indeed back in the spare elder time. To make it the very ripest, softest
peaches were peeled, and mashed smooth, working quickly so the pulp
might not color too deeply, then spread an inch thick upon large dishes
or even clean boards, and dried slowly in sunshine or the oven. After
it was full-dry, came the cutting into inch-strips. This took a very
sharp knife and a steady hand. Then the strips were coiled edgewise into
flat rounds, with sugar between the rounds of the coils, which had to be
packed down in more sugar and kept close, to save them from dampness,
which meant ruin.
If you had a fond and extravagant grandmother, you were almost sure to
have also a clove apple. That is to say, a fine firm winter apple, stuck
as full of cloves as it could hold, then allowed to dry very, very
slowly, in air neither hot nor cold. The cloves banished decay--their
fragrance joined to the fruity scent of the apple, certainly set off
things kept in the drawer with the apple. The applemakers justified
their extravagance--cloves cost money, then as now--by asserting a
belief in clove apples as sovereign against mildew or moths--which may
have had a color of reason.
The quince tree is the clown of the orchard, growing twisted and
writhing, as though hating a straight line. Notwithstanding, its fruit,
and the uses thereof, set the hall mark of housewifery. Especially in
the matter of jelly-making and marmalade. Further a quince pudding is in
the nature of an experience--so few have ever heard of it, so much fewer
made or tasted it. The making requires very ripe quinces--begin by
scrubbing them clean of fuzz, then set them in a deep pan, cover, after
adding a tablespoonful of water, and bake slowly until very soft. Scrape
out the pulp, throw away cores and skin. To a pint of pulp take four
eggs, beat the yolks light with three cups of sugar and a cup of creamed
butter, add the quince pulp, a little mace broken small or grated
nutmeg, then half a cup of cream, and the egg-whites beaten stiff. Bake
in a deep pan, and serve hot with hard or wine sauce.
Here are some fine points of jelly-making learned in that long ago. To
make the finest, clearest jelly, cook but little at a time. A large
kettleful will never have the color and brightness of two or three
glasses. Never undertake to make jelly of inferior fruit--that which is
unripe or over-ripe, or has begun to sour. Wash clean, and
drain--paring is not only waste work, but in a measure lessens flavor.
Put a little water with the fruit when you begin cooking it--cook rather
slowly so there shall be no scorching, and drain out rather than press
out the juice. Draining is much freer if the fruit is spread thin,
rather than dumped compactly in a bag. Double cheese cloth sewed fast
over stout wire, and laid on top of a wide bowl, makes a fine jelly
drainer--one cheap enough to be thrown away when discolored. A
discolored bag, by the way, makes jelly a bit darker. If there is no
pressure flannel is not required.
Plenty as fruit was with us, Mammy made jelly and marmalade from the
same quinces. They were well washed, peeled, quartered and the cores
removed, then the quarters boiled until soft in water to half-cover
them, skimmed out, mashed smooth with their own weight of sugar, and
spices to taste, then cooked very slowly until the spoon stood upright
in the mass, after which it went into glass jars, and had a brandy
paper laid duly on top.
Cores and paring were boiled to rags in water to fully cover them, then
strained out, the water strained again, and added to that in which the
fruit had boiled. Sugar was added--a pound to the pint of juice. But
first the juice was brought to a boil, and skimmed very clean. The
sugar, heated without scorching, went in, and cooking continued until
the drop on the tip of the spoon jellied as it fell. Mammy hated jelly
that ran--it must cut like butter to reach her standard. Occasionally
she flavored it with ginger--boiling the bruised root with the
cores--but only occasionally, as ginger would make the jelly darker.
Occasionally also she cooked apples, usually fall pippins, with the
quinces, thus increasing the bulk of both jelly and marmalade, with
hardly a sensible diminution of flavor.
All here written applies equally to every sort of fruit jelly--apple,
peach, currant, the whole family of berries. Mammy never knew it, but I
myself have found the oven at half-heat a very present help in
jelly-making. Fruit well prepared, and put into a stone or agate vessel,
covered and baked gently for a time proportionate to its bulk, yields
all its juice, and it seems to me clearer juice, than when stewed in the
time-honored brass kettle. Hot sugar helps to jellying quickly--and the
more haste there, the lighter and brighter the result. Gelatin in fruit
jellies I never use--it increases the product sensibly, but that is more
than offset by the decrease in quality.
[Illustration: _Upon Occasions_]
It was no trouble at all to make occasions. Indeed, the greatest of
them, weddings, really made themselves. A wedding made imperative an
infare--that is to say, if the high contracting parties had parental
approval. Maybe I had better explain that infare meant the bride's going
home--to her new house, or at least her new family. This
etymologically--the root is the Saxon _faran_, to go, whence come
wayfaring, faring forth and so on. All this I am setting forth not in
pedantry, but because so many folk had stared blankly upon hearing the
word--which was to me as familiar as word could be. In application it
had a wide latitude. Commonly the groom or his family gave the infare,
but often enough some generous and well-to-do friend, or kinsman,
pre-empted the privilege. Wherever held, it was an occasion of keen and
jealous rivalry--those in charge being doubly bent on making the faring
in more splendid than the wedding feast. Naturally that put the wedding
folk on their mettle. Another factor inciting to extra effort was--the
bundles. All guests were expected to take home with them generous
bundles of wedding cake in all its varieties. I recall once hearing a
famous cake baker sigh relief as she frosted the hundredth snow ball,
and said: "Now we are sure to have enough left for the bundles--they are
such a help."
But baking cakes, and cooking in general, though important, were not the
main things. Setting the table, so it should outshine all other wedding
tables gave most concern. To this end all the resources of the family,
and its friends for a radius of ten miles, were available--glass,
silver, china, linen, even cook pots and ovens at need. Also and
further it was a slight of the keenest, if you were known as a fine cake
maker, not to be asked to help. A past mistress of paper cutting was
likewise in request. Cut papers and evergreens were the great reliances
in decoration. They made a brave showing by candlelight. Oil lamps were
few, kerosene undiscovered, and either lard oil, or whale oil, all too
often smelled to heaven, to say nothing of smoking upon the least
provocation. So a lamp, if there were one, sat in state within the
parlor. The long table got its light from candelabra--which as often as
not were homemade. The base was three graduated blocks of wood, nailed
to form a sort of pyramid, with a hole bored in the middle to receive a
stout round upright, two inches across. It stood a foot high, and held
up cross-arms three feet across, with a tin candlesocket upon each end.
Another socket was set where the arms crossed--thus each candelabra was
of five-candle power. Set a-row down the middle of the table, with
single candles in tall brass sticks interspersed, they gave a fine soft
illumination. Often they were supplemented with candelabra of bronze or
brass, tricked out with tinkly pendant prisms. Such household gauds were
commonly concentrated at the spot where the bride and her maids would
stand. They were more elegant, of course, than the made
candle-holders--but not to my thinking a whit the handsomer--after the
paper-cutters had done their work.
Their work was turning white paper into fringe and lace. Fringed strips
wound all over and about, hid the foundation wood. Paper tulips, deftly
fashioned, held the tin rings in ambush--with clusters of lacy leaves
pendant below. Sometimes a paper rose tipped each arm-end--sometimes
also, there were pendant sprays of pea-shaped blossoms. How they were
made, with nothing beyond scissors, pen-knives for crimping, and the
palm of the hand for mold, I confess I do not understand--but I know
they were marvels. The marvels required a special knack, of course--also
much time and patience. Wherefore those who had it, exercised it in
scraps of leisure as paper came to hand, laying away the results
against the next wedding even though none were imminent. Leaves and the
round lace-edged pieces to go under cakes, it was easy thus to keep.
Flowers, roses, tulips and so on, had a trick of losing shape--besides,
although so showy, they were really much easier to make.
It took nice contrivance to make table-room--but double thicknesses of
damask falling to the floor either side hid all roughness in the
foundation. Shape depended much upon the size of the supper-room--if it
were but an inclosed piazza, straight length was imperative. But in a
big square or parallelogram, one could easily achieve a capital _H_--or
else a letter _Z_. _Z_ was rather a favorite in that it required less
heavy decoration, yet gave almost as much space. A heart-cake for either
tip, a stack at each acute angle, with the bride's cake midway the stem,
flanked either hand by bowls of syllabub and boiled custard, made a fine
showing. A letter _H_ demanded four heart-cakes--one for each end, also
four stacks, and crowded the bride and her party along the joining bar.
Heart-cakes were imperative to any wedding of degree. Local tinsmiths
made the moulds for them--they were deeply cleft, and not strictly
classic of outline. But, well and truly baked, frosted a glistening
white, then latticed and fringed with more frosting, dribbled on
delicately from the point of a tube, they were surely good to look at.
If the bride's cake were white all through, the heart-pans were usually
filled with gold-cake batter--thus white and yolk of eggs had equal
honor. More commonly though, the most part of wedding cake was pound
cake in the beginning--the richer the better. Baked in deep
round-bottomed, handleless coffee cups, and iced, it made the helpful
snow balls. Baked in square pans, rather shallow, cut into bars,
crisped, frosted and piled cob-house fashion, it made pens. Sliced
crosswise and interlaid with jelly it became jelly cake. To supplement
it, there were marble cake, spice cake, plum cake, ever so many more
cakes--but they were--only supplements.
Stacks were either round or square, baked in pans of graduated size,
set one on the other after cooling thoroughly, then frosted and
re-frosted till they had a polar suggestion. If round there was commonly
a hole running down the middle, into this was fitted a wide mouthed but
small glass bottle, to hold the stems of the evergreen plume topping the
stack. Here or there in the plume, shone a paper rose or starflower--in
the wreath of evergreen laid about the base, were tulips, lilies, and
bigger roses, all made of paper. Occasionally trailing myrtle, well
washed and dried, was put about the components of the stacks just before
they were set in place. If the heart-cakes had missed being latticed,
they likewise were myrtle-wreathed. The bride's cake was left
dead-white, but it always stood on something footed, and had a wreath of
evergreen and paper flowers, laid upon a lace-cut paper about the foot.
Baking it was an art. So many things had to go in it--the darning
needle, thimble, picayune, ring, and button. The makers would have
scorned utterly the modern subterfuge of baking plain, and thrusting in
the portents of fate before frosting. They mixed the batter a trifle
stiff, washed and scoured everything, shut eyes, dropped them, and
stirred them well about. Thus nobody had the least idea where they
finally landed--so the cutting was bound to be strictly fair. It made
much fun--the bride herself cut the first slice--hoping it might hold
the picayune, and thus symbolize good fortune. The ring presaged the
next bride or groom, the darning needle single blessedness to the end,
the thimble, many to sew for, or feed, the button, fickleness or
disappointment. After the bridal party had done cutting, other young
folk tempted fate. Bride's cake was not for eating--instead, fragments
of it, duly wrapped and put under the pillow, were thought to make
whatever the sleeper dreamed come true. Especially if the dream included
a sweetheart, actual or potential. The dreams were supposed to be truly
related next day at the infare--but I question if they always were.
Perhaps the magic worked--and in this wise--the person dreamed of took
on so new a significance, the difference was quickly felt. But this is
a cook book--with reminiscent attachments, not a treatise on psychology.
The table held only the kickshaws--cakes, candy, nuts, syllabub and
custard. Wide handsome plates piled high with tempting sliced cake sat
up and down the length of it, with glass dishes of gay candies in
between. In cold weather wine jelly often took the place of syllabub.
There were neither napkins nor service plates--all such things came from
the side table, the plates laden with turkey, ham, fried chicken, or
broiled, and some sort of jelly or relish. One ate standing, with her
escort doing yeoman service as waiter, until her appetite was fully
appeased. Hot biscuit, hot egg bread, and light bread--salt rising,
freshly sliced--were passed about by deft black servitors. The side
tables were under charge of family friends, each specially skilled in
helping and serving. Carving, of course, had been done before hand.
Occasionally, very occasionally, where a wedding throng ran well into
the hundreds, there was barbecue in addition to other meat. In that case
it was cut up outside, and sent in upon huge platters. But it was more a
feature of infares, held commonly by daylight, than of wedding suppers.
Wedding salad is set forth in its proper chapter, but not the turkey
hash that was to some minds the best of all the good eating. It was
served for breakfast--there was always a crowd of kinfolk and faraway
friends to stay all night--sleeping on pallets all over the floors, even
those of parlor or ballroom, after they were deserted. The hash was made
from all the left-over turkey--where a dozen birds have been roasted the
leavings will be plenty. To it was added the whole array of giblets,
cooked the day before, and cut small while still warm. They made heaps
of rich gravy to add to that in the turkey pots--no real wedding ever
contented itself with cooking solely on a range. Pots, big ones, set
beside a log fire out of doors, with a little water in the bottom, and
coals underneath and on the lids, turned out turkeys beautifully
browned, tender and flavorous, to say nothing of the gravy. It set off
the hash as nothing else could--but such setting off was not badly
needed. Hash with hot biscuit, strong clear coffee, hot egg bread, and
thin-sliced ham, made a breakfast one could depend on, even with a long
drive cross-country in prospect.
Harking back to the supper table--syllabub, as nearly as I recall, was
made of thick cream lightly reinforced with stiffly beaten white of
egg--one egg-white to each pint--sweetened, well flavored with sherry or
Madeira wine, then whipped very stiff, and piled in a big bowl, also in
goblets to set about the bowl, just as snow balls were set a-row about
the stacks and the bride's cake. Flecks of crimson jelly were dropped on
the white cream--occasionally, there were crumbled cake, and cut up
fruit underneath. Thus it approximated the trifle of the cook books. It
had just one drawback--you could not eat it slowly--it went almost to
nothing at the agitation of the spoon.
Far otherwise boiled custard--which was much higher in favor, being
easier made, and quite as showy. For it you beat very light the yolks of
twelve eggs with four cups white sugar, added them to a gallon of milk,
and a quart of cream, in a brass kettle over the fire, stirred the
mixture steadily, watching it close to remove it just as it was on the
point of boiling, let it cool, then flavored it well, with either
whiskey, brandy, or sweet wine. Meantime the egg-whites beaten with a
little salt until they stuck to the dish, had been cooked by pouring
quickly over them full-boiling water from a tea kettle. They hardly lost
a bubble in the process--the water well drained away, the whites were
ready to go on top of the custard in either bowls or goblets, and get
themselves ornamented with crimson jelly, or flecks of cherry preserves.
Like syllabub, boiled custard necessitated spoons--hence the borrowing
of small silver was in most cases imperative. Plutocrats had not then
been invented--but tradition tells of one high gentleman, who was
self-sufficient. The fact stood him in good stead later--when he was
darkly accused, she who had baked cakes for all his merry-makings said
stoutly: "The Colonel do sech as that! Lord in heaven! Why, don't you
know, in all the years I've knowed him, _he never had to borrow a single
silver spoon_--and I've seen five hundred folks there for supper. I
wouldn't believe them tales ef Angel Gabriel come down and told 'em to
me."
Is anybody left, I wonder, who can cut oranges into lilies? Thus cut
they surely looked pretty. The peel was divided evenly in six, the
sections loosened, but not pulled free at the base. Instead the ends
were curved backward after the manner of lily petals. The fruit,
separated into eighths, hardly showed the divisions. These lilies sat
flat upon the cloth, either in lines, as about square stacks, or around
bigger things, or straight up and down the table center. They were not
always in season--at their best around Christmas, but available until
the end of winter.
Cheesecakes, baked in patty pans frosted with cocoanut frosting, also
helped out the wedding richness. Indeed, guests gathered to eat the fat
and the sweet, no less to drink it. Now, in a wider outlook, I wonder a
little if there was significance in the fact that these wedding tables
were so void of color--showing only green and white, with the tiniest
sparks of red?
Party suppers had no such limitations--often the table was gay with
autumn leaves, the center piece a riot of small ragged red
chrysanthemums, or raggeder pink or yellow ones, with candles glaring
from gorgeous pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns down the middle, or from the
walls either side. There were frosted cakes--loaves trimmed gaily with
red and white candies, or maybe the frosting itself was tinted. In place
of syllabub or boiled custard, there were bowls of ambrosia--oranges in
sections, freed of skin and seed, and smothered in grated fresh cocoanut
and sugar. Often the bowl-tops were ornamented with leaves cut deftly
from the skin of deep red apples, and alternating, other leaves shaped
from orange peel. Christmas party suppers had touches of holly and
cedar, but there was no attempt to match the elaborate wedding tables.
Hog's foot jelly, red with the reddest wine, came in handily for
them--since almost every plantation had a special small hog-killing,
after the middle of December, so there might be fresh backbones, spare
ribs, sausage and souse to help make Christmas cheer. Ham, spiced and
sliced wafer thin, was staple for such suppers--chicken and turkey
appeared oftenest as salad, hot coffee, hot breads in variety, crisp
celery, and plenteous pickle, came before the sweets. Punch, not very
heady, hardly more than a fortified pink lemonade, came with the sweets
many times. Grandfather's punch was held sacred to very late suppers,
hot and hearty, set for gentlemen who had played whist or euchre until
cock-crow.
These are but indications. Fare varied even as did households and
occasions. But everywhere there was kinship of the underlying
spirit--which was the concrete expression of hospitality in good cheer.
There was little luxury--rather we lived amid a spare abundance, eating
up what had no market--I recall clearly times when you could hardly give
away fresh eggs, or frying-size chickens, other times when eggs fetched
five cents for two dozen--provided the seller would "take it in trade."
Chickens then, broiling size, were forty to fifty cents the dozen--with
often an extra one thrown in for good measure. For then chicken cholera
had not been invented--at least not down in the Tennessee blue grass
country. Neither had hog cholera--nor railroads. All three fell upon us
a very little before the era of the Civil War. Steamboats ran almost
half the year, but the flat boat traffic had been taken away by the
peopling prairies, which could raise so much more corn, derivatively so
many more hogs, to the man's work. Money came through wheat and
tobacco--not lavishly, yet enough for our needs. All this is set forth
in hope of explaining in some measure, the cookery I have tried to write
down faithfully--with so much of everything in hand, stinting would have
been sinful.
There was barbecue, and again there were barbecues. The viand is said to
get its name from the French phrase _a barbe d' ecu_, from tail to head,
signifying that the carcass was cooked whole. The derivation may be an
early example of making the punishment fit the crime. As to that I do
not know. What I do know is that lambs, pigs, and kids, when barbecued,
are split in half along the backbone. The animals, butchered at sundown,
and cooled of animal heat, after washing down well, are laid upon clean,
split sticks of green wood over a trench two feet deep, and a little
wider, and as long as need be, in which green wood has previously been
burned to coals. There the meat stays twelve hours--from midnight to
noon next day, usually. It is basted steadily with salt water, applied
with a clean mop, and turned over once only. Live coals are added as
needed from the log fire kept burning a little way off. All this sounds
simple, dead-easy. Try it--it is really an art. The plantation barbecuer
was a person of consequence--moreover, few plantations could show a
master of the art. Such an one could give himself lordly airs--the loan
of him was an act of special friendship--profitable always to the
personage lent. Then as now there were free barbecuers, mostly
white--but somehow their handiwork lacked a little of perfection. For
one thing, they never found out the exact secret of "dipney," the sauce
that savored the meat when it was crisply tender, brown all over, but
free from the least scorching.
Daddy made it thus: Two pounds sweet lard, melted in a brass kettle,
with one pound beaten, not ground, black pepper, a pint of small fiery
red peppers, nubbed and stewed soft in water to barely cover, a spoonful
of herbs in powder--he would never tell what they were,--and a quart and
pint of the strongest apple vinegar, with a little salt. These were
simmered together for half an hour, as the barbecue was getting done.
Then a fresh, clean mop was dabbed lightly in the mixture, and as
lightly smeared over the upper sides of the carcasses. Not a drop was
permitted to fall on the coals--it would have sent up smoke, and films
of light ashes. Then, tables being set, the meat was laid, hissing hot,
within clean, tight wooden trays, deeply gashed upon the side that had
been next the fire, and deluged with the sauce, which the mop-man
smeared fully over it.
Hot! After eating it one wanted to lie down at the spring-side and let
the water of it flow down the mouth. But of a flavor, a savor, a
tastiness, nothing else earthly approaches. Not food for the gods,
perhaps, but certainly meat for _men_. Women loved it no less--witness
the way they begged for a quarter of lamb or shoat or kid to take home.
The proper accompaniments to barbecue are sliced cucumbers in strong
vinegar, sliced tomatoes, a great plenty of salt-rising light bread--and
a greater plenty of cool ripe watermelons, by way of dessert.