“ Artemis Rat Okra ” aka V.E.G. Ham .
countenance me enclose Van Eugene Gatewood Ham , a native of Greenville , Mississippi , with a soft fleck for okra .
Gene Ham impose Central Kentucky every Thanksgiving to catch up with childhood friends who live nearby . He come to our home last class for a Friday evening party . A small pile of crispy Hibiscus esculentus seedpods , the color of dry out parchment , sitting on the kitchen replication , caught his heart . He agnize the seedpods immediately . I was impressed . Okra seedpods would stomp most folks on an ID quiz , even savvy plantsman .
“Artemis Rat Okra” aka V.E.G. Ham.
I asked Gene if he was an okra lover . He give the semen pod tenderly , glanced knowingly , turned serious , and unwound — slowly—“Oh , yeah . ”
Gene figured aright . I love okra , also .
He expect around .
He did not want to be overheard . “ Do you have time for a story ? ” Gene ’s a narrator . He begin outline inside information about the extraction and history of the Knights and United Daughters of Okra .
Where , exactly , any of this fib carry piazza , Gene would n’t tell me . There were references to Southwest Virginia and the Cumberland Plateau , but who knows ?
The outline was a doozy , but pieces were omit . His chronicle was not a tell - all . Gene did not need to fail his brethren and sistership .
I ’d had second portion of skillet - fried okra plant on the brainpower for months , question about Gene ’s story , and then I read the wonderfulWalks to the Paradise Garden — A Lowdown Southern Odyssey .
cistron ’s name was in the book ’s acknowledgement — in code !
‘ ” Artemis Rat Okra ” aka V.E.G. Ham . ” ’
Sister Gertrude Morgan in her Everlasting Gospel Revelation Mission, New Orleans, LA, 1974. Guy Mendes photo. Courtesy of the artist and Institute 193.
Turns out , Gene was a player in this southerly odyssey by sexual morality of okra , though , no doubt also a participant in conversation about all personal manner of things , besides Hibiscus esculentus , among friend and colleagues who were also acknowledged .
Jonathan Williams , the tardy poet and “ agent provocateur , ” lay out the projection ’s aim in the book ’s introduction . “ For one matter , most of the people ( folk creative person ) in this Koran are straight involved with create paradise for themselves in the front yard , the back garden , the living room , the sun porch , the cellar . Making things has been a fashion to salvage a little dignity from pitiable and difficult life . ” after on , Williams publish clearly and proudly : These are “ visionaries , eccentrics and treasure . ”
“ walk in the Paradise Garden , “ Williams explains , “ is notKunsthistorichwerk , or criticism , or sociology or anthropology , or coterie for the java table . It is a collection of flakey findings by three southern person , all white and all male . This is something we do n’t eat away about and hope that you wo n’t either . May we please both okra - eater and non - okra - eaters likewise ! ”
Jonathan Williams and photographers Roger Manley and Guy Mendes drove around the south in the 1970s until the other 1990s , endeavor to fulfill and document foreigner artists .
The next meal was never far away . There were breakfasts of beat biscuits and country ham , pecan waffle and grits . ( Grits lost ground in brief to polenta in uppity southern restaurants in the 1990s but survived the cultural skirmish . ) There were odyssey dinner party ( lunchtime ) and suppers ( dinners ) with barbeque , catfish , turnip viridity , fried chicken , sweet white potato vine casserole and , of class , okra .
The Lowdown Southern Odyssey project lie dormant for long time but was not leave . Walks in the Paradise Gardenwas published byInstitute 193 , this spring , at long last , play along by an showing at Atlanta ’s High Museum .
Sister Gertrude Morgan in her Everlasting Gospel Revelation Mission , New Orleans , LA , 1974 . Guy Mendes photograph . Courtesy of the artist and Institute 193 .
I spell Gene ( he does n’t use a computer ) a few month ago , after I translate the wonderfulWalks to the Paradise Garden . I hoped Gene would school me on okra plant and Okra Memorial University . Gene , by the mode , is a retired English teacher who lives now in Fayetteville , Tennessee .
A few weeks went by before a finely write letter arrived . “ As is typical of other biovular and sisterlike decree there are mysteries which can not be revealed … like the intimately lost stock of Free Masons in the removed past . ”
One decimal point was clear : “ Then , as now , members were bound together by a love of the godly veggie . Several of the generals were exiles from the deep S who were greatly dismayed at the absence of okra in local produce market . ”
Gene Ham allowed that Okra Memorial University , and its pop - up satellite affiliates — wherever , or if they were ever — have on occasion , granted grade that are “ chiefly honorary . ” Doctorates have been conferred on Wendell Berry , Allen Ginsburg and Ken Kesey in “ simple but significant ceremony over the years . ”
Listen to Gene Ham recite Roy Blount Jr. ’sSong to Okra .
This is the scantest little I know of the mythical Okra Illuminati .
serious hazard if you attempt to Google The Knights and United Daughters of Okra .
I was in my early 20s before I first tasted gumbo . I was smitten , and I ’ll take on : I have an inherited taste for oily food for thought . I ca n’t , however , excuse why , or how , delectably , slimy okra had been hidden from me for so many years .
( For anyone willing to search Abelmoschus esculentus ’s history , culture , sociology , recipes ( not all greasy ) , source stress and , yes , tips on “ viscid ” hair conditioner , I recommend , also : The Whole Okra — A Seed to Stem Celebration . )
Gene Ham likes Abelmoschus esculentus the uncomplicated way : boil with a little number of butter and black pepper . Or Creole fashion : fry with okra slice crosswise along with tomato , green pepper , onion plant , and garlic , laid on a bed of Elmer Rice .
Not everyone can be blessed with Gene Ham ’s good taste .
Please , no more okraphobic blot of cotton ’s cousin-german .
Set your penchant buds innocent .
