"A Taste Of Tioga County"

Kevin Coolidge

I grew up loving the woods and the wild things in them. Heck, I thought every ten year old knew the difference between a rainbow trout and a large-mouthed bass and could identify a pileated woodpecker. I knew that rattlers weren’t really poisonous, but venomous, and believe me, there’s a big difference if you are hungry. I still find it hard to swallow that city folk think food comes from a grocery store, and that they can’t get milk from a bull. Milk comes from a cow. You try milking a bull and let me know how it goes.

I think modern man has become detached from the land. Sure, he buys and sells it. After all, it’s a great investment. They ain’t making any more of it. See, the land doesn’t belong to man, (and by man, I mean humanity as a whole) it’s the other way around. Man belongs to the land, the earth. I believe that the spirit of a place can call to a man. Some folks just belong in certain places. Blood calls to blood and spirit calls to spirit. It sings to you, draws you in and once it has you in your grasp…. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself again.

I remember enjoying the bounty of the land with my grandparents - leeks, real maple syrup, venison, wild strawberries, and shin shang. What is shin shang? It is one of our areas best-kept secrets, American ginseng. Wild American Ginseng, Panax quinquefolium, is indigenous to southern Canada and the eastern and Midwestern United States, and the book, Ginseng, How to find, Grow, and Use America’s Forest Gold by Kim Derek Pitts will tell you all you want to know about it. The book covers topics such as: ginseng cultivation, history, harvesting, hunting and conserving wild ginseng, and use of ginseng in traditional herbal medicine.

Tioga County is farming country and most farms in these parts used to have a sugar shack. Vermont might get better promotion and produce more, but there’s nothing better than Grandma’s flapjacks topped with homemade syrup from the farm. If you’ve a hankering for homemade and want to try making your own, then Backyard Sugarin’: A Complete How-To Guide, by Rink Mann will show you how.

This book tells you how you can make maple syrup right in your own back yard without having to build a sap house or buy buckets, holding tanks, and other expensive paraphernalia. Think of it as sugar on a shoestring. The author goes over the basics of selecting your trees, homemade evaporators, the boiling down process and includes tips from small-time sugarers from across the country.

Yep, it’s good to remember where our food comes from-the grocery store is more convenient and may fill an empty stomach, but there’s nothing like food you hunted and gathered yourself for feeding your spirit, whether it’s venison, fish, or fiddlehead ferns. Yes, Tioga County has a taste of its own, even if flavored with just a dash of nostalgia. Heck, I might even show a flatlander how to milk a cow. Course, I just might forget to tell ‘em the difference between Bossie and Ferdinand….