Most farm home sites had fruit trees, mainly peaches and pears to be eaten fresh, cooked into pies and cobblers or made into preserves. Many families added figs, muscadine grapes and pomegranates to be eaten fresh and/or made into preserves or jellies. A few people planted apple trees but these do not do well in South Georgia.

Pecan and black walnut trees do flourish and contributed to a healthy and varied diet. (Aside: anyone depending on nourishment from black walnuts for survival might starve while trying to extract nut meat from convoluted places in their hard shells.)

In addition to these homegrown sources of enjoyment, country folks relied on fruits and berries from the wild. They range from a tangy wild sibling of the muscadine vine in the yard to “sparkle” berries that are only marginally worth eating.

The native or wild muscadines, often called bullises, ripen in late summer to early fall and were favored treats by youngsters and could be used to make jelly and wine. Native plums made bright the days of late spring. One variety, in colors of red or yellow, was another “eat off the bush” favorite that could be used for jelly. Another type, called hog plums because only hogs would eat them, remained bitter to the end.

Blackberries, which also ripened in late spring to early summer, were perhaps the most versatile of wild bounties. A sub-set — dewberries — grows on the ground, trailing across the top of the grass — few berries and briers that punish bare feet. Bushes growing blackberries can be found in many places, often conveniently in fence rows where they were “planted” by birds perched on fence wires. These were and are good eating straight off the bush even though pickers pay a price of scratches from “vicious” briers. A few “grandma ladies” made wine from blackberry juice, ostensibly “for the stomach’s sake”, but there are reports that it was very tasty. The berries were cooked into various desserts, all of which have pesky seeds that lodge between teeth. Blackberry jelly tastes better than any other. My Lady Annette pursued blackberries as if they were gold every year, laboriously “juiced” them and made jelly from the juice. I still have a little jar of it from her last “making” nearly a decade ago.

Another favorite berry type is huckleberry/blueberry. These are children in the same family and taste alike, but they are different. Huckleberries are black and grow on bushes four to six feet high, often in wooded areas. Blueberries are blue. Their bushes are typically one to two feet high, growing in open places in the woods. These are the best “off the bush” berries, tasty and blessed with small seeds. Pies and cobblers made with huckle/blues are unbeatable desserts. They perk up cereal and flavor ice cream.

Picking either blackberries or huckle/blues can be dangerous. Rattlesnakes sometimes lurk under the bushes to prey on birds and small animals attracted to the berries. At an early age, youngsters in my family were taught to be careful at berry patches. We were reminded that my maternal grandfather, Rudolph “Rudy” Williams, almost died from a rattlesnake bite that happened while he was picking huckleberries. 

Returning on foot from a fishing trip to the Ohoopee River, three or four miles distant from his home, he noticed a huckleberry bush heavy with fruit just off his path. He delighted in this delicacy fresh or in a cobbler and turned aside to eat and gather. Almost immediately, he was struck by a rattlesnake. He sent his brother who was with him at a run to Cobbtown some five or six miles away to fetch a doctor. He used a shoe lace for a tourniquet, cut out a plug from his shin all around the fang entrance and walked home. Since antivenin medication had to be brought from some distance away, effective treatment came late and he was very ill but survived to fish and hunt and eat cobbler, living until age 89.

We ate other berries. There was the “gopher berry,” presumably eaten by gopher tortoises, not juicy or flavorful, but edible. In my neck of the woods was an abandoned field that in time grew up in oaks, hickories and cedars and left an open under-story in which grew “sparkle berry” bushes. As in the case of gopher berry, I know no other name for it. The small, shiny berries ripened in late autumn, not juicy or flavorful, but edible. One type low-growing haw bush produces small fruit crowded with hard seed. Fully ripe, it has a sort of apple flavor but has so little fruit around the seed that it is difficult to taste anything.

Some fruits and berries were not eaten, at least not by everyone. Goose berries might have been fine for geese but not humans. Some people ate wild persimmons, which were abundant. Unless the fruit is ripe — fall off the tree ripe — it will turn one's lips inside out and nearly numb. I found it almost inedible at best and not worth the effort, given the sparse amount of fruit flesh as compared to seed. Leave them to the possums. They will eat anything.

Roger G. Branch Sr. is professor emeritus of sociology at Georgia Southern University and is a retired pastor.