A Passion for Ephemera
story by Donna Hecker & photography by Talitha Schroeder
How can such a tiny plant, an ephemeral even, possess the power to bridge multiple generations, link faraway places, summon memories from strangers?
Classified botanically as an “ephemeral” for its fleeting appearance, Claytonia Virginica starts to peek out, tentatively testing the air, on rare warm and sunny February days. As those warm and sunny days become less rare, it’s increasingly emboldened and by early March, what looks like a light blanket of snow on the ground is in fact masses of tiny pink and white flowers.
At Holly Hill Inn, we know these flowers as Spring Beauties, and despite their delicacy and transience, they indelibly, inextricably bind us to this old place “up home.” We celebrate their first appearance, marvel as they multiply through March and April, and mourn their inevitable decline in the heat of longer days and stronger sun.
When Chris and Ouita Michel purchased the Holly Hill Inn almost twenty-five years ago, they promised Mike and Amy Perry that they wouldn’t mow the lawn until the Beauties finished out their season. A nicety likely lost on the Cincinnati restaurant critic who drove down for dinner one night and wrote a great review of the food while calling out our “shaggy lawn.”
Many of our neighbors to the east in Appalachia call Spring Beauties by different names – Tangle Gut and Bird’s or Chicken Toes – and have long enjoyed them alongside other spring greens, often turned into what Chef Ouita calls “kilt” salad, dressed in hot bacon fat until thoroughly wilted, or “kilt.”
Tonya Estep, who grew up in Hell for Certain, Leslie County, Ky., remembers gathering them as a 12-year-old.
When I was young, my grandma Nora would send us out in the spring to pick a small white and purple flower she called “Sookie Salad”. We would gather it in bagfuls and she cooked it by sautéing it in hot bacon grease. I thought it was something everyone knew about and ate but as I got older, I’ve yet to find another family that harvested this plant to eat.
I learned a few years ago that it’s most commonly known as “Spring Beauty” and it’s a tuberous plant. The entire plant can be eaten including the bulb that supposedly tastes like a cross between roasted chestnuts and potatoes. I still travel back to my hometown to harvest this in the spring and have also found it in the mountains where I live in London, Ky.
It’s only recently that we’ve learned to appreciate Spring Beauties for their culinary possibilities and now they regularly show up on our menus in salads and as a beautifully edible garnish. And when Chef Ouita shared her mom’s famous Penny’s Pumpkin Seed Salad dressing, Spring Beauties were part of the salad makings.
Bees enjoy them too. As an early pollinator, Spring Beauties help sustain honeybees until other flowers begin to blossom. One botanist describes the tiny pink or purple stripes on each petal as little runways that guide bees to the plant’s nectaries.
We don’t know how long Spring Beauties have grown on the lawn at Holly Hill Inn but we’re pretty sure they were there when Honeywood Parrish Rouse was a young girl in the early 1900s. So it was only natural that a stylized image of them became part of the logo for Honeywood Restaurant, Honeywood Rouse’s namesake.
Chef Ouita explained how it all came together:
We were sitting out on the porch at Holly Hill Inn with Lee and Sara of 15 United (who designed the logo) and the Beauties were out. One of the great things about working with Lee and Sara is how powerfully they listen to their clients. We were talking about all of the things Honeywood would have seen a hundred years ago that we still see and enjoy today. And one of those things are our Spring Beauties.
From Honeywood Rouse to Honeywood Restaurant, from Hell for Certain to Midway – we hope you have a patch of beauty, however fleeting in its flowering, that brings you as much joy as our Spring Beauties do. They’re a gift from the earth and one we look forward to every year.
Related Content
Salad for Ouita
Pamela Sexton wrote a poem called “Salad for Ouita.” It’s an ode to salads, a lyrical recipe. Chef Ouita built a salad with her mother’s poem as a guide and the contents of Holly Hill’s refrigerator as an inspiration. Where will Pam’s poem take you; what will go in your salad bowl?
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