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The elusive roots of rosin potatoes (2022)
Caroline Hatchett grew up around rosin potatoes in her hometown of Baxley, Georgia. Curious about the potato’s origins, she talked with her dad, turpentine workers, historians, chefs, foresters, and beer brewers to get to the root of it.
Along with his father and a pickup truck full of men, Alston rode from the Georgia coast to inland piney woods to clear paths for other turpentine workers and deposit gum collected from the trees into barrels; they toiled from early morning until nightfall for monthlong stretches and slept in windowless shanties on the floor. The family’s elaborate Christmas menus included duck, roast pig, rutabagas hashed with Irish potatoes, brandy peaches, coconut pie, and syllabub (sweetened curdled milk), but there’s no rosin on the menu, nor records of what Bellamy’s enslaved workers ate at camp. Folklorist Laurie Sommers founded the South Georgia Folklife Project at Valdosta State University and, with Tim Prizer, interviewed dozens of turpentine workers with multigenerational ties to the industry, such as George “G.W.” Harrington, a man born into the business.
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