The Scavengers

Living in a small town during the great Depression had its advantages for us. If you lived in the cities and didn't have money to buy vegetables, you didn't get vegetables. In our small town in northern Maine, mom and dad had a ready crew of little scavengers who brought in much of the fruit and vegetables we needed. We didn't recognize boundaries in our looting and pillage, and mom often didn't know where we got some of the stuff.

Of course we had a big garden, but down off Church St., behind Dr. ----'s house there was an old pasture where huge dandelion plants flourished. We descended on that pasture with pails and knives every year, just before the yellow blossoms emerged. Boiled up with a little bacon fat, drained and topped with butter and a sprinkle of vinegar, it was food for the gods--and no one ever questioned if it was organic!

Between our house and the mountain, along Rocky Brook, there was a large stand of choke-cherry trees, the cherries being the kind that really puckered up your mouth. (Perhaps that was where I got my taste for hot peppers.). Mom had a recipe for making chokecherry 'shrub' --a drink that I've never had since, and sometimes long for. Whenever we went to swim in that brook,we took along a pail to gather the cherries, and mom preserved bottles of 'chokecherry' syrup so we were ready for summertime drinks.

Our biggest benefactors in our quest for loot were the priests of the rectory at the Catholic Church across town. The Fathers had a lovely grove of horseplums. Every fall, we made a pilgrimage to pick those plums, bringing back a huge pailful to mom to preserve. We were vague about the source, and never were caught or questioned by the Fathers.

Another source of fruit was the great crabapple tree on Mrs. Sweet's lawn, just down the street from us. In her case, she actually paid us to pick all that fell to the ground and any we could reach. Mom had an infinite number of recipes for those, especially pickled. I realize now that Mrs Sweet just wanted the lawn cleaned up, and to her it was worth paying 25 cents a pail.

Thinking back, the stuff we picked or worked for ourselves always tasted sweeter and were much more appreciated, looted or not, than anything from the grocery store.