Outdoors with Ken Higgens Reflections on fair competitions


By Ken Higgins Te N.C. Mountain State Fair


ended last month. I’ve been at- tending the farm events over the years. Tere are hundreds of differ- ent contests that locals can enter. Landscaping, honey production, art, crafts, cooking, quilting, weav- ing, photography, preserved foods, livestock, gospel singing, clogging, and horseshoe pitching are a few of the competitions a person can en- ter.


things might not work out for me in this competition with women. I forced our children to join in so I could say I was just helping out. Te day before the fair opened,


I was in a long line of old grand- mothers waiting to sign in with our jam. I tried to strike up a friendly conversation with the grandmother in front of me. She had a wicker basket with pints of different types of local jam. Te jars were partially covered by a red-and-white check- ered cloth. She was dressed in a country dress right out of the Wal-


went looking for the raspberry jam and returned smiling, holding up a second-place ribbon. I was feel- ing pretty good until she discov- ered there had only been two jars entered. I gave a lot of thought to what


I’d done wrong in my jam mak- ing. Four years of practice and I was ready to take on the blackberry competition again. I decided to use the shotgun method and make different types of other jam just in case. I entered blackberry, raspber- ry, cherry, fig, peach, and peach-ja- lapeno with blackberry swirls. Te peach-jalapeno was in the “other category” that I thought might be a sure ribbon winner due to a lack of entries. I came up with this jam late at night while making and tasting the final batch of peach. Peach was too sweet so I was look-


ing for something to tone down the flavor. Te blackberry swirls were leftover from a previous batch and looked cool mixed in with the yel- low of the peach. It also was a way to tell the two peach jams apart. My wife said it looked scary and was probably what my stomach looked like after eating that liquid fire. Tis year I got to the entry


About five years ago, I got our


children involved in the homemade jam competition. Growing up on a farm, our fami-


ly had a large garden every year. My mother canned most of our food from this garden. During the summer, my brothers


and I also had to pick wild black- berries. Tese blackberries were then made into jam. My mother also made peach, grape, and straw- berry jam. We never bought jam from the store. After my parents pasted away, I


took up jam making as a connec- tion to my mother using her old dented equipment. Starting out, I had a lot of trouble with runny jam. After a couple of seasons, I had a pretty good product that I started giving away for holiday presents. I had people brag on my jam as


most people do when they get some- thing free and want more. Tis led to my thinking I was a gifted black- berry jam maker. One of the people bragging on my jam said it was so good I should enter it in the fair. Never having won anything, I


daydreamed about displaying a first place ribbon in our kitchen for visi- tors to marvel at. I could finally be somebody! Tinking it through, I knew that


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tons as were most of the women. I commented on the fine color


of her blackberry jam and jokingly said I’d better shake it up to break the jell so she couldn’t beat me. She just glared and ignored me, kind of like when I tell my wife I might tell the preacher my latest joke. I looked back at the line behind me and didn’t see a friendly face. It dawned on me that shorts and


a Hawaiian shirt was not proper attire. Carrying jars of jam in my arms must be breaking some un- written rule. I’m pretty sure I saw one whisper to another while glar- ing at me. I entered jam made by my daugh-


ter, Kirsten, and my son, Kalvin, along with my blackberry. I’d also entered a jar of organic raspberry. Five days later I went back as ex- cited as the opening day of deer season. With my wife and kids, we slowly scanned the long, long line of blackberry jam looking for our jars. Finally I found my jar. Tere was


no ribbon. I turned over the at- tached judges card and read “Dis- qualified - jell broken.” Someone had shaken up my blackberry jam! I stood there stunned. My son


and daughter won first and second place for their age group. My wife


table early and avoided the hard- core grandmothers. Six days later, I got up early and headed out to check my entries. When I told the girl my name and I was there to check my jam entries, she led me to a shelf where all my entries had been separated. I could see two rib- bons hanging on my jars. Looking closer, though, there was no ribbon for blackberry. I’d won first place in fig (only one entry - mine) and second place in


cherry (two entries). Te girl was saying something which I didn’t hear but it might have been please don’t enter any more of my mixed jam (peach-jalapeno). When I’d entered four years ago


the judges didn’t open and taste the jam. Tis year they’d tasted all of it.


Not one to waste anything, I’d


juiced up the peach-jalapeno by chopping up a red jalapeno for more color. I might have burnt out the judges. My wife said I should enter a different competition under a different name. I’ve been looking at the 165-page fair entry catalog and think I might try for a ribbon in arranging fruit on a plate. I won- der who I’ll be competing against?


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