Pluff mud is defined by Dave's GardenPluff Mud.
After graduating college, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, looking for mountains, snow, and access to the desert.It couldn't have been more different from the area I grew up in.For a variety of reasons, I missed my first Thanksgiving and Christmas back in the South, and before I realized it, a year and a half had passed since I had returned.It has been my longest absence from Charleston without a visit.
I found myself driving towards the shore of The Great Salt Lake.In contrast to our abundant estuaries, people don't spend much time at or on the actual lake, which supports brine shrimp, algae, and little else.As our car approached the shore, I rolled down the windows and immediately elicited a chorus of "ewwww" from the other passengers who were pinching their noses and saying how disgusting it smelled.I declared that it smelled like home, but until that precise moment, I hadn't realized how devoid of scent that place was.I booked a flight back to Charleston within a few weeks.
I was amazed at the variety and richness of this bouillabaisse, which ranged from trash to confederate jasmine and a thousand variations in between.The smell seemed to be more intense and piquant than before.All others had a smell, but only one smelled like mud.It's the mother sauce of the area.This place is unique because of itsfecund base from which the bounty of the marsh springs forth.Depending on your point of view, it emits a repulsive or nostalgic scent.There is a different interpretation of most Southern things.
Depending on the century of your birth, plough mud is an oozy, dark-brown miasma.There is a rare confluence of life and death.The Mississippi River's sticky effluence is celebrated more than our humble pluff.It is just as important to this region as Mississippi mud is to the Delta.
According to legend, the mud was used to fertilize cotton fields.Some say the name was born of onomatopoeia, imitating the sound it emits when stepped into.It feels good coming off the tongue, regardless of the true etymology.It is fun to say.
James Dyson would be jealous of the sucking power of pluff mud.You have to sacrifice a shoe or two to be a Charlestonian.The mud vacillates wildly over the course of a few feet.Ankle deep can become mid thigh or worse within a single step.Pluff mud draws you deeper as you struggle.Pluff mud is created mostly from decaying spartina grasses.The decaying material from all of the life it helps support, including fish, crabs, shrimp, and dinoflagellates, all live in those marshy environs before becoming pluff mud themselves.Our beaches are not as white as our brethren in Florida due to the pluff mud and spartina grass.This was a representation of how this place is real compared to the culture below the St. Mary's River.Maybe that is an example ofrice bird elitism.The cloudiness of our rivers and sea is a result of what lies below the surface.The root bed for our favorite bivalves is formed by pluff mud.There is a tug-of-war between man and mud.The spoils go to the winner.My mother was a mudder.Her last email address was rmpluffmud@hotmail.com.Even though she has been gone for almost nine years, it is still in my contacts.She was always happy to get a little mud between her toes.The composition of the pluff mud is part of her.The smell of pluff mud hits me when I cross the causeway to Sullivan's Island.The smell of home.Alloneword Design is a company founded by a native of the Lowcountry that specializes in creating websites for artists, museums, and cultural organizations.There are many occupations in his life, including roofer, painter, associate professor, cook, ship worker, fishmonger, potter's assistant, archeologist, and budding restaurateur.