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DISHES & BEVERAGES OF THE OLD SOUTH
by
Martha McCulloch-Williams
Author of "Field Farings," "Two of a Trade," "Milre," "Next to the
Ground," etc.
Decorations by Russel Crofoot
[Illustration]
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
Dishes & Beverages
of the
Old South
[Illustration: _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.
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.
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.
[Illustration: _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 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.
_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.
[Illustration: _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.
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.
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.
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.