Catching crappie and frog gigging are good times in a johnboat, but South Arkansas swamps also offer another adventure and distinctive delicacy.
Mayhaw berries — a small, tart, red or yellow fruit that grows wild in the swampy lowlands — can be scooped off the water with a dip net. It’s a pastime unique to the region and locals love to indulge in a variety of mayhaw-inspired treats. Homemade jellies and jams, juices, sauces, delectable desserts and refreshing mayhaw punch possess lots of pectin and a rosy-like freshness. Its sweet, slightly tangy taste is like nothing else, and it pairs beautifully with biscuits, cheese boards, and even as a glaze for meats. It’s literally a miniature apple, similar in size to cranberries or small crabapples.
A type of hawthorn tree, wild mayhaws are flooded by spring rains, and by May its berries are ripe and dropping to the water or ground. Farmers have learned to graft the trees and raise them on marshy but drier land with lots of irrigation. The Maxine variety of mayhaws flourish in the environment but don’t ripen until June.
“We jokingly call those Junehaws,” says Rhonda Rudder, co-owner of Richland Creek Farm & Market in El Dorado. “We avoid a lot of the frost-kill that other Mayhaws have because the Maxine variety blooms later. We usually pick the first week of June.”
Rudder and her husband, Ken, have more than 60 mayhaw trees planted near a pond on their low-land farm 17 miles north of the Louisiana border. They’ve turned growing mayhaws from a cottage pastime into a commercial operation, retailing online their artisan mayhaw jellies, jelly gift boxes, jelly of the month club, etc. The eponymous jelly, sealed in jars at a kitchen 90 miles north in Rison, comes robust sweet with just a hint of puckering tartness and Richland Creek’s top seller.
“No other venture on earth is quite like farming,” Rudder says. “Mankind’s very existence is woven into the mantel of the Earth. Few understand this, much less get to participate, but those who do realize their skillsets and passions are being used by the One who sustains life.”
God’s gift of mayhaw trees is indigenous to the southern United States, growing wild in other places like Florida, Louisiana, and as far west as East Texas. They can grow to 30 feet and live for 50 years.
South Arkansas celebrates the mayhaw annually on the first Saturday of May in El Dorado. The 33rd annual Mayhaw Festival featured a new Mayhaw Munchies Recipe Contests this year. It’s a free festival with neither a johnboat nor dip net needed to secure some uniquely Southern flavor.
Learn more about mayhaws and Richland Creek Farm & Market here or visit them on the Arkansas Farm Trail where people discover where their food comes from. Travelers get to meet farm families who grow food, an opportunity to purchase it on site and create lasting memories. Farm passports are available at participating farms, county Farm Bureau offices or you can download the passport.
