Thinking about the old ways

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I don't know if I've written about this on this board before, maybe I have.

I'm frying some cabbage I got out of the garden, one of my last 3 and got to thinking about stuff mom cooked. Seems like not to many people ate like we did.

We always had a huge garden but sometimes chickens and sometimes dad would butcher or have butchered a hog.

I can remember having baked heart, which is extremely good, also liver, tongue cooked and peeled. You let it get cold and slice it, delicious. Mom would make headcheese or souse, that I didn't like. Sometimes I can find it in the store, can at ethnic markets still.

We had chicken feet cooked and pigs feet too. I loved pickled pigs feet, still do but they aren't as good. Remember when taverns had big jars of those and pickled eggs. Never tried the eggs. When my DIL was here from Korea, she if from Russia, she just couldn't get over me having all the fresh eggs I wanted. She said they lived in Siberia and they would get shipments of eggs sometimes. She would ask me if she could have an egg, I told her eat all she wanted, she said if only she could take lots of them to her mom. I had chickens and chicken feet, she loved those, said they were something they really liked back home. I told her very few people did this kind of thing in the US anymore that I was an oddity.

Mom would make dumplings and clean and cook the egg bag it was called in the dumplings, was really really good.

We ate all kinds of stuff people won't touch now. Brains scrambled with eggs, not my favorite but would eat it. Before we got a freezer dad would sugar cure the hams and bacon. It was so salty you had to soak and wash the meat before eating it, but my it was tasty. I can remember her cooking and canning sausage and pork too.

Mom got a lot of her cooking from my great aunt and uncle Kentucy hill folk.

My aunt made light bread on an old cookstove, that stuff would raise 6 inches high, made with lard of course. They still had an icebox, yes that had the big block of ice you put in it. I can remember us going to the icehouse and getting a big block to put in it, think it lasted close to a week, not sure.

Bean soup with ham was a staple on washdays cooked on a small laundry stove, then cornbread.

We had fish we caught, bluegills, or sunfish, catfish, aunt and uncle cooked eel but mom wouldn't touch it, they also ate raccoon, she wouldn't eat it either.

We always had a rabbit box out so mom killed and dressed lots of rabbit. Dad would go frog giggin', loved those frog legs. He wasn't a real good shot so when we had squirrel mom had to soak it in salt water and pick out the shot. I generally bit down on one. Another goody was turtle. She cooked the game food in a pressure cooker after browning it. I remember her putting a slice of bread on top she said that pulled some of the gamey taste out.

We had home made noodles and lots of good food. Often had cobblers.

She canned 100 quarts of tomatoes, 50 of green beans, relish, beets, corn, dad would raise irish cobbler potatoes. We had a huge bin full that lasted all winter. Mom would have gallon jugs that she put tomato juice in and seal with sealing wax and corks.

We had morel mushrooms when they could find them. Soaked in salt water and thoroughly cleaned. Melted butter in a saucepan, dipped in flour and fried, I can still taste those.

My aunt knew different kinds of mushrooms, she could eat out of the woods. She cooked things like sourdoc and polk, think it was young or something because I also remember them saying it was poison, and other plants but mom was afraid to let me or her eat them.


She knew about things from the woods for stomach ache and constipation and other stuff. Uncle would get what he called sweet tobaco and blow it in my ear when I got an earache, and yes it helped but probably just the warm air. They lived to be in their 90's. They never had indoor plumbing in their lives, I didn't till 1964 when I was in high school. I can still tend a coalstove if I have to. Learned to drive on a stickshift vehicle. I learned on an old 52 Ford truck. Dad had me go out in the field and drive first. Then he let me drive around the block on gravel roads, that was before I was allowed to venture out anywhere else.

We were poor when I was growing up. At about 10 mom got a factory job so we started having more store bought stuff, but you know there is nothing like those memories and the good food we had to eat. I had allergies but overall we were pretty healthy and ate nothing but sugar, lard, fried and all kinds of foods. I think they were better for us.

Memories

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I forgot about corn meal mush, I make it at times also, DD won't eat it, hubby will.

It's very good sliced and fried in butter. To die for, think I will make some.

 

[dex3361]

Truely seems as though you lived a charmed chidhood. Sometimes the best is not something money can buy.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I loved that aunt an uncle like you do grandparents, they never had any kids so I guess I was their kid too. The fun we had with them. My aunt used snuff, now to think back how funny. Uncle smoked a pipe and at times she had snuff, never saw anyother women do that.

Uncle was a coal miner back in the days when he said the old mines were no taller then the donkeys they used. He was a tall man and he said you spent your day working in those mines all bent over. Sounds like those ones that just went into a side of the hill and not deep but very dangerous. He worked before the unions got started. He used to talk about Joe Lewis and those guys like they were saviors. He said it was really really dangeous to talk union you could get blackballed and not work again if I remember correctly. He made little money and their retirement years were spent living on welfare. He had a niece that helped them out with all kinds of things so they were ok. He had a Model A but a tornado hit when I was little and I think it destroyed it. Lots I remember some I don't.

My aunt told me about her mom. She said her mom was a little girl in the civil war and she would tell me about "them" Union soldiers coming through stealing eveything they could get their hands on, probably to eat I would imagine. Neither one of them could read or write, uncle could sign his name and could use a telephone, his niece had put in and paid for. She said her mom's family had a $5 gold piece all the money they had in the world and they hid it under a board in the mud so the soldiers couldn't find it. I wish I could remember all that stuff, but I was little 7 or so and can't remember all the stories.

 

[tallyho8]

I heard stories from the civil war that were passed down by my ancestors and have always wondered if they were true and if there is any way I could find out if they were or not.

One particular story (which may not be true but was sworn to by old relatives) was about Fort Douglas, way back in the Ozark mountains in Johnson County Arkansas.

They claim that they had captured a couple of Union soldiers and that when they heard the war was over, they were ordered to release the captives and go home. The story goes that the last man to leave the fort who was local and was supposed to release the captives, decided to bring them home and use them as slaves, which he did for their remaining years.

Decendents of this soldier still live in the area and have the same surname that I won't mention because of the liability. To this day you can not get to their home without crossing the creek in a 4 wheel drive and a long ride up a bumpy unmarked road. They are NOT friendly.

 

[LBrown59]

I loved that aunt an uncle like you do grandparents, they never had any kids so I guess I was their kid too. The fun we had with them. My aunt used snuff, never saw anyother women do that.
.

My wifes grandmother used snuff.
She was a life long W.Va. Resident .
What state was your Aunt and uncle from?

 

[Bird]

When I was growing up, we didn't have a freezer, but we rented a locker at the ice house and we slaughtered lots of chickens as well as our own hogs (I raised registered Berkshire hogs in the 4-H club), one calf a year (from our milk cow), lots of rabbits (cottontail, swamp rabbits, and jack rabbits), lots of squirrels (never did like using a shotgun because I didn't want to pick the pellets out; we used .22 rifles), and frog legs (never did any gigging, but used a .22 r****). And of course, we fished and ate the fish; blue gill or other sunfish, catfish, largemouth and sand bass, crappie, carp, and even alligator gar. And occasionally quail or a duck, quite a few meadowlarks, and even blackbird pie. Mother only barbecued a raccoon once; said she didn't like the smell of it cooking, but it tasted pretty good. She just flat refused to cook a 'possum and crow, or let me cook them, but she did let me make turtle soup a couple of times.

I've eaten chicken feet, but didn't really care for them. My mother always liked the pickled pigs feet, and they're not bad, but not good enough for me to buy any either. The pickled eggs are pretty good.

And when we slaughtered a hog or calf, we had the liver, heart, and kidneys right away, and we had the scrambled eggs with brains. We ate the calf's tongue, but I don't think we ever saved the tongue from a hog.

We never cured our own hams or bacon. We did render pork fat to make our own lard, lye soap, and cracklin's for cracklin' bread.

And we did LOTS of canning of fruits and vegetables, in addition to storing fresh potatoes in the cellar on a screen and sprinkled with lime to prevent rot.

Poke (or if you prefer poke salat or polk) is very good and I still like it. Supposed to be poisonous if not cooked properly, but all that means is to wash it, parboil it, pour that water off, and boil it again in fresh water.

No experience with mushrooms, headcheese, souse, or corn meal mush.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I know I experienced a lot of what people of the prior generation did. I don't know anyone that grew up like I did, wouldn't trade knowing those old folks for anything, I loved them dearly.

In answer, they were from Kentucky, have to look up to see where now I've forgotten. I have given the history to son for geneology, but the marriage part back in there was a mess. Apparently my great grandfather ran off with another man's wife and came to Indiana. She left her husband and kids down there, he left his wife. When we were doing research and reconnected the guy doing it said they had no branch in Indiana. I got with another aunt my dads sister and she told me all the names and towns and such and he started tracking and yep, we were a sort of missing branch of the family tree!

I am still trying to locate my great grandfathers burial plot, we know the cemetery but the funeral home gave their records to the local library and they were transcribing them. My aunt, now deceased said she went to the funeral but was young and couldn't remember where the plot was, she thought it was in the back and likely is, that is the old part. Time to get with them again as I want to put a tombstone on his grave, noone did, guess they didn't have the money. He got killed walking the railroad track on Christmas Day I have the obituary. Another researcher said he would help share the cost. They tracked back to Virginia and then lost the trail, the records were sketchy, haven't checked back for more than a year to see if he has made any progress.

 

[Sackett2]

Mom still cooks up Beef heart and tongue; my favorite dinners. I really don't car if my wife thinks it's "gross" that means more for me!

 

[jinman]

When I was growing up, we had cattle and slaughtered our own beef, but my dad knew a butcher who would cut up our meat if we let him keep the skin and other "exotic" organs like heart, tongue, brain, and tripe. I can't remember if we kept the liver or not, but my mom used to cook calf liver smothered in onions. I loved it!

We also ate a few wild birds like quail and doves, but that was rare since we always had chickens for plenty of eggs and fryers to eat from hatched eggs. I can remember eating squirrels a few times, but that was extremely rare. Frog legs were more common since we had two ponds full of frogs. Like Bird, a .22 r**** was our weapon of choice for hunting bullfrogs.

We churned our own butter, but my mother hated using lard. Crisco was her choice for all frying. I remember her pie crusts were famous with all the neighbors and at church and school functions. She made all kinds of pies that were just beautiful looking and delicious to eat. She and I were the only ones in our family that liked mincemeat pie, but she would always cook a couple of those for just us. She also made the best cornbread, biscuits, hocake, and yeast rolls. All of this was in a tiny kitchen with only a fan. Cooking in those days was sweat-work.

We got snuff glasses from my granddad and his wife on my mother's side. They were both dippers and bought snuff by the case. They always gave us the glasses because they had plenty. One of my uncles was a cigar smoker and we had all the cigar boxes he didn't want to stash stuff in. My mother used them for sewing thread and buttons; my brother and I used them for ammo and stamp collections.

We also ate poke salad and lambs quarter (goosefoot) that we picked wild. I remember lambs quarter greens as very good, like spinach. I'd also walk fencelines to harvest wild asparagus. Wild berries and plums were also a yearly harvest. My mother canned berries, plums, peaches, pears, beans, and peas. She also canned terrific jams and jellies. The cellar floor was covered in potatoes, both Irish and sweet potatoes.

I remember a lady who used to come visit. We looked out for a 12-acre tract that belonged to her. She had been married, but her husband died and she never remarried. They had no children, so she was alone. She was a big snuff dipper and drove one of the nastiest pickup trucks you'd ever want to see. I remember having to air out the house when she left because she had such bad BO. When I was born, she tried her best to convince my mom to give me to her and let her raise me. Thank God my mom wouldn't give me up. If so, I'm sure I'd have some stories to tell.