SEARCH Travels With LD

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - Giant City State Park, Makanda IL

Another broken wing trick, Killdeer, Site 4, Freeman Community Club RV Park, Freeman MO, May 11, 2010
Another broken wing trick, Killdeer, Site 4, Freeman Community Club RV Park, Freeman MO, May 11, 2010

Night camp

Site 82 - Giant City State Park, Makanda IL

Nights I've camped here

Sweet, Rich Hickory Milk

Hickory was another favorite. Rambling through the Southeast in the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram observed Creek families storing a hundred bushels of hickory nuts at a time. "They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid" to make a thick milk, "as sweet as fresh cream, an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially hominy and corncakes." Years ago a friend and I were served hickory milk in rural Georgia by an eccentric backwoods artist named St. EOM who claimed Creek descent. Despite the unsanitary presentation, the milk was ambrosial - fragrantly nutty, delightfully heavy on the tongue, unlike anything I had encountered before.

more...