Cooperative Grocery Transcript
- Hey there.
- Hey, how you doing?
- I'm doing fine, middlin' to talk of well. How about yourself?
- [Interviewer] Fine, thank you. I'm doing a documentary on hash in South Carolina.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] You eat hash?
- Eat it? Hell, we make it.
- [Interviewer] You make it?
- Oh, yeah.
- [Interviewer] Where do you make it?
- In a pot, big pot.
- [Interviewer] You got any?
- We got any hash?
- We're out.
- We out of it. We done sold up all the hash.
- [Interviewer] You sold it all out?
- Yep. 30 pounds of beef, 20 pounds of pork, 15 pounds of onion, and 20 pounds of potato. Salt and pepper to taste, just a little bit of Cayenne-level hot sauce, just in case you have to have it. Stir it until you get tired of stirring,
- and then somebody taste it,
- A little mat- and then you add in whatever else you need.
- Put in a little tomato puree and butter, and that's about all you need.
- [Johnny] That's it, don't put anything in it?
- If you put anything else in, you're gonna ruin it, if you go putting all these condiments in it.
- [Johnny] That's right, right, right.
- Toward the end-
- [Interviewer] You agree with him?
- Oh yeah, one-
- I've been cooking it-
- since I was 13.
- One ladle of mustard. That way, you get your vinegar in there.
- Uh-uh, you always put the vinegar, I forgot it. I ain't worried about it. I never put no mustard. I always put vinegar.
- Yeah, you can go on and look in there. That's probably the best pot of hash we've-
- done so far.
- That's right.
- [Frank] And don't add nothing else.
- That's right.
- It's gonna be pretty nice.
- 'Cause if you do,
- it's gonna ruin it.
- [Johnny] Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Now, y'all differ a little bit on what you put in it.
- You talked-
- Not really.
- We just wasn't getting our heads together.
- It's gonna come out, it's gonna be the same pot of hash.
- You caught us on the spur of the moment. We weren't thinking about hash.
- [Interviewer] Well, what are y'all doing here?
- [Frank] Just sitting, reading the paper.
- Now we're thing about hash, so you done got it on our head.
- Now we may go cook one.
- Right out of the blue.
- [Interviewer] Well, now, you mentioned that you would put a little mustard in there.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] And this gentleman says maybe not.
- No, he says he's gonna put vinegar in there. See, vinegar is already in your mustard. I just happen to like a little mustard in mine.
- I guess it'd be alright, but I never put it in there.
- It'd be same difference, except yours won't have no yellow .
- I don't want no yellow .
- But it's the vinegar thing. That's all it is, just takes the twang out. You got to put vinegar every time you cook pork, you got-
- [Frank] Keep it right and safe.
- That's right. You got to put vinegar in when you cook pork 'cause it'll move to the bad on you.
- [Interviewer] Because of what?
- Because the pork will spoil. It'll go to the bad on you. So if you don't have vinegar in there, then pork will spoil and ruin. So you have to have that in there first.
- That's right.
- [Interviewer] You agree with him on that?
- Yeah, I always use vinegar.
- Oh yeah.
- [Interviewer] How long you been cooking hash?
- Since I was 13, now I'm 68.
- [Interviewer] Who'd you learn from?
- A old black fella that I was raised under that era or with, out in the country.
- [Interviewer] Who he'd learn from?
- I have no idea. I didn't ask him.
- [Johnny] Yeah, it's a hand me down.
- Yeah, he'd been a-
- It's a southern tradition.
- It's a hand-me-down thing.
- He'd been a cook-
- for a sawmill. I guess he'd learned, maybe on his own. I have no idea.
- [Interviewer] And have you pretty much kept that recipe you learned from him going?
- I think so. I've never seen no reason to change it.
- [Interviewer] And who do you cook for?
- Nobody, except myself now.
- Do you cook-
- My very self.
- [Interviewer] Do you cook in a black kettle?
- In a black cast iron pot.
- A cast iron pot?
- Cast iron pot, yeah.
- You got to have a cast iron pot, or else it ain't doing no good.
- [Interviewer] Why's that?
- [Frank] It's just old.
- You season the pot. You take a cast iron pot and you have to boil it out, put the fat back in, to season it up. Then you have to wipe the edges around with a little oil and vinegar, just to make sure that it doesn't have any rust in it. It'll take rust. Once you season your pot, then when you go to cook in from then on out, it's got that flavor comes out of the cast iron and works in with it. Anybody that cooks hash out of aluminum or stainless steel, that's wrong. They's not doing it proper. That's doing injustice to the beef and the pork.
- I agree with you. I've cooked it both ways but, cast iron pot makes a better hash.
- [Interviewer] It does really? Tell me your name, sir.
- Frank Wilson.
- [Interviewer] Frank, and you've been cooking a while?
- Since I was 13, now I'm 68, so you could figure out how many years that is.
- [Johnny] That'd be about 55 years or so.
- Something like that.
- [Johnny] Damn, I didn't have- I ain't been cooking that long.
- That's right.
- [Johnny] You're an old cook.
- I'm an old man.
- [Interviewer] Why do you think South Carolina is such a hash state? You know you go down into Georgia and it drops off to Brunswick stew down there.
- [Johnny] That's because they grow peaches-
- they ain't got a clue.
- I don't know. And we the peach state though. They may grow 'em, but-
- No wait a minute, wait-
- we grow more than they do.
- [Interviewer] What did you-? What'd you say? What'd you say?
- Once you get below the Savannah river, you're dealing with a whole different section of people. Actually, South Carolina's the same way. Upstate South Carolina hash, is of course, potato, onion, and beef, pork... Uh, what are they called?
- [Walt] Stew?
- Yeah, kinda like a stew. If you get down into the lower part of the state, they do the same thing they do in Georgia. They grind it up and it's like chili. Hell, what they do down there, we put on our hot dog.
- [Interviewer] Is that right?
- Yeah, what we do up here, we put on rice and potatoes.
- The way you supposed to make hash, you boil your meat, pull it off the bone, you take the knife, you cut it up, about so long, 'cause it's cooked. All right, you put your potatoes in there while they are cooked, the way you won't see a potato, You don't see a potato when your hash is through.
- [Johnny] Yeah.
- But they in there.
- [Johnny] It's just to fill it up.
- Yeah well, it makes a taste too. But you don't want, you know, to see your potatoes. I never did cook a hash where you could see any potato.
- Little starch with the potatoes in there.
- [Interviewer] Now, what do you season it with?
- [Frank] Pepper, salt.
- Salt, pepper.
- [Frank] Maybe a little hot stuff-
- Maybe a little hot sauce depending entirely on who's eating.
- But you always put tomato puree in that, it gives a little reddish tinge. Makes it look better, not white.
- [Johnny] Mm hm.
- Course it adds taste.
- [Interviewer] Now, what about this yellow hash that you find in the middle of South Carolina?
- [Johnny] There's a problem with that.
- I don't know. I'm not familiar with it.
- Really?
- Probably wouldn't eat it.
- That's that barbecue hash that they do there, like at Sheila's and all. In the middle of the state, they do mustard hash down there.
- [Frank] Yeah, I have eaten it down at Sheila's restaurant.
- It not worth telling a thing.
- [Frank] It ain't much a pound.
- [Interviewer] You said there's a problem with it. What do you mean?
- Yeah. They put too much mustard in there. It's just mustard based hash. You go from... What we do up here is a meat and potato hash. What they do in the middle of the state is a mustard hash. What we do in the low part of the country, is a tomato hash.
- Well, we have a-
- tomato content though.
- It turns into chili. But we put enough tomato puree in there just to give it a color.
- [Johnny] Yeah, just to color it up.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Now, there's a lady over here and she sort of smiling, as we're talking. You've been real quiet.
- [Johnny] Yeah, she ain't got a clue what we're doing.
- I ain't got a clue either.
- [Interviewer] You don't know anything about hash?
- I don't know the first...
- No, she just eats it on a-
- Don't even know how to-
- regular basis.
- spell it.
- [Interviewer] All right, now this guy hasn't said word one, now. He hasn't said word one.
- [Johnny] Oh He's in charge.
- [Interviewer] He's in charge?
- Yeah, he's the moderator.
- [Interviewer] Are they pulling my leg or they telling the truth?
- That's the truth.
- [Interviewer] Yeah?
- Yeah, Spanky owns the store. This is the Cooperative Grocery. It's been here since '18, what?
- 1919.
- [Johnny] 1919 is when this store opened up?
- Yeah.
- As a grocery store.
- [Walter] Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Down in Georgia, when you start asking about hash, people look confused. And they talk about Castleberry's hash.
- That's not hash, that's chili. Yeah, you gonna see Georgia hash, they put that in the can. What we do they can't afford a can to put it in.
- [Frank] That is a bad hash there. Try a little, you won't like it.
- [Interviewer] Now, what's the difference between this hash and your hash?
- All ground up.
- Ground up.
- That's ground up, just like chili. It's not worth a damn.
- Got corn in it, ground up. It's just-
- [Johnny] Put anything in there for a filler.
- [Frank] Corn makes a stew.
- Yeah, that's right. That's not hash, that's Brunswick stew.
- That's Brunswick stew, but I wouldn't eat it.
- Yeah, we're not dealing with that. But if you cook a good pot of hash, nobody could afford to buy it because it cost so much.
- That's right. Meat's too high now. I used to cook it with goat. Goat and a little beef and pork. And that goat, you put in there, you'd never know the difference. It's a good filler. You can't tell the difference between it and beef.
- We cooked it with everything. We cooked it with deer.
- Oh, yeah.
- You know, all that.
- [Interviewer] Well, this looks like the hash expert table here that I came to.
- Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm satisfied in my mind, if we can't make a good pot of hash, then you're in the wrong state of the country.
- [Frank] That's the truth.
- We got cooks here like Frank. Now, if right now we could go-
- I could go out there, I got a cook tent, we could cook up a 100 gallon if we wanted.
- That's right. We like to refer to that as a Southern gathering.
- [Interviewer] A Southern gathering.
- Just all the boys and girls come out to the house and cook. Everybody brings a little something.
- [Frank] A lot of people be there I don't even know of.
- Probably have more fun than you should.
- [Frank] True. I say as long as I live, we gonna continue to do it out there.
- It is a tradition, it's going to be a tradition as long as we live and breathe.
- [Interviewer] Well now, when do you these events?
- [Frank] We just had one... When?
- Last Saturday.
- If somebody hollers "Have-" If somebody hollers "Have one", we'll do one.
- We had one last Saturday. Some people spent the night out there. Stayed there all night.
- [Interviewer] You ever invite a stranger with a video camera?
- Why sure. Where you from?
- I'm from Greenville, South Carolina.
- How in the world did you get to Abbeville?
- [Johnny] Come down 25 and took a right.
- He might've came down the old way, 28.
- [Interviewer] I got down here because the McKissick Museum sent a folklorist out here and told me that Walt Wilson cooked a mean hash.
- He does.
- Are you Walt Wilson?
- Yeah.
- [Johnny] That's gonna be Walt, live and in person
- [Interviewer] Well, the Folklife man named Mr. Day came over here? You remember him? And he said don't miss Walt Wilson's hash.
- [Frank] He does cook a good one. We're not saying there's anything wrong with his, we just tell you how we make ours.
- [Johnny] Yeah, everybody does it a little different. That's just that your particular taste, and Frank's taste and my taste, we make it like we want it.
- [Interviewer] So each one's a little bit different from the other one?
- Yeah, all it is, is everybody's got the basic same ingredients but just the additives in there, right towards the end.
- How's it going?
- What you doing now-
- [Interviewer] How would you describe your hash being different from this gentleman's here?
- Oh, wouldn't say it'd be much difference.
- [Johnny] Really?
- [Frank] Just the seasonings, is all.
- Yeah, the seasoning is a big difference.
- [Interviewer] But the seasonings give the taste, don't it?
- Somewhat, yeah.
- [Interviewer] Would I be able to taste your hash and find it was different tasting from this gentleman's hash?
- Yeah. I got mine from Carl.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- 'Cause I got my family recipe, Frank's got his family recipe. Walt's got his fam-
- I got an old black man's recipe, really.
- [Johnny] I'm figuring it's probably-
- [Interviewer] Walt, where did your recipe come from?
- A good friend of mine had it.
- [Interviewer] Really?
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] How old is that recipe?
- I have no idea.
- [Interviewer] You don't know how far it goes back?
- Mm mm.
- [Interviewer] How far does this hash making go back?
- How long has a pig's butt been pork?
- [Walt] A long, long time.
- That's about where you can figure hash recipe. Every pig I know has got a pork butt. What you need to do is you need to leave us your name, number and where we can get in touch with you.
- [Interviewer] I will.
- The next time we cook a pot of hash, we'll invite you right straight on down here. And show you how it's done. You can see it from start to finish.
- Walt makes about the best hash around.
- [Interviewer] Really?
- uh huh.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Hey, Walt? This man says you make about the best hash around. He says your hash tops these guys' hash.
- No-
- He hasn't tried ours. That's just an opinion.
- [Interviewer] Is that just an opinion?
- [Frank] He just hasn't tasted ours yet. He hasn't been out there.
- He's got all different kind of seasonings he puts in there. But I can't tell you what kind of seasoning they are.
- So you know, opinions are like cheeks in your butt,
- Now, Walt can make some-
- good chicken stew too.
- Everybody's got a pair- but most of 'em stink right toward the middle.
- [Interviewer] Do they carry on like this all the time, Walt?
- 24/7.
- All the time.
- Yeah, they like to come in and sit around.
- [Interviewer] You ever get tired of them?
- Hell no, uh uh. Never.
- [Report] Never?
- Sometimes when we don't show up, he call us up and wanna know where we at.
- Is that right?
- Yeah.
- Don't you remember when you was a kid, when you had a old family grocery store, just a spot- the hang out joint- that all the old people hung around in?
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- Where they chewed tobacco and spit in a bucket. Eat boiled peanuts,
- Yeah.
- Or anything, this is it.
- This is it.
- [Johnny] We just don't have any bucket to spit in and have no boiled peanuts.
- [Walt] Don't know how an old .
- [Johnny] But if you like boiled peanuts, we could give you some.
- [Interviewer] What do you think the importance of an old store like this is in this culture?
- Tradition. If you don't have tradition, you have nothing to fall back on. That's a pure fact. If you don't have family traditions, if you don't have things in the town that you came up from- When I was kid like the old pool room, this store, used to be the dime store up on the corner- If you don't have traditions, if you don't have things you can pass down that are solid, that you could pour concrete around, you don't have anything left.
- [Interviewer] What do you think the future, of cooking in the old fashioned way is, in these black iron kettles?
- Oh, we're gonna keep tradition alive. Because there are those of us what care about it. And we'll hand it down to our children. The only problem you have right now, with what we're dealing with in this section of the country, is the kids have gone in a different route. They don't have morals or scruples taught to 'em like we used to have when we were children. Now, mine do, kind of, sort of. And I expect they will take the tradition up. And I will give them the recipes and pass it on down to 'em.
- [Frank] Mine do take it upon themselves. But it is a family tradition and you're going to have to keep that within the confines of your own particular family.
- Well, I got 4 boys that are sticking to that. They still love to go out and cook. That's the reason I built the cook house.
- The cook shed.
- Now, that's exactly right.
- Because they enjoy those types of things.
- Now see you get in this position, you got Walt. Walt's a hash maker. We cook hash with him- But Walt doesn't- He's not married, doesn't have any children. Has no place to go with this, unless he tells his nephews about it and let them work with it. But now it's no longer Wilson hash. 'Cause they aren't Wilsons. As long as there is a male surviving member of the Copeland family, there'll be a tradition that goes from head to head.
- [Interviewer] I'm about out of tape here.
- Well, if you want to come back and you want to bring some friends with you, we'll let you know when we cook the next pot of hash, or the next pot of chow-chow. We give you an open invitation, you can bring your buddies and come on up here and see it live and in person, what's going on.
- [Interviewer] I'd love to do that.
- I wish you would.
- [Interviewer] That suite you okay?
- That's right.
- All right.
- Y'all come back now, you hear?
- All right, thank you guys. See you.
- Yes, sir.
- Don't forget your
- [Johnny] stuff over here.
