A Typical Day of Cooking on My Grandparents' Farm

Early in the morning, Granma would get up, start a fire in the wood stove in the kitchen, put a chunk of butter in the bottom of a couple of pans, and put the pans in the oven so the butter would melt. Meanwhile, my grandfather would go out, milk the cow, stop by the smokehouse for a slab of bacon, and the henhouse for some eggs. He would sharpen a very long knife and slice thin slices of bacon before taking the slab back to the smokehouse and going about the rest of his morning chores. Granma would fry the bacon, then break the eggs into the grease, and pull out a large wooden bowl, pour in some flour and baking powder, then add some lard, and with a couple of table knives, cut the lard into the flour to form a dough, which she would roll out, cut with a biscuit cutter, and, taking the pans of melted butter from the oven, dip and turn the biscuits before putting them back into the oven to bake and brown. She would go into the pantry and bring out jars of fig preserves and pickled peaches, and all would go onto the table as the biscuits were done.

Shortly after, she would go out to the garden, just next to the house, and pull or pick a good mess of whatever was in season. If it was wintertime, that would be collards and cabbage, and the pantry would have jars of black-eyed peas and of tomatoes. In season, the peas would be fresh, and there would be corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, and okra pods to cook on top of the peas, as well as some tender mustard greens, or maybe some turnips and their greens instead. She would make a loaf or two of cornbread, using a recipe much like the one Phil's Reba posted on the "Sunday Night" thread. If meat was served, it would have been ham from the smokehouse or pork chops and/or sausage, if there had been a recent "hog-killing." This dinner would be served in the very early afternoon.

Sometime during the afternoon or evening, she would take time off to pull out the churn, and separate the butter from the whey - they called it blue-john, today we drink it as skimmed milk. Then, it was used , along with whatever was leftover from supper, to "slop" (or feed) the hogs.

Supper would be whatever was left over from the mid-day dinner, plus some pan-fried potatoes and maybe some scrambled eggs if there wasn't much meat.

Everybody was lean and robustly healthy. My grandparents both lived well into their eighties, and only developed health problems after my mom and her brothers insisted they leave the farm and move into town.

I remember all this personally. When I was 10, they got electricity. Granma eventually got a "Frigidaire" and an electric stove. They never had running water, but when I was either in my late teens or very early twenties, the "boys," which by then included my father, dug out a hole for a sump tank, and added a bathroom to the back porch with a toilet that could be flushed by pouring in a bucket of water from the cistern.

I loved that place. Some of my best memories come from the time I spent there.

Ann

Yummy!

10/20/2009

Ann..

That made my mouth water ! Good Old fashion
food and in those days they were healty....I'll be right
over for dinner.YUMMY !..

Cheers..Joe

10/20/2009

Ann..

Have you ever made old Fashion popovers ?
I have a special popover pan and I make them during
Thanksgiving and Christmas, Yummy !


Cheers..Joe.

No, not regularly, Joe, but I have made them to go with roast beef. I don't eat much red meat these days, so I haven't thought of popovers. Thanks for the reminder.

Ann

Dear Ann,
God bless Granma. I live like that now, with the cooking and the garden stuff.

I am getting tired, though. Store bought is looking good to me.

I would love a pizza!

Well, anything anyone else harvested and cooked would be nice.

Love,
Betty