The Barter Economy

I have a buddy who has always kept bees.  Even long before he got us involved with that addictive hobby.  Each week he would trade us 2 pints of his honey for our two gallons of fresh milk.  We had this arrangement for years.  I'm sure you are wondering, "What in the world did you do with all that honey?"  Well, we ate it and saved a bunch of it.  Honey will last forever.  It was a great arrangement.  The barter economy.  Two parties making a deal and both happy with the proceeds.  At that time, I was scared of bees and had no intention of keeping them.  My buddy did not want to wake up and milk cows everyday.  It worked for both of us.  

We no longer have that barter arrangement going, but we have another one that works for both of us.  Unfortunately, our friend no longer has laying hens.  Hawks, owls and other predators ate every last one of them.  What is one to do without fresh country eggs?  I don't know how you live without them.  We eat dozens and dozens of them.  Although he no longer has hens laying eggs, our friend has some land down by the bayou that is prime location for chanterelle mushrooms.  In the spring or early summer, after a rain, you can walk through the woods that slope down to the bayou and see the golden yellow chanterelles pushing up through the leaves that line the forest floor.  It doesn't take long to fill up a paper bag with them.  They smell faintly of apricots and they are so delicious to eat.

The other day we came home and found a paper bag by our door.  Upon opening it and seeing the contents, we knew exactly what they were and who they were from.  Chanterelles!  We quickly cleaned them up.

We dried them and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Then we sautéed them in a cast iron skillet with some butter.

Tricia has recently discovered a new use (for us) for sour dough bread.  She makes sour dough pizza crusts that she lines with tomato sauce, cheese, fresh cut onions, peppers and fresh chanterelle mushrooms and then bakes them in the oven.

When these come out of the oven, I'm telling you, it's time to eat and these pizzas disappear in no time at all.  So good!

The barter economy is alive and well.  We got a nice mess of chanterelle mushrooms that we ate for supper and for those we traded our friend some fresh country eggs from our hens.  Everyone's happy.  No cash changed hands and no taxes paid or collected.