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Pecan, according to Sturtevant’s Notes on Edible Plants, comes from the Indian (probably Algonquin) word pecaunes, which, I learned elsewhere, means “nuts requiring a stone to crack.”

We know that tribes up and down the Mississippi were using pecans just as Bartram describes. We know, too, that as early as the 1540s Cabeza de Vaca wrote of Indians wintering on pecan meal ground from nuts gathered along the great river and its tributaries.

Having found fossilized pecans in Texas and Mexico, archaeologists believe that this is where they originated millions of years ago. As for their abundance along the Mississippi and beyond, historians suggest that nomadic tribes carried them there.

The first person to write down the Indian word pecaunes (misspelled pacane) is said to have been a ship’s carpenter visiting Natchez around the turn of the eighteenth century. He was traveling with Pierre LeMoyne (Sieur d’Iberville), the young Canadian dispatched to complete LaSalle’s star-crossed exploration of the Mississippi.

In 1775 George Washington planted what he called “Mississippi nuts” at Mount Vernon and in 1779 Thomas Jefferson imported pecan trees from Louisiana for his gardens at Monticello.

Today there are more than 500 varieties of pecans, some of them named after the Indian tribes that grew them. Pecan farming is big business throughout the South but Georgia, according to the Georgia Pecan Commission, “leads the nation in pecan production.” And has for more than a hundred years.

Southerners can’t get enough of them. They bake pecans into breads, pies, cakes, and cookies. They freeze them into ice cream. Stir them into sides and salads. Spice them, sugar them, boil them into candy.

Recently, nutritionists have begun to recognize and appreciate the nutritional importance of pecans. They’re rich in largely unsaturated oleic acid (thought to lower LDL or “bad cholesterol”) and in addition, they contain phytochemicals that may (repeat may) help prevent heart disease as well as cancers of the colon and stomach. Pecans, moreover, are rich in vitamins B1 and E, good sources, too, of magnesium, copper, zinc, and fiber.

Reason enough to enjoy pecans with a clear conscience.

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GLAZED LEMON TEA BREAD

MAKES A 9 × 5 × 3-INCH LOAF

One of the fresh-baked breads served at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, this one is as much cake as bread: fine textured and both sweet and tart. The recipe here is adapted from one that appears in Elizabeth C. Kremer’s Welcome Back to Pleasant Hill: More Recipes from the Trustees’ House (1977). Shaker Village, if you don’t know it, is an authentically restored nineteenth-century Shaker village located some twenty-five miles south of Lexington. I’ve visited many times not only because the purity of Shaker design epitomizes the best of American architecture but also because there are daily demonstrations in everything from quilting to coopering to broom making. The best part about Shaker Village is that you can stay in one of the former residences and enjoy Shaker dishes in the Trustees’ Office Dining Room. If you haven’t been to Shaker Village, by all means go and take the kids. This is a slice of American history at its best.

1½ cups sifted all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup firmly packed vegetable shortening or 6 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar

Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon

2 large eggs

½ cup milk

½ cup finely chopped pecans

Glaze

1/3 cup sugar blended with the juice of 1 large lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spritz a 9 × 5 × 3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together onto a piece of wax paper and set aside also.

3. Cream the shortening, sugar, and lemon zest in a large electric mixer bowl first at low speed, then at high speed for about a minute or until well blended. With the machine at medium speed, beat the eggs in one at a time.

4. At low mixer speed, add the sifted dry ingredients alternately