Subject: Stories of Early Cooking in Mid-West

From: [email-masked] (Patrick McCurdy)
Date: 24 Jul 1993 12:48:47 GMT

This come from a distant cousin in Cunot, Indiana.  She was born around 
1910, so you can figure that the Grandma she refers to was born around
1850.  That makes these stories relavent to about 1875-1925.

   I thought that you all might enjoy some of these; I found them quite
interesting.  These are actually extracts from a longer piece dealing
with family history.  I would really like the recipes for some of these
things, especially the beer.

   I hope that this starts lots of discussion, but do please change the
subject line if you start discussing a prticluar item here...

Patrick

>From Cousin Betsene:

   We didn't have electric refrigerators then and, after a big Sunday dinner, 
the food was left on the table and covered with a white cloth.  There were no
 plastic table clothes, either.  The kids would go to the table and hold up 
the cloth with their heads and eat what they wanted.  Food didn't last long 
enough to need refrigeration.  Seems as if kids were always hungry and things 
tasted better when you were young.  Grandma had a cistern and she would put 
butter and milk in a bucket, tie a rope on the pail and gently lower the bucket 
into the cool water of the cistern until the next meal.

   In the morning they'd start the kitchen range fire by carrying "live" coals 
from the fireplace to the range where little pieces of wood called "kindling" 
had been placed.  The whole house would be blue with smoke from the trans-
portation of colas.

   Grandma used to get wheat from the barn and wash it and then cover it
with water in a a pan and place it on the flat place on top of the heating 
stove.  She did this at night and the next morning, we'd have cooked wheat 
for breakfast.  We'd put sugar and sweet cream on it.  We really had the whole 
grain native wheat and it was good.

   Then Grandma would gouge off some cured ham (she never had a sharp knife) 
and fry it and then make "red gravy".  This was done simply by pouring water 
in the skillet after removing the fried ham.  If you put milk in it, it was 
called "cream gravy".  Grandma's biscuits were the whitest, fluffiest...words 
fail me.

   People at Cunot distinguished baked bread from biscuits and cornbread by 
calling it "light bread".  If we had biscuits for dinner, someone would ask, 
"Are there enough biscuits or will we have to finish up on light bread?"

   Grandma cooked "rice" several times a week.  This was eaten as a cereal
or with salt and butter.  They cooked tomatoes for breakfast and they would
say they had "madoes and biscuits."  I guess this took the place of a more 
modern breakfast featuring tomato juice.  We also had corn fritters, which 
I still prepare, sometimes.  You make these simply by frying the cornbread
batter as hot cakes instead of baking it.

   I recall seeing Grandma and some of the other natives eating cold
clabbered milk.  I believe they put sugar or syrup on it and declared it the 
"finest kind."  It may have tasted something like yogurt, which I don't
like, either.

   Then there was hominy.  Some people called this "hulled corn."  Lye
had to be used in this process there was no _Lewis_Lye_, so the lye was made 
by pouring water over wood ashes.  The lye was sued to boil the shelled
corn.  The corn then had to be washed and washed and then washed again - 
and rubbed between your hands.  After the thick, tough hull was removed from
the kernals, the boiling process began again.  When it was tender, one would
place it in a cool place and only use enough for one meal at a time.  This
was usually made in the winter as corn cannot be kept long.  Some people
would fry it - others put cream and butter on it and heated this for "one
meal at a time."

   Elmer Knoll, who was mom's cousin, made sorghum for everybody.  This 
was made by squeezing the juice from sugar cane and boiling it until it
was a thick, caramel colored molasses.  Elmer was an expert at his.  Some
people thought he put butter in it, but I don't know.  I've learned since,
he did put butter in it.  One time my folks had it made closer to Brazil 
[Indiana] and it wasn't like Elmer's.  Mom would try to boil it again and 
put butter in it and it was better.  Folks around Cunot always spoke about
molasses in the plural form as:  "They are really good this year."

   Everyone had a molasses pitcher.  They made sugar syrup by boiling sugar
and water and pouring it in the "pitcher."  Of course, it would go to sugar 
and often the pitcher would have hard sugar in the bottom.  This would have
to be soaked out.

   Grandma also made corn cob syrup.  After the corn was shelled, she would
wash the cobs and then boil them for several hours.  The corn cobs were then
discarded and the remaining water was sweetened with sugar and boiled until
thick.  It had a taste very much like maple - I think.  It did have a flavor
different than just plain sugar and water.

   Maple syrup was also made in Cunot.  They called it tree molasses.  They
also did something to the sap (they called it "sugar water") that resulted
in sugar water beer [I would kill for this recipe!!! - plm].  I don't
know how this was done but I suppose they let it ferment for a while.

   I've heard Mom talk about drying corn, apples, beans, peaches, etc.
They made jelly but I don't know if they canned much or not.  People at
corn pone and corn dodger which was made from corn meal.  Dodger was made
quite rich with lard and baked on a griddle.  It had a real thick crust.

   There was "johnny cake", too.  I believe the term johnny cake came from
"journey cake".  When the old settlers were traveling to a new place they
took this with them or maybe it was easier made along the way than the 
aforementioned light bread.  You know, I believe _meal_ was different long
ago.  I've heard Mom talk about pouring boiling water over meal and it would
rise or ferment.  They would put the rest of the ingredients in it and bake
it.  One kind was made in two large cakes and padded down in the griddle and
fried on top of the stove.  The batter was thicker than corn bread.  The
finger prints were left on top of the "johnny" cake.  My grandmother, and my
mother had larger joints in the fingers than I do so we could make our own
mark on this corn meal revelation.

   The "old timers" always put "cracklins" in corn bread.  "Cracklins" were
made by boiling the fat from pork to make lard.  Then this was placed in 
a press and every last bit of anything was pressed from this fat.  This was
called "rendered lard."  They had a cale of "pressed out" fat that was broken
up and called "cracklins."  I think there is a fancy name now - "pork skins"
or something.  I prefer "cracklins" anyway.

   Then we ground coffee.  We'd put coffee beans in a funnel type "contraption" 
that had a grinder in the bottom and grind like crazy.  The grounds would fall 
into a compartment below with a drawer in it.  Sometimes in the process, the
drawer would fall out and coffee would scatter all over the house.

   I recall one time I stirred the gravy with the spatula and, if I had
put lye in it there would not have been any more commotion.  They had all
these rules about cooking.  Stir with a fork or knife and never salt anything 
until it was almost done.  Never put very much water on things to cook - like 
potatoes, peas, beans, etc.  Fried corn was a great dish.  Pies were always 
taken from the pan and placed ever so gently on a plate.  If you didn't have many
plates, stack the pies on top of each other.  they never were very thick,
anyway.  Most common pies were grape, blackberry - anything you raised at home.

   Grandma always had chickens.  They called the chicken pen a chicken park.
Oh, Cunot could be fancy.  We'd go up there sometimes and Grandma's arms would
be all black and blue and scratched.  All obtained in the process of catching
a chicken and killing it to eat.

   Grandma never cooked the feet of the chicken but she did cook the egg sack.
I though that was terrible.  She was a good cook.  She made the best sugar 
cookies.  Do you remember how the cook stove fire would nearly go out and the
kitchen would get cold?  You'd have to stoke up the fire a bit for a cup of tea
or coffee or perhaps some popcorn.  My that was good.

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 26 Jul 93 11:07:48 CDT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Patrick McCurdy) writes:

|   Then there was hominy.  Some people called this "hulled corn."  Lye
|had to be used in this process there was no _Lewis_Lye_, so the lye was made 
|by pouring water over wood ashes.  The lye was sued to boil the shelled
|corn.  The corn then had to be washed and washed and then washed again - 
|and rubbed between your hands.  After the thick, tough hull was removed from
|the kernals, the boiling process began again.  When it was tender, one would
|place it in a cool place and only use enough for one meal at a time.  This
|was usually made in the winter as corn cannot be kept long.  Some people
|would fry it - others put cream and butter on it and heated this for "one
|meal at a time."
|

Well here we have another clue about ash washing corn.  I still wish I
could get a recipe.  I bought some cal (lime) at the Mexican food store
the other day to process some of the corn I grew, but there were no
instructions.

Somebody posted an FAQ from soc.culture.mexican.  I can't remember where
I saved it.
---
David, N0WWN/AA
	November Zero Wiskey Wiskey November
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  [email-masked]
     -Sourdough and Ham-              - Minnesotans for Global Warming! -
	(&gardner)

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 26 Jul 93 11:10:43 CDT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Patrick McCurdy) writes:
|   Grandma used to get wheat from the barn and wash it and then cover it
|with water in a a pan and place it on the flat place on top of the heating 
|stove.  She did this at night and the next morning, we'd have cooked wheat 
|for breakfast.  We'd put sugar and sweet cream on it.  We really had the whole 
|grain native wheat and it was good.
|

My parents would serve this once in a while when I was little.  I couldn't
stand the stuff.  It was way too chewy like indian rubber.  I could tolerate 
cracked wheat cerial much better.  My parents would tell us how my pioneer
ancestors grew up on the stuff and how healthy it made them so eat up.  ;^)

---
David, N0WWN/AA

---

From: [email-masked] (John McHarry)
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 01:58:06 GMT

>|for breakfast.  We'd put sugar and sweet cream on it.  We really had the whole 
I could tolerate 
>ancestors grew up on the stuff and how healthy it made them so eat up.  ;^)

I have not tried the former (never thought of it), but wheat busted up a
bit in the Osterizer and cooked in boiling water is about the same as
Ralstons, not bad, but you need a real glass container:  It will destroy
plastic ones.

---

From: [email-masked] (Charlie Sorsby)
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:29:14 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
= 
= Well here we have another clue about ash washing corn.  I still wish I
= could get a recipe.  I bought some cal (lime) at the Mexican food store
= the other day to process some of the corn I grew, but there were no
= instructions.

David,

See if you can find a series of books.  The first was called the
_Foxfire Book_ or something like that.  After that, I think they
were called _The Second Foxfire Book_, ...  They were researched
and written at (as I recall) a high school in Appalachia somewhere
(one of the Carolinas comes to mind) and were an effort to preserve
the old ways before all the old folks die(d) off.  There must be
nearly a dozen volumes (I think I have four or five).  I would be
very surprised if one of them didn't describe in detail how to make
hominy by the old methods (i.e. with ashes).

If anyone is interested in that series of books, mail me and I'll
get more information when I get home.  They are not exclusively
about food preparation but include stuff about log-cabin making,
basketmaking, making chairs from green oak sapplings, cooking,
superstitions, whiskey making, .....  My recollection is that one
teacher started the project and his students would go out into
the mountains and interview the old folks with a tape recorder to
obtain their recollections about just about anything.

-- 
Best,

Charlie "Older than dirt" Sorsby				"I'm the NRA!"
	  [email-masked]