| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 33 |
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In many ways St. Augustine was still a antiquated relic of the previous century.
There were three chain stores, A & P, Pantry Pride and Winn Dixie along with two locally owned mom and pop
stores; Andrews Market and Broudies.
If you wanted to buy seafood you had two choices, both off King Street on the San Sebastian River.; Fazios on the
west bank and Salvador’s on the east. Both of these seafood stores operations were supplied directly by the local
fishing fleet that docked behind the fish markets and unloaded their catch daily.
The fish house owners in the 1970s were descendants of the original founders who were more than likely to be the
ones that waited on you.
What was in season is what you got. Oysters and clams were the shellfish that would be sold in season and that
meant only the months with an “R” in them.
Bluefish, mackerel, sea trout, snook, flounder, whiting, croakers and mullet were all fish that you could pretty much
count on finding in the market iced down year-round and were sold with their heads on.
The fish would be filleted or cut into steaks if you liked at no extra charge…of course you would pay for the entire
fish even if you left the head and guts behind.
Live blue crabs were sold by the bushel or one at a time for you to take home and steam.
These businesses that evolved with the city were relics of the past traditions and soon would be deleted by the
mega stores that were just then beginning to make their presence known in Florida.
The mom and pop retailing days were numbered in America and I am not so sure that some of the old ways weren’t
just a whole lot better for keeping the community together.
The local fishing fleet was just a shadow of what it had been at its peak in the early 1950s, only a quarter of a
century earlier but was still actively fishing.
come down like a three legged stool with a broken leg.
come down like a three legged stool with a broken leg.
All of the grocery stores carried the staples of the old Deep South.
When you went grocery shopping the reality of the Oldest City’s link to the past became obviously apparent.
Here are a few of the many local Dixieland specialty items that you could count on finding well stocked as staple
items in all the local stores;
Martha White’s® self rising flour…a standard southern household item that was found in all kitchens similar to
Bisquick® but without the shortening,
Louisann ® coffee with chicory (low in caffeine-dark on the roast with a distinctively sharp strong robust flavor that
was a long time favorite in the Deep South),
Bull, Crystal, Texas Pete hot sauces along with country cured hams in cotton bags that didn’t need any refrigeration
were all items stocked in every kitchen down in the heart of Dixieland.
Jane and I always kept one of these dry cured hams that exuded an irresistible savory mouth watering aroma
aboard our Dursmirg as rainy day rations or for those few occasions when we became too pre-occupied to live out
of the sea.
Sliced very thin, the thinner the better almost like dried beef, it was eaten cold and uncooked heaped into
sandwiches made of Jane’s special honey whole wheat bread hot from the oven and topped with a slice of Daisy
cheese, another staple product of the deep south.
Well, I defy anybody to make a better sandwich. I always preferred to smear this tantalizing sandwich with some of
Jane’s homemade hot Swedish style mustard.
Those dry cured hams also came in handy when we needed some tough fishing bait. The pork rind with a little fat
still attached and threaded onto a fishhook inevitability would attract fish and that bait was so tough that it would
survive a day of fishing.
The dry cured ham would find its way into many a pot of Jane’s special delicacies cut into cubes as a flavoring
agent. Jane would use the ham to flavor some of her favorite seafood dishes like St. Augustine shrimp pilau or
Spanish paella.
We got many a mile out of those hams. Even the bones eventually became the base for a barley soup after we had
pared off every morsel of meat.
The trick when buying one of these savory hams was to get one without too much fat. You weren’t allowed to open
the cloth bags for inspection that the hams came in so the skillful trick of feeling the hams for fat became some kind
of a practiced talent.
The leaner the better the ham because the meat was what you wanted…lard was just too cheap to buy at dried ham
prices.
Catering to those “poo-foolks” that still brewed their own beer at home Blue Ribbon Malt ® extract came in quart
sized cans that weighed about three pounds. The distinctive label had a representation of one of the, pardon me,
ugliest women I have ever seen depicted in public. It was for sale as a staple at all of the stores.
This black syrup thick as molasses and smelling like something you would like to spoon right out of the can and eat
was available in either light, dark, hopped and available in other flavors with a recipe for making bread on the label
that was suppose to give it some kind of legitimacy as a grocery product versus a beer brewing agent. You would
also find boxes of bottle caps to put up your finished beer next to the Blue Ribbon Malt extract…how very convenient.
The deep-south stores had tobacco with a twist, of course the cigarettes, pipe tobacco and cigars were found
everywhere in America but tobacco was another commodity with that down-south twist.
Whole tobacco leaves that had been dried and cured then soaked in molasses were then twisted into a loop and
dried again were sold unpackaged and in bulk by the individual piece.
Dried powdered tobacco was sold in small tin cans used for snorting up the users nostrils.
Dried little bricks of tobacco drenched with molasses wrapped in cellophane and known as plugs were sold as
chewing tobacco.
The “Sip-in-sack” is a can of beer in a small paper bag used for drinking on the street discretely and sold at all of
the grocery stores and neighborhood convenience stores.
The discriminating southern beer drinker knew of only two types of beer…warm and cold.
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