The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dishes & Beverages of the Old South, by Martha McCulloch Williams, Illustrated by Russel Crofoot This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Dishes & Beverages of the Old South Author: Martha McCulloch Williams Release Date: April 4, 2009 [eBook #28491] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISHES & BEVERAGES OF THE OLD SOUTH*** E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Cover Dishes & Beverages of the Old South [3] By Martha McCulloch-Williams Author of "Field Farings," "Two of a Trade," "Milre," "Next to the Ground," etc. Decorations by Russel Crofoot Decoration New York McBride Nast & Company 1913 Copyright, 1913, by MCBRIDE, NAST & CO. ————————— Published, October, 1913 CONTENTS PAGE Grace before Meat 9 The Staff of Life 26 Saving Your Bacon 39 Hams and Other Hams 59 For Thirsty Souls 72 Paste, Pies, Puddings 90 Creole Cookery 118 Cakes, Great and Small 136 Meat, Poultry, Game, Eggs 158 Soups, Salads, Relishes 185 Vegetables, Fruit Desserts, Sandwiches 202 Pickles, Preserves, Coffee, Tea, Chocolate 220 When the Orchards "Hit" 239 Upon Occasions 257 Soap and Candles 292 [4] [5] [7] Title Grace before Meat Grace before Meat "Let me cook the dinners of a nation, and I shall not care who makes its laws." Women, if they did but know it, might well thus paraphrase a famous saying. Proper dinners mean so much—good blood, good health, good judgment, good conduct. The fact makes tragic a truth too little regarded; namely, that while bad cooking can ruin the very best of raw foodstuffs, all the arts of all the cooks in the world can do no more than palliate things stale, flat and unprofitable. To buy such things is waste, instead of economy. Food must satisfy the palate else it will never truly satisfy the stomach. An unsatisfied stomach, or one overworked by having to wrestle with food which has bulk out of all proportion to flavor, too often makes its vengeful protest in dyspepsia. It is said underdone mutton cost Napoleon the battle of Leipsic, and eventually his crown. I wonder, now and then, if the prevalence of divorce has any connection with the decline of home cooking? A far cry, and heretical, do you say, gentle reader? Not so far after all—these be sociologic days. I am but leading up to the theory with facts behind it, that it was through being the best fed people in the world, we of the South Country were able to put up the best fight in history, and after the ravages and ruin of civil war, come again to our own. We might have been utterly crushed but for our proud and pampered stomachs, which in turn gave the bone, brain and brawn for the conquests of peace. So here's to our Mammys—God bless them! God rest them! This imperfect chronicle of the nurture wherewith they fed us is inscribed with love to their memory. Almost my earliest memory is of Mammy's kitchen. Permission to loiter there was a Reward of Merit—a sort of domestic Victoria Cross. If, when company came to spend the day, I made my manners prettily, I might see all the delightful hurley-burley of dinner-cooking. My seat was the biscuit block, a section of tree-trunk at least three feet across, and waist-high. Mammy set me upon it, but first covered it with her clean apron—it was almost the only use she ever made of the apron. The block stood well out of the way—next the meal barrel in the corner behind the door, and hard by the Short Shelf, sacred to cake and piemaking, as the Long Shelf beneath the window was given over to the three water buckets—cedar with brass hoops always shining like gold—the piggin, also of cedar, the corn-bread tray, and the cup-noggin. Above, the log wall bristled with knives of varying edge, stuck in the cracks; with nails whereon hung flesh-forks, spoons, ladles, skimmers. These were for the most part hand-wrought, by the local blacksmith. The forks in particular were of a classic grace—so much so that when, in looking through my big sister's mythology I came upon a picture of Neptune with his trident, I called it his flesh-fork, and asked if he were about to take up meat with it, from the waves boiling about his feet. The kitchen proper would give Domestic Science heart failure, yet it must have been altogether sanitary. Nothing about it was tight enough to harbor a self-respecting germ. It was the rise of twenty feet square, built stoutly of hewn logs, with a sharply pitched board roof, a movable loft, a plank floor boasting inch-wide cracks, a door, two windows and a fireplace that took up a full half of one end. In front of the fireplace stretched a rough stone hearth, a yard in depth. Sundry and several cranes swung against the chimney-breast. When fully in commission they held pots enough to cook for a regiment. The pots themselves, of cast iron, with close-fitting tops, ran from two to ten gallons in capacity, had rounded bottoms with three pertly outstanding legs, and ears either side for the iron pot-hooks, which varied in size even as did the pots themselves. [7] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Additionally there were ovens, deep and shallow, spiders, skillets, a couple of tea-kettles, a stew kettle, a broiler with a long spider-legged trivet to rest on, a hoe-baker, a biscuit-baker, and waffle-irons with legs like tongs. Each piece of hollow ware had its lid, with eye on top for lifting off with the hooks. Live coals, spread on hearth and lids, did the cooking. To furnish them there was a wrought iron shovel, so big and heavy nobody but Mammy herself could wield it properly. Emptied vessels were turned upside down on the floor under the Long Shelf—grease kept away rust. But before one was used it had to be scoured with soap and sand rock, rinsed and scalded. Periodically every piece was burned out—turned upside down over a roaring fire and left there until red hot, then slowly cooled. This burning out left a fine smooth surface after scouring. Cast iron, being in a degree porous, necessarily took up traces of food when it had been used for cooking a month or so. Ah me! What savors, what flavors came out of the pots! Years on years I was laughed at for maintaining that no range ever turned out things to equal open-hearth cookery. But it took paper bags to prove beyond cavil the truth of my contention. Even paper-bagging does not quite match the open-hearth process, though there is the same secret of superiority, namely, cooking things in their own essence by the agency of hot air. The sealed and loaded bag needs must be laid on a grate-shelf in a hot oven—touch of solid hot iron is fatal to it. Iron vessels set above smoothly spread coals got hot, but not red-hot—red heat belonged to the lids. They were swung over the fire and heated before setting them in place—then the blanket of coals and embers held in heat which, radiating downward, made the cooking even. Scorching of course was possible unless the cook knew her business, and minded it well. Our Mammys not only knew their business but loved it—often with a devotion that raised it to the rank of Art. Add the palate of a gourmet born, a free hand at the fat, the sweet, strong waters and high flavors—what wonder it is to envy those of us they fed! My individual Mammy was in figure an oblate spheroid—she stood five feet, one inch high, weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, had a head so flat buckets sat on it as of right, was as light on her feet, in number twelve shoes, as the slimmest of her children and foster children, could shame the best man on the place at lifting with the hand-stick, or chop him to a standstill—if her axe exactly suited her. She loved her work, her mistress, her children black and white— even me, though I was something of a trial—her garden and her God. All these she served fondly, faithfully, with rare good humor and the nicest judgment. Fall soft upon her, rain and snow! Sunshine and green grass, make happy always the slope where she rests! She put on a clean white frock every morning—by breakfast time it was a sickly gray along the front—the thick of the dinner-battle was writ large on it in black smudges. She herself explained: "I ain't sech er dirty 'ooman—hit's dest I'se so big, dirt ketches me comin' and gwine." Air and more air she would have, regardless of weather. The big board- window had its shutter up all day long—the glass window was a vexation, since it opened only halfway. By way of evening things, daubing and chinking got knocked out of at least half the cracks between the wall logs as sure as Easter came—not to be replaced until the week before Christmas. I doubt if they would have been put back even then, but that Mammy dreaded criticism, from maids and carriage drivers visiting kinfolk brought with them. Big yawning cracks in cold weather were in a way the hall-mark of poor-white cabins. It would have half broken Mammy's heart to give anybody room to say she belonged to less than real quality. She was autocratic; a benevolent despot; withal severe. If I displeased her by meddling, putting small grimy fingers into pies they should not touch, she set me to shelling black-eyed peas—a task my soul loathed, likewise the meddlesome fingers—still I knew better than to sulk or whine over it. For that I would have been sent back into the house. The kitchen stood thirty yards away from the back door, with a branchy oak in front of it, and another, even branchier, shading the log foot-way between. The house offered only grown-up talk, which rarely interested me. In the kitchen I caught scraps of Brer Rabbit's history, pithily applied, other scraps of song—Mammy always "gave out" the words to herself before singing them—proverbs and sayings such as "Cow want her tail agin in fly-time" applied to an ingrate, or: "Dat's er high kick fer er low horse," by way of setting properly in place a pretender. Best of all, I got the latest news of the countryside for ten miles around. Wireless has little on the way things ran about among the plantations. It was a point of honor among the black men to have wives or sweethearts away from home. This meant running about nightly—consequently cross-currents of gossip lively enough to make the yellowest journal turn green with envy. Mammy was a trifle apologetic over having a husband no further off than the next neighbor's. To make up for it, however, the husbands who came to his house lived from three to five miles away—and one of them worked at the mill, hence was a veritable human chronicle. Thus Mammy was able to hold her head up with Susan, her sister, who milked and washed. Susan might have been called a widow of degrees—she had had three husbands, but only two were living. The last parting was always threatening to end in meeting over again—still that did not hinder her cabin from being the rendezvous of all the likeliest fellows within easy walking range. Naturally she had things to tell—worth hearing whether or no they were true. So also had Phoebe, who was a sort of scullion, fetching in wood and water, gathering vegetables, picking chickens, scouring all things from the big pot to the floor. Shelves were scoured daily, the floor three times a week. This had to be a matter of faith after an hour or so—it certainly did not look it. Sweeping, done three times a day, was largely a matter of form. Phoebe went conscientiously over the uncluttered spaces, and even reached the nose of her broom between pots and ovens, but only coarse trash gathered before the broom—all the rest went through the cracks. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] Mammy said Phoebe's news could be believed. "De gal don't know no mo'n ter tell dest whut she done heard." She truly was slow-witted and slow-spoken, but Isham, her step-father, was cook to the Gresham brothers, the beaux of the neighborhood, who kept bachelor's hall. His mother had been their Mammy—hence his inherited privilege of knowing rather more about his young masters than they knew themselves. Little pitchers have big ears. Set it to the credit of the black folk, they always had regard for the innocence of childhood. Scandal was merely breathed—not even so hinted as to arouse curiosity. Foul speech I never heard from them nor a trace of profanity. What I did hear was a liberal education in the humanities—as time passes I rate more and more highly the sense of values it fixed in a plastic mind. I think it must have been because our Mammys saw all things from the elemental angle, they were critics so illuminating of manners and morals. Here ends reminiscence, set down in hope it may breed understanding. All I actually learned from Mammy and her cooking was—how things ought to taste. The which is essential. It has been the pole-star of my career as a cook. Followed faithfully along the Way of Many Failures, through a Country of Tribulations, it has brought me into the haven of knowledge absolute. If the testimony of empty plates and smiling guests can establish a fact, then I am a good cook —though limited. I profess only to cook the things I care to cook well. Hence I have set my hand to this, a real cook's book. Most cook books are written by folk who cook by hearsay—it is the fewest number of real cooks who can write so as not to bewilder the common or garden variety of mind. The bulk of what follows has an old-time Southern foundation, with such frillings as experience approves. To it there will be added somewhat of Creole cookery, learned and proved here in New York town by grace of Milly, the very queen of New Orleans cooks, temporarily transplanted. Also sundry and several delectable dishes of alien origins—some as made in France or Germany, some from the far Philippines, but all proved before record. In each case the source is indicated in the title. Things my very own, evolved from my inner consciousness, my outer opportunity and environment, I shall likewise mark personal. Lastly, but far from leastly, let me make protest against over-elaboration, alike in food and the serving thereof. The very best decoration for a table is something good in the plates. This is not saying one should not plan to please the eye no less than the palate. But ribbon on sandwiches is an anachronism—so is all the flummery of silk and laces, doilies and doo-dads that so often bewilder us. They are unfair to the food—as hard to live up to as anybody's blue china. I smile even yet, remembering my husband's chuckles, after we had come home from eating delicatessen chicken off ten- dollar plates, by help of antique silver. Somehow the viands and the service seemed "out of drawing." Quoth Heine the cynic: "Woman, woman! Much must be forgiven thee! Thou hast loved much—and many." Edibly I love much rather than many. Enough of one thoroughly good thing, with proper accessories, is more satisfying than seven courses—each worse than the last. Also cheaper, also much less trouble. If time has any value, the economy of it in dishwashing alone is worth considering. In these piping days of rising prices, economy sounds good, even in the abstract. Add the concrete fact that you save money as well as trouble, and the world of cooks may well sit up and take notice. The one-piece dinner is as convenient and comfortable as the one-piece frock. There are, of course, occasions to which it is unsuited. One-piece must be understood to mean the pièce de resistance—the backbone of subsistence as it were. A bowl of rich soup or chowder, with crackers on the side, a generous helping of well-cooked meat, with bread or potatoes, and the simplest relishes, or a royally fat pudding overrun with brandy sauce; each or either can put it all over a splash of this, a dab of that, a slab of something else, set lonesomely on a separate plate and reckoned a meal—in courses. Courses are all well enough—they have my warm heart when they come "in the picture." But when they are mostly "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," then I would trade them, and gladly, for as much good bread and butter as appetite called for. By way of postscript: being a strict and ardent advocate of temperance, I refused to consider writing this book unless I had full liberty to advise the use of wine, brandy, cordials, liquors, where good cooking demands them. Any earthly thing can be abused—to teach right use is the best preventive of abuse. Liquors, like everything else, must be good. "Cooking sherry" is as much an abomination as "cooking butter," or "cooking apples." You will never get out of pot or pan anything fundamentally better than what went into it. Cooking is not alchemy; there is no magic in the pot. The whole art and mystery of it is to apply heat and seasoning in such fashion as to make the best, and the most, of such food supplies as your purse permits. Tough meat cannot be cooked tender; tainted meat cannot be cooked sound. It is the same with stale fish, specked or soured fruit, withered vegetables. It pays to educate tradesfolk into understanding that you want the best and only the best of what you buy. If the thing you want, in perfect condition, is beyond your means, take, instead of a lower grade of it, the highest grade of something cheaper. So shall you escape waste of time, effort and substance. Never mind sneers at your simple fare. Remember it was Solomon the Wise who wrote: "Better a dinner of herbs and contentment than a stalled ox, and contention therewith." Paraphrase the last clause into "spoiled ox and ptomaines therewith," and you may keep not only self-respect, but that of the neighbors. [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] The Staff of Life The Staff of Life Bread, more than almost any other foodstuff, can not be better than what it is made of. Here as elsewhere a bungler can ruin the very best of flour or meal. But the queen of cooks can not make good a fundamental deficiency. Hence in buying flour look for these things: a slightly creamy cast—dazzling whiteness shows bleaching, as a gray- white, or black specks mean grinding from spoiled grain. The feel should be velvety, with no trace of roughness— roughness means, commonly, mixture with corn. A handful tightly gripped should keep the shape of the hand, and show to a degree the markings of the palm. A pinch wet rather stiff, and stretched between thumb and finger, will show by the length of the thread it spins richness or poverty in gluten—one of the most valuable food elements. The cornmeal of commerce will not be satisfactory in any receipt here given. It has been bolted and kiln-dried out of all natural flavor. Take the trouble to get meal water-ground, from white flint corn, and fresh from the mill. Then you will have something worth spending time and effort upon—spending them hopefully. Why, the wisest man can not tell—but steam-ground meal is of a flavor wholly unlike that water-ground. The grinding should be neither too fine nor too coarse. Bran left in, and sifted out as needed, helps to save from musting, and to preserve the delicate natural flavor. Fresh meal, in clean bright tin or glass, or in a stout paper sack, where it is dry, cool and airy will keep two months. Hence buy it judiciously, in proportion to your family's corn-cake appetite. It is impossible to give exactly the amount of liquid for any sort of bread-making because the condition of flour and meal varies with weather and keeping. This applies also to sugar—hence the need for intelligence in the use of receipts. In damp muggy weather moisture is absorbed from the atmosphere. Upon a dry day especially if there is much wind, drying out is inevitable. Anything that feels clammy, or that clots, should be dried in a warm, not hot, oven. Heating flour before mixing it, taking care not to scorch it in the least, is one small secret of light bread, biscuit and cake. Flour in a bag may be laid in the sun with advantage. Use judgment in mixing. Note the appearance of what you are making closely—when it turns out extra good, set up that first condition as a standard. Beaten Biscuit: (Old Style.) Sift a quart of flour into a bowl or tray, add half a teaspoon salt, then cut small into it a teacup of very cold lard. Wet with cold water—ice water is best—into a very stiff dough. Lay on a floured block, or marble slab, and give one hundred strokes with a mallet or rolling pin. Fold afresh as the dough beats thin, dredging in flour if it begins to stick. The end of beating is to distribute air well through the mass, which, expanding by the heat of baking, makes the biscuit light. The dough should be firm, but smooth and very elastic. Roll to half-inch thickness, cut out with a small round cutter, prick lightly all over the top, and bake in steady heat to a delicate brown. Too hot an oven will scorch and blister, too cold an one make the biscuit hard and clammy. Aim for the Irishman's "middle exthrame." There are sundry machines which do away with beating. It is possible also to avoid it by running the dough, after mixing, several times through a food-chopper. Also beaten biscuit can be closely imitated by making good puff paste, rolling, cutting out, pricking and baking—but rather more quickly than the real thing. All these are expedients for those who live in apartments, where the noise of beating might be held against good neighborhood. Householders, and especially suburban ones, should indulge in the luxury of a block or stone or marble slab—and live happy ever after, if they can but get cooks able and willing to make proper use of it. Soda Biscuit: (Old Style.) Sift a quart of flour with a heaping teaspoonful of baking soda. Add a good pinch of salt, rub well through lard or butter the size of the fist, then wet with sour milk to a moderately soft dough, roll out, working quickly, cut with small round cutter, set in hot pans, leaving room to swell, and bake in a quick oven just below scorching heat. Handle as lightly as possible all through—this makes flaky biscuit. By way of variety, roll out thin—less than a half-inch, cut with three-inch cutter, grease lightly on top, and fold along the middle. Let rise on top a hot stove several minutes before putting to bake. By adding an egg, beaten light, with a heaping tablespoonful of sugar to the dough in mixing, these doubled biscuit will be quite unlike the usual sort. Salt Rising Bread: (As Mammy Made It.) Scald a tablespoonful of sifted cornmeal, and a teaspoonful—heaped— of salt with a pint of boiling water, let stand ten minutes, then stir in, taking care to mix smooth, enough dried and sifted flour to make a thick batter. Damp flour will not rise. The batter should be almost thick enough to hold the mixing spoon [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] upright—but not quite thick enough. Set the mixture in warm water—just as hot as you can bear your hand in. Keep up the heat steadily, but never make too hot—scalding ruins everything. Keep lightly covered, and away from draughts. Look in after an hour—if water has risen on top, stir in more flour. Watch close—in six hours the yeast should be foamy-light. Have ready three quarts of dry sifted flour, make a hole in the center of it, pour in the yeast, add a trifle more salt, a tablespoonful sugar, and half a cup of lard. Work all together to a smooth dough, rinsing out the vessel that has held the yeast, with warm not hot water to finish the mixing. Divide into loaves, put in greased pans, grease lightly over the top, and set to rise, in gentle heat. When risen bake with steady quick heat. Take from pans hot, and cool between folds of clean cloth, spread upon a rack, or else turn the loaves edgewise upon a clean board, and cover with cheese cloth. To make supper-rolls, shape some of the dough into balls, brush over with melted butter, set in a deep pan, just so they do not touch, raise and bake the same as bread. Dough can be saved over for breakfast rolls, by keeping it very cold, and working in at morning, a tiny pinch of soda before shaping the balls. Sweet Potato Biscuit: (Old Style.) Boil soft two large or four small sweet potatoes, mash smooth while very hot, free of strings and eyes, add a pinch of salt, then rub well through three cups of sifted flour. Rub in also a generous handful of shortening, then wet up soft with two eggs beaten very light, and sweet milk. A little sugar also if you have a sweet tooth—but only a little. Roll to half-inch thickness, cut out with small cutter, lay in warm pan, and bake brown in a quick oven. Soda and buttermilk can take the place of eggs and sweet milk—in which case the sugar is advisable. Mix the soda with the milk—enough to make it foamy, but no more. Waffles: (Mammy's.) Separate three eggs. Beat yolks and whites very light. Add to the yolks alternately a pint of very rich sweet milk, and handfuls of sifted flour. Enough to make a batter rather thicker than cream. Put in also half a teaspoon—scant—of salt, and half a cup of lard, or lard and butter, melted so it will barely run. Mix well, then add the beaten whites of egg. Have the waffle irons hot but not scorching—grease well with melted lard—the salt in butter will make the batter stick. Cook quickly but take care not to burn. Lay on hot plate—have a pitcher of melted butter to pour on. Lay the second waffle upon the first, butter, and keep hot. It is not safe to begin serving without at least six waffles in plate. This, of course, provided you have several eaters with genuine appetites. Syrup can be passed with the waffles—but it is profanation to drench them with it—strong clear coffee, and broiled chicken are the proper accompaniments at breakfast. Plain Corn Bread: (The Best.) Sift sound fresh white cornmeal, wet with cold water to a fairly soft dough, shape it by tossing from hand to hand into small pones, and lay them as made into a hot pan well sprinkled with dry meal. The pan should be hot enough to brown the meal without burning it. Make the pones about an inch thick, four inches long, and two and a half broad. Bake quickly, taking care not to scorch, until there is a brown crust top and bottom. For hoe-cakes make the dough a trifle softer, lay it by handfuls upon a hot-meal-sprinkled griddle, taking care the handfuls do not touch. Flatten to half an inch, let brown underneath, then turn, press down and brown the upper side. Do not let yourself be seduced into adding salt—the delight of plain corn-bread is its affinity for fresh butter. It should be eaten drenched with butter of its own melting—the butter laid in the heart of it after splitting pone or hoe-cake. Salt destroys this fine affinity. It however savors somewhat bread to be eaten butterless. Therefore Mammy always said: "Salt in corn-bread hit does taste so po' white-folks'y." She had little patience with those neighbors of ours who perforce had no butter to their bread. Egg Bread: (Mammy's.) Beat two eggs very light with a pinch of salt, add two cups sifted cornmeal, then wet with a pint of buttermilk in which a teaspoonful of soda has been dissolved. Stir in a spoonful of shortening, barely melted, mix well, and pour into well greased pans or skillets, cook quickly, till the crust is a good brown, and serve immediately. Or bake in muffin moulds. For delicate stomachs the shortening can be left out, but pans or moulds must be greased extra well. If milk is very sour, make it one-third water—this is better than putting in more soda. Batter Cakes: (Old Style.) Sift together half-cup flour, cup and a half meal, add pinch of salt, scald with boiling water, stir smooth, then add two eggs well beaten, and thin with sweet milk—it will take about half a pint. Bake by spoonfuls on a hot, well-greased griddle—the batter must run very freely. Serve very hot with fresh sausage, or fried pigs' feet if you would know just how good batter cakes can be. Ash Cake: (Pioneer.) This is possible only with wood fires—to campers or millionaires. Make dough as for plain bread, but add the least trifle of salt, sweep the hot hearth very clean, pile the dough on it in a flattish mound, cover with big leaves—cabbage leaves will do at a pinch, or even thick clean paper, then pile on embers with coals over them and leave for an hour or more, according to size. Take up, brush off ashes, and break away any cindery bits. Serve with new butter and fresh buttermilk. This was sometimes the sole summer supper of very great families in the old time. Beyond a doubt, ash cake properly cooked has a savory sweetness possible to no other sort of corn bread. Mush Bread: (Overton Receipt.) To a quart of very thick mush, well salted, add three fresh eggs, breaking them in one after the other, and beating hard between. When smooth add half a cup of rich milk, and half a cup melted butter. Stir hard, then add one teaspoonful baking powder, and bake quickly. Bake in the serving dish as it is too soft for turning out, requiring to be dipped on the plates with a spoon. Hence the name in some mouths: "Spoon bread." Cracklin' Bread: (Pioneer.) Sift a pint of meal, add a pinch of salt, then mix well through a teacup of cracklings— left from rendering lard. Wet up with boiling water, make into small pones, and bake brown in a quick but not scorching oven. [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] Pumpkin Bread: (Pioneer.) Sift a pint of meal, add salt to season fully, then rub through a large cupful of stewed pumpkin, made very smooth. Add half a cup melted lard, then mix with sweet milk to a fairly stiff dough, make pones, and bake crisp. Mashed sweet potato can be used instead of pumpkin, and cracklings, rubbed very fine in place of lard. Folks curious as to older cookery, can even make persimmon bread, using the pulp of ripe persimmons to mix with the meal—but they will need the patience of Job to free the pulp properly from skin and seed. Mush Batter Cakes: (For Invalids.) Bring half a pint of water to a bubbling boil in something open, add to it a pinch of salt, then by littles, strew in a cup of sifted meal, stirring it well to avoid lumps. Let cool partly, then cook by small spoonfuls on a hot griddle very lightly greased. Make the spoonfuls brown on both sides, and serve very hot. Wafers: (For Invalids or Parties.) Rub a cup of lard or butter, through a quart of sifted flour. Butter will give enough salt—with lard add a pinch. Mix with sweet milk, the richer the better, to a smooth dough, not stiff nor soft. Shape into balls the size of a small egg, roll out very thin, prick lightly all over, and bake brown—it will take about five minutes in a quick oven. Cool on cloth and keep dry. Handle delicately—if the wafers are what they should be; they break and crumble at any rough touch. Saving Your Bacon Saving Your Bacon Plenty in the smokehouse was the cornerstone of the old time southern cookery. Hence hog-killing was a festival as joyous as Christmas—and little less sacred. There was keen rivalry amongst plantations as to which should show the finest pen of fattening hogs. Though the plantation force was commonly amply sufficient for the work of slaughter, owners indulged their slaves by asking help of each other—of course returning the favor at need. A far cry from a cook book, common or garden variety. Here, it is worth its space, as explaining in a measure what follows. Namely full direction for choosing your fatted pig, cutting him up, and making the most of the ultimate results. Choose carcasses between a hundred and seventy-five and a hundred and fifty pounds in weight, of a fresh pinky white hue, free of cuts, scratches, or bruises, the skin scraped clean, and firm, not slimy, to touch, the fat firm and white, the lean a lively purplish pink. Two inches of clear fat over the backbone, and the thick of the ribs should be the limit. Anything more is wasteful—unless there is a great need of lard in the kitchen. The pig should be chilled throughout, but not frozen—freezing injures flavor and texture somewhat, besides preventing the proper quick striking in of salt. Curing space permitting, it is wise to cut up several pigs at once. The trouble is hardly increased, and the results, especially in saving, very much greater. The head will have been at least half severed in slaughtering. With a very sharp butcher knife, after the pig is laid on the chopping block, cut deeply through the skin, all round, then with a blow or two of the axe sever the head. Next cut through the skin deeply, either side of the back bone. The cuts should be evenly parallel, and about two inches apart. Now turn the pig on his back, part the legs and with the meat axe chop through the ribs, and joints. After chopping, cut the backbone free with the knife, trim off the strip of fat for the lard pile, chop the backbone itself into pieces three to four inches long, until the chine is reached—the part betwixt the shoulder blades with the high spinal processes. Leave the chine intact for smoking, along with the jowls and sausage. Pull out the leaf-fat—it grows around and over the kidneys. Also pull out the spare ribs, leaving only one or two in the shoulders. This done, chop off feet, then with the knife cut hams and shoulders free from the sides. Trim after cutting out, saving all trimmings for sausage. Save every bit of pure fat for lard. Also cut away the clear fat at the top of the sides, devoting it to the same use. Make clean cuts on the joints—this means a knife often whetted. Trim the hams rather flat, and shape the hip bone neatly. The commercial fashion of cutting away all the upper half of hams is fatal to perfect flavor. Trim shoulders close, unless they are destined to be made into sausage—in that case put them with the other scraps. Sides can either be cut into strips four to five inches wide the long way, after the manner of commercial "breakfast bacon," or left whole throughout their streaky part, cutting away solid fat along the top for lard. Separate the heads at the jaw, leaving the tongue attached to the jowl, and taking care not to cut it. Cut off the snout two inches above the tip, then lay the upper part of the head, skin down, crack the inner bone with the axe, press the broken bones apart, and take out the brains. Jowls are to be salted and smoked—heads are best either simply corned for boiling with cabbage, peas, beans, etc., or made in conjunction with the feet into headcheese, whose south country name is souse. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] Use regular pickling salt—coarse-grained and lively. Spread it an inch thick upon clean wood—a broad shelf, box bottom, or something similar. Rub the meat well over with salt, and then lay it neatly, skin-side down, upon the salt layer, spread more salt on top, and put on another layer of meat. Put sides together, likewise hams and shoulders. Pack as close as possible and fill all crevices with salt. Salt alone will save your bacon, but a teacup of moist sugar well mixed through a water-bucket of salt improves the flavor. Use this on sides, jowls and chines. The joints, hams and shoulders, especially if the shoulders are close-cut, need a trifle more sugar in the salt, also a trifle of saltpeter—say an ounce in fine powder to three gallons of salt. Rub the skin-sides over with plain salt, and lay upon the salt-covered shelf the same as sides. Then take a handful of the mixture and rub it in hard around the bone, then cover the whole cut surface half an inch thick, spread on dry salt for another layer of hams or shoulders, and repeat. Salt the chines lightly—their surface, cut all over, takes up too much salt if permitted. There should be holes or cracks in the bottom to let the dissolved salt drip away; it is best also to have it a foot at least above the floor. Cover the meat thus in bulk, but not too close, and leave standing a fortnight. The cooler and airier the place it stands in the better—freezing even is not objectionable when the salt begins striking in. But with freezing weather the meat must lie longer in salt. Overhaul it after the first fortnight—that is to say break up the bulk, shake away bloody salt, sweep the bottom clean, and put on fresh salt. But use very little saltpeter on the joints this time—on pain of making them too hard as to their lean. Its use is to give firmness and a handsome clear red color—an overdose of it produces a faintly undesirable flavor. Some famous ham makers, at this second salting, rub the cut sides over lightly with very good molasses, and sprinkle on ground black pepper, before adding new salt. Others rub in a teaspoonful of sugar mixed with pounded red pepper around the bone. But very excellent hams can be made without such excess of painstaking. Let the meat lie two to four weeks after overhauling, according to the weather. Take up, wipe all over with coarse clean cloth, furnish each piece with a loop of stout twine at least four inches long, and so run through the flesh, tearing out is impossible. Run through the hock of hams, the upper tip of shoulders, the thickest part of sides, the pointed tip of jowls. Jowls may not need to lie so long as bigger pieces, especially if part of their fat has gone to lard. Chines can be hung up in three weeks, and cured with a very light smoking, along with the bags of sausage. Hang hams highest, shoulders next, then sides, jowls, etc. Leave to drip forty-eight hours unless the weather turns suddenly warm, damp and muggy—in that case start the smoking after a few hours. Smoke from green hickory, sound and bright, is needed for the finest flavor. Lay small logs so they will hug together as they burn, kindle fire along the whole length of them, then smother it with damp, small chips, trash, bark and so on, but take care to have everything sound. Rotten wood, or that which is water-logged or mildewed, makes rank, ill-smelling smoke. Take greater care that the logs never blaze up, also that the meat is high enough to escape fire-heating. Once it gets hot from the fire all your trouble will have been for naught—though it will not be tainted it will have the same taste and smell—the degree marking the extent of the heating. Old southern smokehouses had for the most part earthen floors, trenched to make the smoke fires safe. Some had puncheon floors, with an earthen hearth in the middle, whereupon was placed a furnace of loose brick—that could be kicked over at need, smothering an outbreaking fire. Still others had big cast iron kettles sunk in a sort of well in the floor—with a handy water bucket for quenching fires. Whatever the floor, eternal vigilance was the price of safe bacon —you looked at the smokehouse fires first thing in the morning and last at night. They were put out at sundown, but had a knack of burning again from some hidden seed of live coal. Morning smoke could not well be too thick, provided it smelled right—keen and clean, reminiscent of sylvan fragrance—a thick, acrid smoke that set you sneezing and coughing, was "most tolerable and not to be endured." It was not well to leave the smoke too thick at night—somehow the chill then condensed it. A thin, blue, hot-scented but cool, vapor was the thing to strive for then. There were folk who suggested furnaces—with smoke pipes leading in—ever so much safer they said, withal much less trouble. Why! even the smoke from a cooking stove might be made to answer. But these progressives were heard coldly—the old timers knew in right of tradition and experience, the need of well ventilated smoke. It gave this present chronicler a feeling of getting home again, to walk through the curing rooms of perhaps the most famous bacon makers in the world, and find them practicing the wisdom of her childhood. Namely using hickory smoke not delivered from furnace pipes but welling up, up, in beautiful wreathy spirals, to reach row on row of hams and flitches—and to be told, by a kind person who did not know she already knew, that their curing was patterned on the old English model—curing in the smoke of great-throated stone hall chimneys. Yes—they had tried pipes—furnaces likewise—but they gave too much heat, did not distribute smoke evenly, besides being almost impossible of regulation. Hence the smoldering hickory that was like a breath from a far past. Notwithstanding, the chronicler is of opinion that folk who would like to try their hands at bacon making may do it with a fair hope without building regular smoke houses. To such she would say, get a stout hogshead—a sugar hogshead preferable—nail on a board roof to shed water, then set it upon a stout frame at least seven feet above ground. Nail inside it stout cleats, to hold the cross bars for the meat. Hang the meat upon them—but not until the hogshead is in place. Cut a hole in the bottom as big as the top of a large barrel. Working through this hole, arrange the meat, then put below a headless barrel, the top resting against the hogshead-heading, the bottom upon supports of gas pipe, iron, or even piled bricks. Between the supports set an iron vessel—build your hickory smoke-fires in it, smothering them carefully, and letting the smoke, with a sufficiency of air, well up, through barrel, hogshead, etc. Or one might even rig up a smoking hogshead in an attic, providing the chimney were tall enough to cool smoke properly—and lead smoke out to it through a length of drain pipe. [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] These are but suggestions—the contriving mind will doubtless invent other and better ones. Smoking must go on for five weeks at least. Six will be better, slacking toward the end. But two may be made to answer by the use of what is called "liquid smoke" whose other name is crude pyroligneous acid. A product of wood distillation, it has been proved harmless in use, but use is nevertheless forbidden to commercial makers. The meat, after breaking bulk, is dipped in it three times at fairly brief intervals, hung up, drained, and smoked. From the liquid smoke it will have acquired as much acid saving-grace, as from four weeks of old fashioned smoking. A smokehouse needs to be kept dark, dry, and cool, also well ventilated. Use fine screen wire over all openings, and make windows very small, with coarse, sleazy crash in the sash rather than glass inside the screens. Darkness prevents or discourages the maggot-fly. To discourage him still further cover the cut sides of hams and shoulders before hanging up with molasses made very thick with ground black pepper. They will not absolutely require canvassing and dipping in whitewash after if the peppering is thorough. But to be on the safe side—canvas and dip. Make the whitewash with a foundation of thick paste—and be sure it covers every thread of the canvas. Hams perfectly cured and canvassed keep indefinitely in the right sort of smokehouse—but there is not much gain in flavor after they are three years old. In rendering lard try out leaf fat to itself—it yields the very finest. Cut out the kidneys carefully, and remove any bit of lean, then pull off the thin inner skin, and cut up the leaves—into bits about two inches wide and four long. Wash these quickly in tepid water, drain on a sieve, and put over a slow fire in an iron vessel rather thick bottomed. Add a little cold water—a cupful to a gallon of cut up fat, and let cook gently until the lumps of fat color faintly. Increase heat till there is a mild bubbling—keep the bubbling steady, stirring often to make sure no lump of fat sticks to the pot and scorches, until all the lumps are crisp brown cracklings. Bright brown, not dark—if dark the lard will be slightly colored. Scorching taints and ruins the whole mass. Strain through a sieve into a clean tin vessel, newly scalded and wiped dry. Put the cracklings into a bag of stout crash, and press hard between two clean boards, till no more fat runs from them. A jelly press comes in handy, but is not essential. If weak, clear lye, made of green wood ashes, is put in with the fat instead of water at the beginning, the fat-yield will be greater, and the bulk of cracklings less, also more nearly disintegrated. Other fat is tried out in the same way, taking care to remove all skin and cut away streaks of lean. Bits with much lean in them had better go to the sausage mill—the right proportion there is two pounds of fat to three and a half of lean. Mix well in grinding, and remove all strings, gristle, etc. Seasoning is so much a matter of taste, do it very lightly at first —then fry a tiny cake, test it, and add whatever it seems to lack or need. Be rather sparing of salt—eaters can put it in but can not take it out, and excess of it makes even new sausage taste old. A good combination of flavors, one approved by experience, is a cupful of powdered and sifted sage, an ounce of black pepper newly ground, and very fine, a tablespoonful of powdered red pepper, a teaspoonful of cayenne, a pinch of thyme in fine powder, a dozen cloves, as many grains of alspice, beaten fine, a teaspoonful of moist sugar, and a blade of mace in fine powder. Omit the mace, cloves, etc. if the flavor repels. Mix all well together, then work evenly through the meat. This seasoning should suffice for five pounds of ground meat lightly salted. More can be used by those who like high and pronounced flavors. Scrape feet very clean, and take off hoofs by either dipping in scalding hot lye, or hot wet wood ashes. Wash very clean after scraping, throw in cold water, soak an hour, then put in a clean pot with plenty of cold water, and boil gently until very tender. If boiling for souse cook till the meat and gristle fall from the bones. If for frying, take up the feet as soon as they are tender, keeping them in shape. Boil heads the same way, taking out eyes, cutting off ears and cleaning them carefully inside. Pick the meat from the bones, mix it with the feet also picked up, work seasoning well through it —salt, black and red pepper, herbs if approved, likewise a trifle of onion juice, then pack in deep molds, pour over a little of the boiling liquor—barely enough to moisten—and set to cool uncovered. Let the boiling liquor stand until cold, covered only with a cloth. Skim off the oil—hog's foot oil is a fine dressing for any sort of leather—then dip off carefully the jelly underneath. Do not disturb the sediment—take only the clear jelly. Melted, clarified with white of egg, seasoned with wine, lemon juice, or grape juice, and sufficiently sugared, the result puts all gelatines of commerce clean out of court. Indeed any receipt for gelatine desserts can be used with the hog's foot jelly. A small salvage perhaps—but worth while. Everybody knows brains can be fried—just as all know they can be addled. We of the old south pickled ours. Go and do likewise if you want an experience. Begin by scalding the brains—putting them on in cold water very slightly salted, then letting them barely strike a boil. Skim out, drop in cold water, take off the skin, keeping the lobes as whole as possible, lay in a porcelain kettle, spice liberally with black and red pepper, cloves, nutmeg and allspice, cover with strong vinegar, bring to a boil, cook five minutes, then put in a jar, cool uncovered, tie down and let stand a week before using. Thus treated brains will keep for six weeks, provided they are kept cool. We also pickled our souse—cutting it in thin slices, and laying them in strong vinegar an hour before serving. Another way was to melt the souse into a sort of rich hash—beaten eggs were occasionally added, and the result served on hot toast. At a pinch it answered for the foundation of a meat pie, putting in with it in layers, sliced hard boiled eggs, sliced cucumber pickle, plenty of seasoning, a good lump of butter, and a little water. The pie was baked quickly—and made a very good supper dish if unexpected company overran the supply of sausage or chicken for frying. [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] But fried hog's feet were nearly the best of hog killing. After boiling tender, the feet were split lengthwise in half, rolled in sifted cornmeal, salted and peppered, and fried crisp in plenty of boiling hot fat. Served with hot biscuit, and stewed sun-dried peaches, along with strong coffee, brown and fragrant, they made a supper or breakfast one could rejoice in. Backbone stewed, and served with sweet potatoes, hot corn bread, and sparkling cider, was certainly not to be despised. The stewing was gentle, the seasoning well blended—enough salt but not too much, red and black pepper, and the merest dash of pepper vinegar. Many cooks left the vinegar to be added in the plates. There was little water at the beginning, and next to none at the end—the kettle was kept well covered, and not allowed to boil over. Backbone pie held its own with chicken pie—indeed there were those who preferred it. It was made the same way—in a skillet or deep pan lined with rich crust, then filled with cooked meat, adding strips of bacon, and bits of butter rolled in flour, as well as strips of crust. Then the stewing liquor went into the crevices—there might also be a few very tiny crisp brown sausages—cakes no bigger than a lady's watch. Over all came a thick, rich crust, with a cross-cut in the middle, and corners turned deftly back. When the crust was brown the pie was done. No doubt we were foolish—but somehow the regular "cases" made our sausages unappetizing if we put it into them for keeping. Further the "Tom Thumbs" were in great request for chitterlings—I never saw them served to white folks but have smelled their savoriness in the cabins. That is, however, beside the mar...