ISSUE 49, GOOD FOR YOU, Part 3: Ogeechee Limes
Ogeechee Limes
Ethnobotanist who study the food plants of cultures over the globe are predisposed to see food working as pharmacy for people. No hard and fast distinction between nutrition and the ingestion of medicine exists is Native discourses. One of the great virtues of Frederick Porcher’s manual, Resources of Southern Fields and Forests, published during the Civil War was its close attention to the very different cultural approaches to a particular ingredient among the African-Americans, European Americans, and Native Americans (usually specified by tribe and locale). I recently encountered a brief GA newspaper article on an ingredient that foregrounded the different understanding of a plant by Gulllah Greeche residents of the Georgia Coast and White property owners in the Lowcountry. The ripened dark red one inch + olives shaped fruits of the Nyssa ogeche were eaten raw by the Gullah Geechee as a counter to malaria—its sourness was deemed a sign of its pharmacological potency. White householders in the Lowcountry took the edge off the fruit’s acidity, adding sugar, and making either Ogeechee Lime preserves or Ogeechee Lime Jelly
The fruit of the Tupelo Tree, found along river courses in Northern Florida and Georgia up to the SC border, become ripe in September. In the 1880s to the 1910s the fruit was harvested each autumn and brought to market by black foragers. It was sold under several names: river lime, wild lime, and of course, the Ogeechee lime in honor of the Ogeechee River in Georgia along whose banks William Bartram first encountered and described the tree. Nowadays, the most extensive stands of the fruit trees skirt the Apalachicola River in Florida—the tupelo trees that provide nectar for the famous tupelo honey. The flowers that supply that nectar, once pollinated, turn into Ogeechee limes.
Large trees can grow to 40 feet high. The limbs of female trees tend to grow out horizontal from the trunk, and males, perpendicularly, and mature trees often have flat crowns. The oval-oblong deep green inch leaves are noteworthy for their whitish undersides, giving the tree the nickname of “white tupelo.” The blossoms (March to May) are white and profuse, the fruit pale to reddish, and the autumn foliage gaudy and particolored from yellow to purple red. The tree has a decided preference for wet—and it grows most densely in and around the margins of swamps.
The inch and one half long pale reddish fruits were made into preserves and jellies, sometimes brined. But the preserved whole limes (slitted with the single seed/stone removed), were the winners. Recipes may be found in old manuscript cookbooks from the Chrleston to Jacksonville. Here’s one from the 1880s by Mrs. Thomson of Charleston: S. C. Historical Society: “Cut the sharp ends off, prick each one with a fork, pour boiling water upon them one night & repeat it in the morning. To each lb of fruit put 1/1/2 lbs of sugar & to each pound of sugar, 1 pint of water. Boil until the limes are clear & begin to break, then take them out of the syrup and continue boiling the syrup until it can stand on your nail.”