University of Central Florida, Film Department, Zora Neale Hurston Institute for Documentary Studies
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Home > Research > Archives > Folklife Surveys > Florida Folk Architecture Survey: Christmas (1998)
| Christmas is a traditional ranching community located in eastern Orange County. Founded by white settlers in the nineteenth century, the town received its name from Fort Christmas, constructed during the Christmas of 1837 for use in the Seminole Wars. Christmas provides an excellent example of the Central Florida region's historic ranching, citrus, and turpentine industries. Traditional ranching still exists in Christmas today, and the Fort Christmas Historical Park preserves and promotes the town's past and present through hosting annual events and maintaining historic archives. Some of these materials are included in the Christmas survey now housed at the UCF archives. Ever wanted to know how to make "Swamp Cabbage" from palmetto, that culinary icon of Florida's distinctive scrubland folklife?
5 Brown, Patand Wika Mae. Interview dated August 14, 1980. From the Fort Christmas Museum. Visit the Special Collections Department of the UCF Library for Central Florida Folklife Materials: (General Information | Inventory) |
"And
you cut that bud out, be careful and cut it the right distance and
you miss the wood, you get above the wood fiber and there's a bitter
end between the good cabbage and the stump of the wood.You peel
off all the bitter and select the tender part put it in the pot,
put whatever seasoning you want in there. I like fat pork with mine,
and you put that on with a little water. It don't take much water
because there's a lot of water in that cabbage.Put a little salt,
very little salt 'cause it's naturally inclined to be salty.And
if you got salt bacon, you better not put any salt till you go to
eat it cause it may be plenty salt without it. Just try it.another
thing that helps cabbage if you want to have a little delicacy extra.
Add a can of corn in there. Cook it with it. The way we do it, the
way 
I've
done it in the woods, you know, just camping out, we'd have a frying
pan and fry our bacon and pour that bacon, grease and all in the
cabbage while it's cooking and then put the corn right in there."
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