19th Century Food and Recipes

I recently came across an old cookbook, The Original Fanny Farmer 1896 Cookbook.  The book’s subtitle includes “A facsimile of the first edition,” and I found copies of that edition named “The Boston Cooking School Cookbook.”  Miss Farmer’s book was printed in 21 editions during her lifetime, and has survived a century after her death. 

I often write about food on The Stories, partly because it’s a topic of too much interest for me, and largely because food is such a huge part of our culture.  When I see a book like this I’m reading to learn how to cook something new and to see how and what people were eating in the nineteenth century.  And when I see something coming out of New England, I can’t help but contrast the differences in that culture and Appalachian culture.

I suppose I approached this cookbook of Boston origin with a bit of skepticism – surely a sophisticated cooking school in Massachusetts would not be teaching cooks like my Great-Great-Grandmas, would they?  Well, it turns out that Miss Farmer was really dedicated to teaching home-makers rather than solely training pretentious chefs.  While The Boston Cooking School may have been dedicated to professionals, she would later leave there to start her own school and to truly focus on teaching wives and mothers to nourish their own families.  Understanding her passion, you immediately see that her recipes are easy to read and follow and mostly made of common ingredients.  These are dishes any of us might put on our supper table.

The thing that most strikes me as missing in the book is pork.  Beef is discussed over 20 pages, then veal over another 4; even sweetbreads have 2 pages of their own.  Poultry and game are allowed 20 pages and fish 13.  However, pork is allocated only 3 pages, without a single detailed recipe.  Only basic instructions in how to cook various cuts of pork are given. 

The absence of pork stands out to me because it has always been such a staple of mountain diets.  I wonder why Bostonians were not cooking as much of it.  Research I did for Margaret’s Faith taught me that mid and late 19th century, Chicago was a shipping center for pork and those slaughter houses remained as an integral part of the mid-West city into the 1970’s.  Cincinnati, Ohio was also a mecca for pork finishing in the late 1800’s.  Do you suppose that New England was so far removed from those regions that pork would garner so little space in this cookbook?

All this searching for our common foods made me wonder about dumplings.  While I know of only one way to make dumplings, we can sure plop them into a variety of dishes.  Chicken and Dumplings is synonymous with the Southern table and it isn’t even mentioned here.  She does note that dumplings can be cooked on top of stew and a recipe for Beef Stew with Dumplings is given.  What do you reckon Miss Farmer would’ve said about Blackberry Dumplings?

Oh, we’re going to have to visit this topic again – there’s a whole chapter dedicated to “Recipes Especially Prepared for the Sick”, and very good information about flours and milling and baking bread!

Huntin’ and Cookin’ Creases

Spring is such a wonderful time of the year.  As the trees set on new leaves, early flowers bloom and grasses break through the ground, there is promise in the air.  After long, cold winter days the sun stays up longer, warming the soil as we make the first preparations for planting.

Creasy Plant - It may not be the prettiest picture, but things have been pretty muddy this spring.

A couple of years ago, I shared with you an article here which Callie Melton had written about sallet huntin’.  This is not a skill I possess, but one that I greatly admire.  I have long wanted to know which wild plants are edible – how much could you survive on just the fruits of the land?  Today, we have access to fresh fruits and vegetables from around the world through the whole year.  That wasn’t true on the mountain a few years back and Mrs. Melton said everyone was ready for something fresh and green when the first plants broke through.

Well, the Sallet mixture she talked about contained lots of different greens and as I said, I’m not skilled at finding all of that.  But there was one plant she named that I am familiar with – Creases.  She called them “creasy” and that seems to be the generally accepted name.  

When I saw some of them out along the fence row last week, I snatched them up.  Now I may have mentioned before that I don’t care for greens, although I’m very careful not to say I won’t  eat them, I just thank the good Lord that I don’t have to eat them.  However, as I said last week, I’m prepared to eat whatever that same Lord provides – especially in these uncertain times.  So I tried my hand at cooking these creases.

Turns out they were really good.

I might’ve expected the same, strong taste of mustard or turnip greens.  But that’s not what I got.  Cooked with a piece of smoked ham, parboiled then cooked in fresh water, they were fresh-tasting but not strong.  I didn’t cook them till they were mushy but they were certainly soft.

Overall, this is a wild green that I can really recommend – hmm, Grandma and Mama would’ve told me that if I’d listened.

The Preacher and the Old Woman that was a-livin’ in the Dark

Callie Melton includes in “Pon My Honor” a section she calls ‘One for the Road’ and this story falls into that section.

Up here there’s always a whole passel of jokes and tales going around about preachers.  But they are always good-natured jokes and tales, for we are very careful to tell them on our own denomination.  This is done for two mighty good reasons.  First, we just don’t joke with anybody or about anything that we don’t think a right smart of.  Then, too, we all hold mighty strong with what we was brought up with.  Why, it’s just like family.  You can say anything you want to about your own blood and kin, but you just d-double dare anybody else to open his mouth about anybody that’s a-kin to you, no matter how far off it may be.

So, since I was once a member of that church, and still have mighty strong leanings in that direction, I’ll tell this one on the Campbellites.

Picture courtesy of Jane Ashburn

One time there was this here Campbellite preacher who went away back up in the mountain to Walker Holler.  Now don’t ask me where Walker Holler was, for if I told you, you still wouldn’t know… so let me get on with my story.  He was wanting to hold a protracted meetin’ up there if he could find enough people and a good place.  From what he’d heard about Walker Holler, them poor people didn’t get much gospel up there.

So, one day he’d just put his Bible and his song book in his saddlebags and had started out.  He rode, and he rode, and he rode till finally he’d gone about as far as he could go when he come to this house.

He hollered the house, and this old woman come to the door.  He told the old woman that he was a stranger in them parts, and he asked her for a drink of water.  She told him to get down and come in.  So he got down, hitched up his mule and went in to get his drink and to visit awhile.

Him and the old woman talked about the weather and the crops, and then the Preacher told her that he was trying to find out if there was any Campbellite in them parts.

“Why, I don’t know,” she told him.  “My old man hunts a powerful lot, so you kin go out to the smokehouse and look amongst his hides.  You jest might find one o’ them varmints.”

The Preacher just set there and looked at her for a minute with his mouth open.  He was might nigh dumbfounded at what she’d said.
Then he asked her, “My good woman, don’t you know that you are  a-living in the dark?”

Picture courtesy of Jane Ashburn

“Oh! I shore do,” she said, “and I’ve been a-tryin’ fer quite a spell to git the ol’ man to cut us out a winder.  But you know he holds that it’s bad luck to cut out an openin’ atter the house is done built.”

The Preacher was plumb flabbergasted at this, so he just said, “But don’t you know that there’s a Judgement Day a-comin’?  Don’t you want to go?”

The old woman fingered her apron for a minute, then she said, “I hadn’t heerd about hit, but I wouldn’t git to go anyhow.  Hit’ud be too fur to walk.  And you know we don’t have but one ol’ mule and the ol’ man alllers has to ride him.”

Now the old woman just about had the Preacher up a gum stump for something else to say.  Finally he asked her, “But don’t you know that Jesus died fer you?”

“Oh! Mercy no!” she said.  “Why, I didn’t even know that the pore feller was ailin’.”

At this the Preacher just got up and went out and got on his mule and took off home.  When somebody asked him later how he made out up in Walker Holler, he shook his head and went on mumbling to himself, “I wouldn’t a-believed hit iffen I hadn’t a-heard hit with my own years.”

When God and The Devil Divided up the Dead

In ‘Pon my Honor, Carrie Melton attributes this story to the Knoxville News-Sentinel but gives no further citation.  I tried to search their website for it without success.

As I said in last week’s post I’m not prone to telling stories of haints but your response to The Logston Tide was overwhelming so I thought I’d share another of Mrs. Melton’s stories from the section “I Wouldn’t A-Believed Hit if I Hadn’t Seen Hit Myself”

Once there was this here old man who was all crippled up with rheumatism.  Fact is, he hadn’t hardly walked a step in years, and the only way he had of getting around was having his boy carry him.  The boy wasn’t grown yet, but he could get his pa up on his back and tote him around the place anywhere the old man wanted to go.  The old man was an ornery old cuss, just as cross and crabby with his old woman and the young’uns as he could be.  His old woman would get so put out with him sometimes that she’s just out and tell him that he was so mean that when he died God wouldn’t have him and the devil wouldn’t want him even if he did have to take him.

Come one fall and it was powerful hot weather…hot and dry.  The old man got mighty tired of just setting in his chair all day long, doing nothing but sweating and cussing the flies and the heat.  So, he got in the habit of having his boy tote him to different places around about in the cool of the evening.

Now, not far from where he lived there was a graveyard.  It was off down in the woods like, and a lonesome place even in broad daylight.  The boy didn’t much fancy taking his pa there after dark, but for pure devilment on these hot, dry days the old man would make the boy tote him down to the graveyard might nigh ever evening.

It was powerful hot one day…much hotter than usual.  The old man could hardly wait for dusky-dark to come and the air to cool off.  It did seem like the graveyard was the coolest place to be found in such weather.  And, too, it did pleasure the old man a sight to go set among the graves of his friends and kinfolks and to watch the starts and the lightning bugs come out.  So, this time as soon as the old woman got supper on the table, the old man rushed the boy through eating so he could pack his pappy out to the graveyard.  Much against his wishes, the boy got his pappy on his back and started off down the road to the graveyard.  They had to go down the big road a-piece, then off to the right in the scope of woods.

It just happened that two of the neighbor boys had been pawpaw hunting that evening, and had stayed out later than they meant to, so dark had caught them on the way home.  They decided to set down and divide their pawpaws there at the graveyard, for the road forked just beyond, and one went one way and the other went the other way.

As they went in the graveyard one boy was carrying the sack of pawpaws and the other one had his pockets full.  Just to be a-doin’, the boy with his pockets full stopped and laid a pawpaw on each gate post as he went in.  Then the two boys walked on down in the graveyard a-piece and set down by two headstones that were close together.  Then they started to divide up the pawpaws.

Now, the boy had toted his pa down to the graveyard gate, and since it was a right smart piece and the boy was tired, they stopped to rest.  The boy set the old man down by one gate post while he leaned up against the other one.  It was while they were resting that they heard talking coming from the graveyard.  They were all ears, and this is what they heard.

“You take this ‘un, and I’ll take that ‘un.  You take this ‘un, and I’ll that that ‘un.”  Then another voice said out loud and as plain as day, “Yes, and there’s two down by the gate posts.  You take one, and I’ll take the othern.”

At this the boy started over to pick up his pa and get out of there quick, but the old man beat him to it.  He jumped up, shoved the boy out of his way and said, “Iffen you can’t run, move over and let somebody run that can.”  And with that he took off down the road so fast that his shirt-tail fairly stood out in the wind behind him.  He beat the boy home by a long shot, and purt night scared his old woman to death.  She hadn’t seen her old man walk a step in years, let alone run!

“Lord-a-mercy! What’s the matter?” she yelled, thinking that the world was coming to an end.

“Hide me! Hide me quick, old woman,” begged the old man.  “We’ve just been down to the graveyard, and we heard God and the devil down there dividing up the dead.  I plain as day heard the devil say that there was two down by the gate posts, and that he’d take one and God could have the othern.  And, old woman, you know…good and well which one the devil was atter!”

Cord and the Mutton

Following is another of Callie Melton’s stories from her book ‘Pon my Honor

As usual, this is presented just as she published it.

Grandpa purely loved to tell about the jokes he’d played on people.  He was as full of fun as a dog is of fleas, and he was always ready for a prank of some kind or another.  His pranks were always good natured, but also always good for a laugh.  The tale us young’un liked the best was the one about the time he got Cord Hull to eat the mutton.

When Grandpa and Grandma were first married, they lived for awhile on Uncle Will Hull’s place.  Now he really wasn’t Uncle Will, but Cousin Will, but, being a lot older than Grandpa and Grandma, they just called him Uncle.

Uncle Will had five boys.  The middle one was Cord, and he was the one who was always sent out to work with Grandpa.  They two older boys, Ress and Nade, logged with Uncle Will, and they two younger ones, Wyoming and Roy, were kept at home to help their ma around the house.

One time Grandpa and Cord got the job of farming that year, so Uncle Will and the two other boys could go on with their logging and rafting.  Cord was just about half-grown, but he was a good worker, so the two set about putting in the crops.

On the days that they worked the fields nighest Uncle Will’s house, Miz. Hull would get dinner for them.  And on the days that they worked near Grandpa’s house, Grandma cooked for them.  Grandma was a good cook, and Cord like to eat at Grandpa’s.  He’d say that Lar could cook the best sallet and hoecake that he ever put in his mouth.

Now, at this particular time Grandpa had just killed a sheep.  Grandpa rally knew how to butcher a sheep, so his mutton was always good.  Grandpa also knew, as did everbody else, that mutton was the one thing that Cord Hull would not eat.  But, being Grandpa, he laid plans to feed Cord some of that mutton!

One morning at breakfast Grandpa told Grandma that him and Cord would be eating with her that day, and to be sure and cook plenty of mutton.  “Cord purely hates the stuff,” he told her, “but don’t you say a word about mutton at dinner.  I’m going to make him eat some of it and like it.”

Grandma was scandalized, but what could she do with Grandpa!  So she just tried to outdo herself on her meal that day, and when Cord and Grandpa came in at dinner time she had the vittles on the table waiting for them.

While she poured the sassafras tea, Grandpa and Cord sat down at the table and started eating.  The first thing Grandpa did was to pick up the big platter of mutton, pass it to Cord and say, “Cord, I’ve just killed a calf… have some.”

Cord forked him a nice big piece of mutton and started in on it.  Before he had hardly swallowed the last bite of that piece, Grandpa was passing the platter and urging him to have some more.  “Make out your dinner, boy,” he said, “for we’ve got some mighty hard work ahead of us this evening.”

“Alex, this is the best beef I ever tasted,” Cord said, and forked him another big piece of mutton.

Grandma was so taken back that she was afraid to open her mouth for fear she’d say the wrong thing.  But not Grandpa!  He eat, and talked, and passed Cord the beef.  And Cord eat like there wasn’t going to never be another meal.  But, finally they finished eating, pushed back their chairs, and got ready to go back to the field.

Cord thanked Grandma for the good meal, and started out the door.  Grandpa stopped him and said, “Cord, didn’t you tell me that you couldn’t eat mutton?”

“Alex,” he said, “I just can’t swallow that stuff.  It tastes just like wool to me, and the longer I chew a bite the bigger it gets.”

“Well, you sure eat a dog’s bait today,” Grandpa told him.

Cord couldn’t believe it!  HE couldn’t believe that he had eat mutton until Grandma assured him that he had.  Grandpa said that all the rest of that day Cord kept shaking his head and saying that he couldn’t believe that he’d really eat that mutton.

Of course Grandpa had to tell what he’d done all over the settlement.  And poor old Cord!  He had to take an awful lot of joshing about Alex’s poor little young’uns having to go hungry because he had eat up all of the mutton!