shows, navigating work travel and weekend events...I found myself thinking about watermelon jam. No one in my family makes it as far as I know, but I've had it at restaurants and little road side stands sell it and I just wanted some. So I googled it and asked to keep the rind from one of the watermelons Hunter hunted from the local gathering spot (grocery store).

I've managed to get quite good at it by my standards. I've given it to two people, neither of them seemed impressed but neither are southern and one was definitely not raised anywhere near a southern culture but is one of my favorite humans on this earth (Anas I doubt you read this but if you do, I'm still salty you didn't love it). Native1 eats it it in a bowl with a spoon without any biscuit, sugar junkie that he is. One watermelon makes about one large mason jar of jam. I don't worry about sealing it because it just goes straight in the fridge. If I was storing it or wanted to give away jars of it, I would go through the full sealing process.

What is does, just for a moment, is make me think of my granny, my Mittie Lou, making fig preserves and bread & butter pickles. It takes me back to her kitchen, my childhood, those sweet long summer days snapping beans by her rocking chair. It reminds me that I can take care of the people I love, I can cook for them and pour in my love, my hopes, my dreams for them...just like she did for us. It makes me feel like I haven't gone too far from how I was raised and what my family expects and needs from me. So the jar isn't pretty, and it probably won't be the best watermelon rind jam you've ever had (if you've had it) but I made it with my granny in my heart and my family on my mind.