Huron Indian Myth

In Gene Borio's "The History of Tobacco Part I," he relates the following:

Huron Indian myth has it that in ancient times, when the land was barren and the people were starving, the Great Spirit sent forth a woman to save humanity. As she traveled over the world, everywhere her right hand touched the soil, there grew potatoes. And everywhere her left hand touched the soil, there grew corn. And when the world was rich and fertile, she sat down and rested. When she arose, there grew tobacco . . .


EEEEW!  If that's not enough to make one stop chewing or smoking tobacco, I don't know what would!!

 James Leavey in "A History of Tobacco" states the same legend, but goes on to say:


How and when it (tobacco) was first discovered is unknown. Perhaps a native, cooking food on a leaf over a fire noticed that it gave off a particularly appealing aroma, and took his or her first sniff. Then threw the food away and settled down to a serious smoke.

Neither John nor I ever smoked and truthfully are glad of it.  We have enough habits we need to resist without adding that one to the pile.  But being in a lil' ol' Virginia farmhouse in the middle of tobacco fields makes it easier to imagine Colonial times in America.  Tobacco in indigenous to the Americas.  That makes it interesting.  And it doesn't hurt that the plants are really pretty.  Some folks even use them as ornamentals in their flowerbeds.

 
Now a days, what with the "sin tax" on tobacco products, people are beginning to rebel as the moonshiners did after Prohibition was passed.  They are beginning to grow their own patches of tobacco.  The problem there is, they suggest that one dries the tobacco leaves for a year or two before smoking them.  What smoker has THAT kind of patience?

Here on the farm, they are beginning to harvest the tobacco crop.  I say "beginning" because apparently the way you do it is one yellowing leaf at a time from the bottom of the plant up.  The workers walk down each row pulling off the leaves and stacking them up, then the farmer pulls a trailer up and the leaves are stacked on.  This goes on each day, and only the yellowing leaves are picked.  Next day, more yellow leaves show and more picking goes on.  The plants are really pretty and not a bug bite to be seen anywhere.  (Obviously they spray insecticide - which is ANOTHER reason not to smoke tobacco.)  Pretty soon the stalks are stripped clean of leaves and the barns are full.

Then the leaves are hung up to dry.  These log out-buildings that are certainly a century old are all over the countryside.  But mostly the leaves are now put in a drying room heated by propane heaters.  I know this because there is such a metal room here by the farmhouse that has been filled with racks of leaves.

Once the tobacco is cured, unless you want lots of additives for flavoring and shelf-life, all that is left to do is slicing the leaf into very thin strips, twist it for chewing, wrap it in cigarette paper for smoking, or roll the leaf up for a cigar.