Georgia Magazine - June 2017 - 34

'Pass it on!'
Georgia cooks preserve the past
for the future

FRANCIS WISHAM

Eric Wisham, of Wisham's Jellies in Tifton,
has created sweet and spicy jellies that also
can be used as glazes, dips and marinades.
34

"It takes 28 days
from raw cucumber
to fermentation to
finished pickle. Your
hands are on them
seven times, including
the canning," Liz GarAbby Jackson, of Abby J's Gourmet in Clarkesville,
ner says.
Garner's business timing learned to can while growing up and now has her own
was right-and it wasn't. Her gourmet line of salsas, pickles and sauces.
career as a production coordinator was obsolete due to changes owner of Abby J's Gourmet.
Jackson grew up on a farm in
in the music industry. She had time
to get the business launched and li- Habersham County with her parents,
censed by the U.S. Food and Drug grandmother and five brothers.
"We ate well," she says. She still
Administration and the Georgia Department of Agriculture. In a test- does, as do the clients who come to
market run from Oct. 25 to Dec. 13, her and her husband's Blackhawk Fly
Fishing camp on the Soque River in
2013, she sold more than 2,000 jars.
"That told me I was onto some- Clarkesville. They love her soups, salsa, pickles and chicken with Jalapeño
thing," she says.
Then she was diagnosed with Mustard Gourmet Sauce.
After 20 years in sales for a gift
cancer in 2014, and her family pitched
in to make the business work. "My sis- company, Jackson settled down to
ter Elise, my father, my brother, aunts, follow her passion for growing food,
nieces and nephews-this business is canning and creating flavorful recia family affair, and I could never have pes. She started the Abby J's Gourmet
done it without them. There's love in line in 2011, and her Field to Fork
Sweet Fire Pickles won the University
every jar I can," she says.
The company caught a break of Georgia's Flavor of Georgia Food
when the product was selected for Product Contest award in 2016 in the
The New York Times Gift Guide in late Salsas, Chutneys and Condiments
division. She's the author of "Abby
2014.
"Correspondent
Kim
Sever- J's Farmstyle Living Cookbook" and
son called MawMaw Dot's Pickles is co-founder of Southern Farm &
'a game-changer,' and more than 15 Garden Magazine. She's also growprize-winning chefs at Atlanta res- ing her dad's heirloom Indian corn,
taurants agree," Garner says. "I love because "he asked me to keep it goseeing the smiles on people's faces ing" and because seed preservation
when they try them. Our pickles take is so important, she says. In August,
people back. There's just something she teaches canning to community
groups.
about them."
"I spend my summer canning
"I think people these days want
to eat better, and that's why there's a more than 200 quarts of tomatoes,
renewed interest in the old methods because so many recipes come out of
of doing things," says Abby Jackson, that base," Jackson says.
JOHN JACKSON

his is the last big batch." Her
grandmother's words hit hard.
As usual, about 20 members of
her family had gathered for Christmas
dinner, and as usual, her grandmother had handed them all jars of her
prized pickles.
"We looked forward to them every year," says Liz Garner, owner of
The Garner Girls, a specialty food
company based in Atlanta. "I had so
many memories of her precise cutting
and putting them down in churns to
later give away. I said to myself, 'The
world needs my mawmaw's pickles,
and I'm going to make them.'"
Her grandmother's pickles were
the best: crispy sweet with a hint of
vinegar-a perfect side for summer
vegetables, tuna salad or deviled
eggs, Garner says. "They changed the
complete flavor palate of a meal."
Growing up, Liz and her sister,
Elise, had helped in her grandparents' garden and kitchen in Booneville, Miss., during the summers. It
was a labor-intensive process.

More online at www.georgiamagazine.org

GEORGIA MAGAZINE

ABBY JACKSON

BY LAURA RAINES

http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - June 2017