A Watermelon with a Story to Tell

The Bradford Family Farm attracts many interested travelers in August.

To buy a watermelon, would you drive more than 200 miles? Would you make a two-day roundtrip from Illinois to South Carolina to buy the “heirloom” watermelon that once was believed to be extinct after the 1920s?

Bradford Watermelon

I did, and another customer drove across several states for the Bradford watermelon that is being introduced again to chefs, gardeners and food enthusiasts around the world. It is considered to be the tastiest watermelon and has exceptional characteristics such as rich sweetness, delicious flesh, thin rinds, and large fruits (up to 40 pounds). 

A Bradford watermelon in the field before being picked.

The Story

The story of the Bradford watermelon is as interesting as the melon itself is revered for its sweetness and flavor. On a blog, Nat Bradford describes how he discovered a book from the 1850s that lists his family’s watermelons as the absolute best of all market melons of the day. That discovery motivated him to learn more about their history and led him to find Prof. David Shields, an expert in Southern foodways. 

Nat Bradford prepares a sample of his pickled watermelon rind with pimento cheese.

Because the Bradford watermelon was so prized, growers often stood guard with guns at night deter potential thieves. Some growers even used electrocuting wires and poisoned selected watermelons in their fields that were marked by signs to “pick at your own risk.” (However, this plan backfired when a farmer confused a safe melon for a deadly one and poisoned the family.) According to Shields, more people were killed in watermelon patches than in any other part of the American agricultural landscape except for cattle rustlers and horse thieves. 

In the 1840s, Nathaniel Napoleon Bradford (1809-1882), the sixth great-grandfather of Nat, began experimenting with watermelon seeds and crossed two varieties to create what became known as the Bradford watermelon. Although it was celebrated during the 1850s to 1910s, it fell out of favor as other varieties became more popular. Its thin skin wasn’t suitable for long-distance shipping and its unusual elongated shape (like an overgrown cucumber) made it difficult to stack. 

Customers line up to receive watermelons that had been ordered online weeks earlier.

At the sacrifice of flavor, watermelons were bred to have tougher, thicker skins to reduce flesh damage and to improve their abilities to be stacked ten deep and loaded on trains without bruising and splitting. In fact, at this time 93 percent of commercially available seed varieties disappeared, and the last commercial planting of the Bradford melon was in 1922. 

Products from the Bradford Family Farm are ready for sale.

Although commercial production had ended, generations of the Bradford family kept growing the original watermelon for personal use. Then it was “discovered” when food historians, principally Prof. David Shields, were connected with the Bradford family. Shields had been researching the history of watermelons. From agricultural journals and seed catalogs of the 19th century, he was able to determine the characteristics of the Bradford melon: “oblong, dark green rind watermelon with red flesh and white seeds weighing 30 lbs. fully grown. Depending on the soil it is grown in, the rind develops longitudinal reticulations (stripes).” 

If you're taking home more than one, extra trunk space is needed.

Bradford Family Farm

Nat Bradford, an eighth-generation watermelon grower and seed saver of the famed watermelon, has been growing it since he was five and was taught by his grandfather how to save seeds. On his farm, not more than 10 miles from the original breeding site, he grows one of the oldest surviving North American watermelons. Over the decades, the Bradford family was saving up to 4 percent of each year’s crop as seed melons to create plantings in the next season. 

More melons are delivered to the sales tent.

Six weeks after I had placed an order, I arrived at the farm, appropriately marked with a hand-painted wood sign. A few people were standing in line to pick up their orders at the sales tent. Only a few watermelons were there. I must have looked worried because Bradford told me that he’d have a few more soon. Within minutes a pickup truck came down a dirt road to the tent, and the crew began offloading more melons. 

Nat Bradford washes every watermelon before handing it to a customer.

Don’t think that I got a dirty melon! Nat washes every one before he places it in a customer’s arms. (Both arms are needed to carry something so huge to a car.) I had ordered two, and they needed a large trunk space for the ride home. The person behind me had ordered eight, which at $20 a melon is a sizeable order. One melon that I took home looks like an overgrown cucumber. Both the watermelon and cucumber are from the “Old World” (primarily Africa and Asia) and belong to the same family (Cucurbitaceae) as do squashes, pumpkins, and gourds, but they are only distantly related. 

Is it a watermelon or a cucumber? Whatever it is, it's huge.

Bradford is certainly developing a following for his watermelons. He sold 500 online for pickup during two weekends of August (they grow late in the season). He also has a growing market for his family’s pickled rinds, watermelon molasses, and watermelon brandy. The Bradford family is continuing a multi-generational tradition of distilling the melon’s sugary juice into brandy as well as boiling it to make molasses. The melon’s sweet flesh makes it cherished for more than simply eating at a family dinner. 

Weeding is not a priority because walking in the patch would compact the soil.

Yes, my family is saving the seeds from the watermelons that we carried home. One day they may become a legacy gift.

Learning About Cheese Making (and Feeding a Baby Goat)

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.] 

To watch cheese being made, taste some artisan cheese samples, and take home a package or two, I headed to the Blue Ridge area of our state to travel part of the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail. Little did I expect to be bottle-feeding a day-old baby goat. Within minutes after arriving at Round Mountain Creamery near Black Mountain, NC, I was holding a full bottle of warm milk for an eager kid who cared little about who was feeding it.

Linda Seligman, creamery owner, teaches
me how to bottle feed a newborn goat.

The feeding was all part of the tour that I had arranged the day before. Before visiting the creamery, I reviewed information about the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail online. The trail, established in 2013, links together farms and creameries that show how artisan cheeses are made from goat and cow milk and inform visitors about the art and science of cheese-making. Helping to promote the cheese trail is the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), which builds local food connections and helps area farms succeed. 

Continue reading at the NCFood blog ...

Mountain Trout Is N.C. Good

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.]

Imagine fishing in a fast-flowing, rocky mountain stream and reeling in trout for dinner. Such experiences have always been part of the food culture in the Blue Ridge region, whether for the Cherokee with prehistoric ties to its hills and streams or the families who settled there after the Trail of Tears campaign evicted most Cherokee from their tribal territory.

Jonathan Creek in Maggie Valley, NC, is part of
the Mountain Heritage Trout Waters Program.

Visitors today can easily envision the days of how trout streams provided food for families as well as the thrill of mountain fishing. To encourage trout fishing as a heritage tourism activity, the N.C. General Assembly established the Mountain Heritage Trout Waters Program in 2007. Several locations in Haywood County and neighboring counties offer access to streams designated by the program. Only a special $5 fishing license (good for three days) is required. Some locations, such as the Town of Maggie Valley, even provide rods and reels at no charge. (Stocked ponds, although they don’t provide the stream experience, also offer chances, particularly to children, to reel in trout.)


Continue reading at the NCFood blog ...

Finding the Source of Your Food

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.] 

            When you eat in a restaurant, do you think about the farms that provide your meal? At excellent way to visit the source of your food is the annual farm tours conducted in our state.

Farm tour signs direct the way to
find the source of your food.

            Earlier this year I explored several farms as part of the Piedmont Farm Tour, held on the final weekend every April by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. This tour is one of two in North Carolina – the other is the Eastern Triangle Farm Tour – and one of four that the association sponsors. One farm – the Captain J.S. Pope Farm -- in particular is intriguing.

Continue reading at the NCFood blog… 

Ederville: Where Time Stands Still

Hark back to a bygone era much simpler by today’s standards but quite complex at the time for its industrial innovations and designs. One weekend each year Ederville, which opened to the public initially in 2006, springs to life to display “100+ Years of Progress.”

With a trestle that lifts an animal-drawn plow high overhead to show the evolution of mechanized farm implements to today’s indispensable and proficient tractor, the center of Ederville buzzes with commerce of an earlier time. On the sprawling perimeter is the main attraction — an ever-expanding collection of agricultural machines that, although not as old as Methuselah, illustrate generations of industrial progress.

Usually open on the first weekend in November in Carthage, NC, Ederville is full of possibilities for families who want to reminisce about the old days and teach lessons to children about how past generations labored to make life more enjoyable and beneficial for the next generation.

Walking, Watching and Tasting

Walk though open-air structures of farm implements, watch a primitive sawmill in operation, taste an old-fashioned fried pie, cruise on a Stanley Steamer, ride on a miniature train, stroll through replicated shops decorated with period furnishings, and shop at a general store — these activities are available until a “spark show” ends each day at dusk.

Visitors stroll leisurely through decades of ever evolving mechanical invention, some machines with only one purpose, such as shelling corn or threshing wheat. A few are truly one of a kind and exist nowhere else in the world. Names of most buildings — steel wheel, rubber tire, steam tractors, pedal tractors, prairie tractors, and oil pulls — are deceptively simple and belie the complexity of the machinery inside. For example, the “construction” building houses equipment that would amaze even the most devoted fan of Bob the Builder.

Ederville’s effort to preserve memories of how steam, gas and antique implements worked on American farms (and are still in use) is enhanced by several power and equipment clubs. Organizations such as the Sandhills Antique Farm Equipment Club of neighboring Harnett County and the Central Carolina Antique Power and Equipment (C-CAPE) Club of Sanford, NC, demonstrate historic farm equipment during all three days. Tractor games are conducted by Classic Power Antique, Inc., an educational organization of central and eastern N.C. families who restore antique tractors, farm implements, and related equipment.

In addition, Chapter 37 (Eastern N.C.) of International Harvesters Collectors, a worldwide network to maintain IH history, knowledge, and memorabilia, participates with a variety of IH tractors. Chapter 12 (N.C. and surrounding states) of the Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club, a worldwide club, demonstrates historic Caterpillar machinery that it has collected and preserved. (In fact, Ederville will be the site of the national ACMOC meeting in 2013.)

Although the Southern roots of agricultural progress are evident with the activities of the state and regional clubs, most early machines of large-scale farming on display were made in the Midwest. Many brand names such as McCormick, Case, Caterpillar, International Harvester, and John Deere are still very familiar. Consistent with the no-thrills design, these machines little have no creature comforts (power steering or air conditioning) that a modern generation expects. Of course, only steel (nothing cushy) seats complement steel steering wheels and other metal components.

Demanding Weekend

Saturday is the busiest day at Ederville and starts with a parade through “town” with equipment polished and groomed as lovely as a Runway Angel prepared for Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show. A church choir and a bluegrass band add music to entertain the strollers and watchers.

Saturday also includes an early afternoon tractor pull organized by Old Time Tractor Pullers Association (which defines an antique tractor as 1960 or older) of Denton, NC. The event, with categories that start with the 3,700-pound stock, awards trophies to winners and is a greatly anticipated affair that builds on the competitive spirit of the lawn mower pull conducted the previous evening by East Coast Pullers.

All three days also usually feature open shops, a noon whistle, equipment demonstrations in a field, and plowing in an outer field. In addition, Sunday morning offers a church service with a guest preacher.

In early fall Patti Eder typically prays for no rain during the forthcoming demanding weekend when she and her husband Ken host up to 10,000 guests who inspect and appreciate the more than 1,000 machines — improving with age like fine wine — an amazing collection considering that he bought the first tractor in early 2003.

Being Thankful

Join Patti in praying for no rain during the first weekend in November, so that the next visitors are unimpeded in observing the full array of activities and exhibits. Seeing the improvements in agricultural life creates a wonderful appreciation for how “modern” we live today and more reasons to be thankful later in the month with another tradition as ageless as Ederville’s relics — a Thanksgiving gathering with family members.


Note: Click here to see recent photos of Ederville.