More about Taters

Perhaps it’s our Scotts-Irish ancestry, but potatoes are more than a staple food on the mountain.  Most local folks would tell you that you can’t live without potatoes and the bounty of the fall potato harvest is the number one measure of the kind of winter we’re about to face.

I grew up with potatoes on the table every day, often more than once.  One friend who grew up in especially hard conditions remembered often having just potatoes for supper. 

Uppity people might sneer at our affinity for ‘taters, but they are popular across America as chips, fries, baked, a ’gratin… there are so many ways to enjoy them. 

We so universally refer to this food as ‘Arsh Taters that I have had to lookup the proper name for them.  It seems they are Russet or White potatoes; however, it also seems to me that people off the mountain don’t put Sweet Potatoes in the same class as White potatoes.  Certainly, their origins are vastly different.

Historically, white potatoes are thought to have first been cultivated in Peru, and sailors carried them to Ireland in the mid-1500’s.  Once the crop took root there, it became essential, History Magazine reports that “Many Irish survived on potatoes and milk alone – the two together provide all essential nutrients…” So it’s easy to see the devastation wrought by the Potato Blight that hit the island in 1845 and brought on mass starvation.

However, in those early days, potatoes were considered a food only for the lower classes of society.  Sweet Potatoes, however, once discovered in the South America, graced the tables of kings. 

In America, Sweet potatoes were most popular in the southern states, no doubt because they are more difficult to grow up north.  I’ve been reading that you have to cover and warm the soil in June in order to provide a suitable environment north of Kentucky.  However, they have grown in popularity across the country as their nutritional benefits have been exploited.

I adore sweet potatoes, simply baked or fried with a little brown sugar, they are delicious and as I mentioned very nutritious.

We have so much more access to foods these days, but if you see a garden plot on the mountain, you’ll just about always see a patch of potatoes among the other vegetables.

Changing Seasons

Photo Credit: Scott Phillips, Backwoods Adventures

The temperatures are falling, leaves are rustling in a brisk breeze and it just feels like fall of the year.  The changing seasons make for changing routines, and I can’t help but think of the differences in those changes for me and you compared to the changes our mountain predecessors experienced.

On the farm it seems like you spend the whole summer getting ready for the winter.  You plant corn and maybe some grains to feed the stock, cut hay, put up garden vegetables, and fatten a hog or calf to feed the family. It starts in the springtime with the first seeds planted and continues until this time of year when corn is picked, in days past, it would’ve been shocked up.  It’s time to dig your ‘Arsh Taters (also known as Russet or White potatoes and within a few weeks the Sweet Taters.  You may still be able to plant some “late garden” such as mustard and lettuce, turnips and cabbage, but the garden is certainly winding down by this time.  If you haven’t gotten any wood stacked off the back porch, you’ll have to turn your attention to that pretty soon – and in my opinion, fall is the very best time for cutting wood because the snakes aren’t crawling and the cooler temperatures are certainly welcome in the woods.  And any store-bought necessities must be stockpiled because wet and snowy roads will soon be impassable and the trip to town in an open wagon becomes miserable.

Bee ROck in Monterey, TN

Well in our modern lives maybe all of that doesn’t apply.  Houses are heated centrally by warm, forced air whether or not you keep the fire.  Our global food supply chain generally keeps store shelves stocked and our bellies full whether we made a success of the garden or not.  And the salt trucks and plows will keep the roads ready to travel in our warm cars almost every day of the year.  It seems like about the only changes we have to make is the addition of a coat and gloves when you head out the door.

Last spring may have awakened a lot of us to the advantages to the way our grandparents did it.  When store shelves were suddenly bare, were you already stocked-up?  Every winter has a lot of predictions, and this one is even worse as some predict food shortages and others suggest all of the pandemic woes will soon be forgotten. I’m curious, have you prepared differently for this winter?

Cooking for the Sick

In last week’s post I shared some observations on “The Original Fanny Farmer 1896 Cookbook” and one fascinating chapter was Recipes Especially Prepared for the Sick.

I remembered another cookbook I have, “Inglenook Cook Book” (The Brethren Publishing House, 1911) which also includes a chapter entitled “For the Sick” and you know that got me to thinking…

I’ve written here before about treating the sick, about the Granny-women who doctored when professionals were unavailable and about mountain medicine, but we know that the sick are first cared for at home and historically, they were mostly kept home and cared for by family.  So, sharing knowledge of how to rehabilitate the infirm is a worthy and no doubt greatly-appreciated endeavor.

Neither of these cookbooks originate in anywhere near Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau.  However, the Inglenook, Pennsylvania region may not be terribly different.  In fact, the cookbook describes itself as containing “recipes of a segment of rural America”, and that section of rural America shares our same mountain range.  These recipes originated with the Church of the Brethren which was largely of German origin so their foods may differ those passed down from our own Scotts-Irish ancestry.

Most of us can remember a time we were sick and nothing sounded the least bit appetizing.  Maybe you’ve sat by a loved one or a child and begged them to eat a few bites.  I remember when I was a child and sick with some minor ailment, my grandparents always wanting me to eat, and offering most anything that I was willing to eat.  On a personal note, I’ll tell you that from those childhood days, whenever I’m sick I want rabbit and apple dumplings – thank you Grandpa Livesay and Grandma Stepp!  (Unfortunately, no one has carried such dishes to my sick bed since those beloved grandparents went home to heaven!)  Are you surprised that I find neither food listed in these cookbooks’ chapters on feeding the sick?

Miss Farmer asserts that, “statistics prove that tw0thirds of all disease is brought about by error in diet.”  I’d expect modern data to agree with her as we have so many major problems from obesity and excess sugar, not to mention chemical additives and preservatives.  She offers detailed instruction on setting up a dinner tray, complete with “a bright blossom … or a small vase of flowers placed in left hand corner.”  Even the more pragmatic Sisters from the Church of the Brethren, advise you to “arrange the food as daintily as possible”, and I suppose presentation is important when an appetite is weak.

The Boston cookbook describes which foods should be encouraged or avoided in given conditions.  “Fruit waters are principally used for fever patients.  They are cooling refreshing, and mildly stimulating, and are valuable for the salts and acids they contain….Egg-nogs are recommended… when the system is much reduced by a severe illness.”  She warns that corn and oatmeal are “heat-producing, and should never be given when inflammatory symptoms are present.”

I was particularly interested that, “flour and cracker gruels to many prove a pleasant variety, and often assist in reducing a laxative condition.”  (I don’t entirely understand that phraseology and can only expect it means that the gruels will help with diarrhea – not to be indelicate.)  This was of interest to me because my grandparents taught me to eat it – of course we just called it Crackers and Milk. 

Finally, I want to share one convalescent recipe from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Rennet Custard. 

Heat 1 cup milk until lukewarm; add 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon sherry win.  When sugar is dissolved, add 1 teaspoon liquid rennet.  Turn into a small mould, and let stand in a cool place until firm.  Serve with sugar and cream.  Cinnamon or nutmeg may be used in place of wine.  Liquid rennet may be bought in bottles of any first-class grocer.

I’m sharing that recipe because I doubt most readers will have had much experience with rennet, unless you’ve dabbled in cheese-making as I have.  It is an enzyme-rich substance found in calf stomachs.  The traditional method of extracting it is to soak pieces of the stomach in salt water or whey and vinegar or wine.  Most folks on the mountain who butcher a cow don’t keep or use many of the innards and I never heard of anyone soaking the stomach.

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!