By: Chef John D. Folse
As summer petered to a close in St. James Parish, wild black cherries were in season. That’s when we helped Daddy macerate the cherries in crock jars filled with brandy. Slowly, autumn arrived on the river, which meant harvesting persimmons, pecans, mandarins, squash, and, of course, sugarcane. Before we knew it, bonfire season was upon us.
When the last school bell rang indicating that Thanksgiving vacation had begun, all hands were on deck to start gathering the necessary tools to create St. James Parish’s best bonfire for the Christmas season. Now, it always seemed that a leader with managerial skills somehow “rose to the surface,” so to speak. As the second-eldest Folse son, I quite often took that position.
In our early years, we made the traditional cone or pyramid-style structures before graduating later to other geometric shapes. We gathered driftwood from the river and carefully stacked each log, one atop another. Once the sides were steady and strong, we piled the interior with kindling, a motley assortment of smaller logs, tree branches, and willow branches.
“FAITH, FOOD, AND FAMILY. THAT WAS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.”
It was during this same vacation week that it came time to help Daddy bottle the wild cherry bounce. The cherries were separated from the cherry-flavored brandy and discarded. It was also grinding season, so sugar was added to the liqueur as needed to create that delicate sugar-brandy-cherry ratio. Now, if we were lucky, a bottle might get “misplaced.” That meant we had a little something to sip on while we secured the most sought-after prize of all: an old rubber tire or two from Papère’s tractor shed to burn when the bonfire was lit on Christmas Eve. (That was before the levee board outlawed tires from the tradition.)
Years later, my daddy happened to meet winemaker Robert Mondavi at my restaurant. Lo and behold, Daddy told Mr. Mondavi that he was a winemaker, too, and actually gave him a swig of his homemade concoction. Self-proclaimed cherry bounce aficionado that he was, my daddy proudly told him, “That wine is made just a few miles up the road from here.” Mr. Mondavi, with a twinkle in his eye, said, “Hmm, it doesn’t seem to travel too well, does it?” They laughed; I was mortified. But that was Daddy.
When Christmas Eve finally arrived, bonfires were lit up and down the west bank of the river, cherry bounce flowed, and friends gathered for steaming bowls of chicken and andouille gumbo over rice. Christmas sweets were plentiful: petits gâteaux, divinity fudge, pecan pralines, and fruitcake were shared. Then we walked to midnight Mass in thanksgiving for the bountiful blessings the good Lord had bestowed upon us. Faith, food, and family. That was a Merry Christmas!
