Small crabapple-like berries from the mayhaw tree that grows in Deep South wetlands. Made almost exclusively into jelly. A Southern Lowcountry and Louisiana tradition; the spring harvest that marks the season.
Mayhaw jelly is a cultural currency in Louisiana, East Texas, and the Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast. A jar of homemade mayhaw jelly is a gift with weight — it signals place, season, and the labor of harvest. Families who know the trees protect that knowledge.
Mayhaw is in the hawthorn (Crataegus) family — the same genus whose extracts are used in European cardiology for mild heart failure and hypertension. Quercetin and oligomeric proanthocyanidins from hawthorn species demonstrate ACE-inhibiting activity and improved coronary circulation in clinical studies. The jelly form loses some flavonoids through sugar processing — the whole berry delivers more.
Berries harvested April-May in Deep South wetlands; shaken from trees or collected from water where they float. Washed, simmered, strained for juice, then cooked with pectin and sugar into jelly. The jelly is the traditional form — whole fresh berries are not widely consumed.
Free, no account needed to ask.