Blind Pig & The Acorn

Hog Killing In Appalachia

 

All one has to do is to take a walk through the local grocery store's meat department to see the variety it holds. Back in the day-before meat was so readily available-pork was the staple meat for most mountain families. 

In the very early days-before the chestnut blight-most folks in Appalachia let their hogs free range and forage for their own food. After the blight, and as the land became more populated-folks kept their hogs closer to home.

In my area of Appalachia-folks waited for cold weather to arrive before slaughtering their hogs. I recently read where folks farther south used blocks of ice to aide in their hog killing process-since a stretch of cold weather couldn't be guaranteed as easily as it could in the mountains.

Pap and Granny never kept hogs, but I remember at some point someone in the holler did-maybe it was my Papaw Wade or maybe an Uncle. Whoever had them, kept them in a hog lot down below my Uncle Henry's. One of my funniest memories from childhood contains those hogs.

My cousin, Maria, and me were walking along the road that ran beside the pig lot. We realized the hogs were out at about the same time the 2 big hogs noticed us. We took off running towards home-with the 2 pigs in hot pursuit. I think we knew they wouldn't actually hurt us-but there was much screaming and laughing during the chase-and much teasing for 2 silly girls who ran from pigs afterward.

Hope you'll drop back by in the coming days as we discuss a few aspects of hog slaughtering. Coming up next in the series: a guest post, written by Kieth Jones, which details his memories of hog killin day at his Grandfather's.

Tipper
 

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The Best Pralines Ever

This week I've been making Pralines-I always make them at Christmas. It's one of those things I'm expected to make-like Thanksgiving Rolls.

 

When Chatter and Chitter were little they sometimes acted like Banshees (actually sometimes-they still do). I had a hard time taking both of them grocery shopping with me-if I didn't put them in the buggy they got away from me-if I did put them in the buggy there was no room for the groceries. I finally found the solution to my dilemma-at a BILO store. They had a buggy with 2 seats built into it-they even buckled so the girls couldn't escape. Each Christmas the BILO store handed out Christmas magazines filled with recipes. One year it had this Praline recipe in it-and I've been making them ever since.

Pralines

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3/4 cup of butter
• 2 cups pecan halves (pieces work too)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

*Combine sugar, soda, salt, and buttermilk in a large saucepan and cook over high heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Continue boiling and stirring until mixture begins to thicken and becomes slightly creamy (210 degrees on a candy thermometer).

*Add butter and pecans, and continue boiling over medium high heat until the thermometer reaches 234 degrees (soft ball stage).

*Remove pan from heat, and add vanilla. Allow mixture to cool about 2 minutes. Beat mixture until it begins to lose its gloss and is thick and creamy. Quickly, drop by spoonfuls in 2 inch rounds on waxed paper/foil let cool. (if mixture becomes too hard, immerse pan in hot water for several minutes and resume dropping candies)

To me the only hard part of the recipe is knowing when to start dropping the pralines onto the paper. I've dropped too soon and ended up scraping it all up to cook a little more. The best tip I can give-other than trial and error-is too really pay attention to the mixture-it does loose it's glossy appearance and you can begin to see a difference in the texture of the mixture as well. Honestly-the pralines are so good-even if I had to scrape the mixture back into the pot and cook it a little longer every time I made them-it'd be worth it. The pralines are creamy melt in your mouth goodness.

Tipper

p.s. If you have any questions about the pralines email me at tipper@blindpigandtheacorn.com

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Gritted Bread

After Pap showed me how to parch corn-he told me about gritted bread. Pap recalls 2 types of bread being called gritted bread. The first was made by using fresh corn that had been allowed to dry slightly overnight or a little longer. A grater-usually homemade-was used to remove the corn from the cob. After mixing sodie (baking soda), salt, buttermilk, and an egg or 2 with the corn it was fried or baked and eaten as bread.

The other gritted bread Pap remembers was made from parched corn. As you can imagine parched corn was hard to eat if you had bad teeth or were lacking a few. Folks would grind or pound the parched corn into a very coarse cornmeal and make bread with it.

Since we don't have a grinder-I put some of the corn we parched in an old flour sack and took a hammer to it. Let's just say I got my work out. You can see from the photo-even after repeated hammering-the cornmeal was still very coarse.

I ran out of daylight and ended up with barely enough meal to make a cake of bread-but Pap mixed it up for me anyway. He added buttermilk, salt, sodie, an egg, and a little oil to make a batter.

Since we ended up with such a small amount, Pap decided to use his cast iron spider pan. As it turned out we had more than we thought and were afraid the batter would run out of the pan-so we stuck it in the oven to finish cooking.

About 10 minutes later we were eating gritted bread. Did I like it? Not really. It tasted a little like hominy which I like-but I just couldn't get over the texture of it. I suppose if you ate it all the time you'd become accustomed to the taste and texture-but for now I'm sticking with cornbread.

As I knelt outside in the cold, pounding the corn with dark coming on fast, the saying "idle hands are the devil's workshop" came to mind. When I went back in the warm house, I told Granny, "I can see why there wasn't as much meaness going on when you and Pap were children-it would have taken so much time for folks to make sure they had enough food, water, and wood that they wouldn't have had time to be mean." Granny said "Yes that is true, that is the way it was. And it makes me wonder if the ease at which we live life today is for the better." Granny may have a point.

Ever heard of gritted bread?

Tipper

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Parched Corn

Parching corn was yet another way folks made use of the dried corn they had gathered from their fields to feed themselves and their animals through the winter months.

The little girl in the photo-is Granny standing by her Mother, Gazzie, who is holding Lucky-Granny's youngest brother. Gazzie had 11 children (9 lived to adulthood)-Granny is the 3rd youngest and was born in 1940. To say times were hard for a family that size I'm sure is an understatement. 

All my 'corn talking' brought back parched corn memories for Granny and Pap-and even for me.

Granny begin telling me a story I'd never heard her share. She said Gazzie, her Mother, told her while she was pregnant with her, she practically lived on parched corn. I could never get Granny to say whether she thought her mother survived on parched corn cause she craved it or cause there was nothing else to eat. But she did tell me-Gazzie said she would parch the corn and then place it in a little white cloth, sit on the steps, crush it with a hammer, and then eat it.

Pap with his Mother and Father

My one memory about parched corn: Pap's Mother, my Mamaw, kept me when I was little. Unfortunately for us-she died when I was in 5th grade. Many of the memories I have of her-center around her tiny kitchen where she'd cook me something to eat-usually grits-cause I loved them. I recall her standing at the stove and me asking her what she was cooking-she said "parched corn you'd like it too if you'd try it." I don't remember trying it or anything else-just her standing at the stove saying the words.

A couple of days ago, Pap showed me how to parch corn. First I took the dried corn outside and shook it from bowl to bowl to get the chaff off.

Next Pap melted some butter in a cast iron frying pan-and added the corn. He kept stirring it around to make sure it didn't burn-but browned evenly. You could hear it popping around-and a few kernels even popped half way open like a kernel of popcorn sometimes will. After it had browned evenly Pap salted the corn.

You can see the finished product-parched corn. It was pretty good-tasted like popcorn kernels to me-some kernels were easy to chew up-some where impossible. Pap said the corn they grew when he was a child made better parched corn than what we had to work with. I can see why folks would like it-and even crave it. Think of a world where there were no potato chips, cheetos or cornchips-parched corn would fill the slot for a salty crunchy snack. 

In fact snacking on parched corn was what Pap remembered about it. He said families would sit around at night and parch corn over the fire and then eat it as a snack-kinda like we do popcorn. He also said folks would parch corn-dry it off good and carry it around in their pocket as snack on the go. He said it wasn't unusual to be standing around talking and see someone pull out a little bag of parched corn to eat.

Have you ever had parched corn? Next up on our journey of dried corn-gritted bread.

Tipper

p.s. Recently, some interesting comments have been added to my Grannyisms page-if you haven't checked it out in a while you should.

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Pumpkin Roll

After I posted the Oatmeal Dinner Roll recipe-one of my friends said-"what you should have told them about is your pumpkin roll." So I am.

Over the years I've seen different recipes for Pumpkin Rolls-the one I use comes from a community cookbook-I bought it from one of my cousins when he was in elementary school-now he's in his 20s-time goes by way too fast. Community or Church cookbooks are my favorite kind-cause you know the recipes were submitted by folks that actually made them-and actually liked them. Kind of tried and true recipes.

Pumpkin Roll

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2/3 cup of pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• 8 oz. cream cheese softened
• 1 cup powered sugar
• 1 tbs softened butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

*mix flour, sugar, salt, soda and cinnamon;

*add pumpkin and eggs one at a time-mix well

*spray or grease cookie sheet (this one is 15 X 10-but sometimes I use one that is slightly larger); spread batter evenly on it; bake at 375 for 15 minutes or till done

*turn the pumpkin roll out onto a piece of wax paper or foil (mine doesn't always want to let go of the pan-so as soon as I remove it from the oven-I use a spatula to loosen it); roll up the pumpkin roll length wise; wrap in wax paper or foil and refrigerate till chilled (a couple of hours)

*for the filling-mix together cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, and nuts if you want them

*unroll chilled pumpkin roll and spread with filling; re-roll, re-wrap and refrigerate till serving time or at least an hour; slice and enjoy

My favorite things about this recipe:

• tastes great
• looks fancy-even though it's so easy
• you can make it ahead of time
• if you happen to break the pumpkin part of it-the filling 'glues' your mistakes back together and it still look great

It really is delicious-if you give it a try let me know what you think.

Tipper

p.s. Pap's supposed to show me how to parch corn today-so drop back by to see how it goes.

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Thanksgiving Rolls

With Thanksgiving only a few days away many of us are thinking about food and family. I find it interesting-how folks become connected with the things they cook-you know how we expect them to fix the dishes we love. I still think of my Granny Gazzie's biscuits, stewed taters shaped like boats, and fried sweet potatoes even though she's been gone for years. Others in my family that come to mind:

~Granny-we all love her green beans, biscuits, and holy smoke cake

~Pap-he makes a pan of fried potatoes like no one else

~Miss Cindy-makes the best stews and soups you've ever tasted-without a recipe

~My sister-n-law Kim-makes a coconut cake that even tempts The Deer Hunter who claims he hates coconut

~Papaw Tony-makes hush puppies that are so good you forget about the fish

Over the years, folks have come to expect a few of my dishes: Paul wants Oatmeal Krispie Cookies for his birthday present each year, folks look forward to the Pressley Family Christmas Party-just so they can eat my Pecan Pralines, and I'm told Thanksgiving just wouldn't work without my Oatmeal Dinner Rolls.

I'm a bread junkie-seriously I'd rather have a piece of good bread (cornbread, biscuit, or roll) than meat any day. When The Deer Hunter and I were first married I found the recipe for Oatmeal Dinner Rolls in an issue of Southern Living. Knowing I loved anything with brown sugar in it I gave them a try-and all these years later I'm still glad I did. So easy-so good-and as far as bread goes-quite healthy with the addition of oatmeal.

Oatmeal Dinner Rolls-makes approximately 32 rolls

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 (1/4 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water (100-110 degrees)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 cups all purpose flour (it actually takes closer to 5 cups)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar

*bring 2 cups water to a boil in a medium pot; stir in oats and butter; return to a boil; boil for one minute stirring constantly; remove from heat and let cool to 110 degrees

*stir together 2 packets of yeast (if you buy yeast in bulk like I do-2 1/4 teaspoons equals one envelope), 1/2 cup warm water, and 1 tablespoon sugar in a 2 cup measuring cup

*let yeast mixture sit for 5 minutes-the mixture will bubble up to the top of the cup

*beat oat mixture, yeast mixture, flour, salt, and brown sugar with a mixer until smooth

*the dough will be sticky and slightly wet-turn it out onto a floured surface; knead adding flour as needed till dough is smooth and elastic-about 5 minutes

*place dough in a greased bowl; cover; and let rise in a warm place for an hour or till dough doubled in bulk

 

*punch dough down; divide in half; shape each portion into 16 1 1/2 inch balls-or whatever size you want; place evenly in lightly greased pans-round or square (after second rising rolls may be refrigerated overnight-let stand at room temperature 30 minutes before baking or freeze after second rising for up to a month; thaw overnight in refrigerator; let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before baking)

*cover and let rise in warm place for 30 minutes or till doubled in bulk; bake in 375 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes or till golden brown

 

Carol Barclay from Portland Texas is credited with developing this great recipe. Over the years I've found it to be almost fool proof-I never measure the temps of the water or the oatmeal, use at least an additional cup of flour as I knead and shape the dough, and I've never kneaded the dough for the full 5 minutes. Another neat thing about this recipe-if you only need a few rolls-take the rest of the dough and use it for cinnamon rolls.

So how about you what dish are you expected to make?

Tipper

p.s. If you have a question about the recipe or would like the cinnamon roll details-email me at tipper@blindpigandtheacorn.com

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Cornmeal Mush

One way our ancestors used cornmeal-was to make mush. Folks think of cornmeal mush as a breakfast food comparable to grits, however in Paps family it was often eaten for supper as well.

Cornmeal mush was an inexpensive food to make (actually it still is). We've already discussed what an important crop corn was-most folks had cornmeal on hand and they for sure had the other main ingredient-which is water.

The Deer Hunter's Aunt Wanda still cooks cornmeal mush. She said she's liked it since she was a little girl-cornmeal mush is a comfort food for her as it reminds her of her childhood. Last time I was at her house she made mush for breakfast, it was very good.

Cornmeal mush is easy to make-anyone who's made grits already has it down pat. Aunt Wanda said in the old days sometimes folks would sift the cornmeal to get the bigger pieces of meal out-of course this was during the time when everyone's cornmeal came from a gristmill and was a coarser texture-that isn't a problem with today's store bought cornmeal.

To make cornmeal mush:

• Bring 2 cups of water to a boil
• Add a pinch of salt
• Pour 1 cup of cornmeal into the boiling water while stirring the mixture
• Continue cooking until thick
• You can add butter, sugar, syrup or whatever pleases you to the mush

Pap's mother often cooked cornmeal mush and then poured it into a container to set up. She then sliced the firm mush to fry it for supper. Pap said it was sorta like pancakes as they would pour syrup over the fried mush. (in those days sugar cane syrup was what most folks had in this area of Appalachia)

Ever had cornmeal mush?

Tipper

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Cornmeal

After folks had gathered in their corn, came the process of making it into cornmeal for human consumption. Most of the cornmeal we buy today has been ground with steel rollers and the hull and germ have been removed to make the meal a finer texture-it also allows the cornmeal to have a longer shelf life.

Back in the day, cornmeal was ground between 2 millstones usually powered by water. This process produced a coarser cornmeal-it was also more nutritious as all the parts of the corn were left in. However, it was a more perishable cornmeal.

I wrote about the process in June of 08:

Pap can recall several gristmills that operated when he was a child. His family would take a couple bushels of Corn each month to be ground. If you got more than you needed, you took the chance of weevils getting into the meal. Most mills in this area kept part of your cornmeal as payment.

When Pap's Mother was a young adult still living at home, her father, Jewell, went to the gristmill one day-he never returned. When they begin to search for him-they found him shot dead. None of us still living, know the details of what happened that day, and Mamaw didn't talk about it. Now as an adult, it makes me wonder if every time my grandmother went or sent to the gristmill she had to re-live part of the day her Daddy died.

Most mills used water to power their grinding. Pap said some had chutes that carried the water a far piece-from the creek down to the water wheel. Makes me think of a wooden water slide. The water used to turn the wheel resulted in a mill pond. Several years ago Pap showed me where a gristmill had been about a mile from our house. Nothing remained- except the creek. After all these years-the place is still called the Old Mill Pond.

As Appalachia became industrialized and folks started going to work instead of farming, the need for gristmills disappeared. 

I can never think of gristmills without thinking of Maggie. For this Picking & Grinning In The Kitchen Spot-I Wandered To The Hill Maggie. (don't forget to stop the player in the top right of this page before you start the video)

Hope you enjoyed the song-pretty neat arrangement on the vocals. Check back in the coming days to see how the cornmeal was used in preparing food.

Have you ever eaten stone ground cornmeal? I haven't.

Tipper

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Pig Pickin

The Blind Pig Family was invited to The Cole Family Labor Day Pig Pickin-and what a wonderful time we had.

A pig pickin-is where a whole pig is cooked until the meat is so tender it can literally be picked off the bones. In the south pig pickins are often held to celebrate holidays or special occasions.

The thought of slow smoked pork was enough to whet our appetites but-once we arrived, in addition to the delicious pork we were treated to:

Quail

Pheasant

Turkey, mexican cornbread, potato salad, slaw, stuffed jalapeno peppers, baked beans, corn, banana pudding, and pineapple goo cake. (I was too busy stuffing myself to get photos of everything)

In addition to all the good eating there was much fun, fellowship, and a little work-

Treasure hunting around the barns turned up-fall colored gourds and feathers.

Nothing like a tire swing for entertainment-

 

even better-2 swings to share the fun.

The work that took place-was exciting-and loud. 4 pigs got nose rings. A very interesting process for me-since I'd never seen it before. The only time I've ever used a hog ring was to attach anchors to row boats back in the day when I worked at the boat house.

I was amazed by how fast and efficient the guys placed the rings in the pig's nose. Less than 20 minutes to do all four pigs-and more than one was a handful to catch. Hog rings are predominately used to prevent hogs from rooting. Rooting hogs-can destroy the landscape, escape from their pens/fences, and eat food other than what you want them to eat.

All in all the pig pickin was a great day-and the old saying squeal like a pig has taken on new meaning for the girls.

Hope you enjoy your Labor Day!

Tipper

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Pickled Beans And Corn - The Old Time Way

The first time I ever tasted Pickled Beans and Corn was back in the day when The Deer Hunter and I were dating. Seeing the pan of green beans and corn cooking on the stove-I wondered why these people mixed up their beans and corn before cooking-but was too shy to ask.

I must admit when I first tasted the mixture-I thought something was wrong with it-and hoped no one noticed when I scraped it into the garbage can.

For me-pickled beans and corn was a food that had to grow on me-and grow it has. Now I crave the stuff. One of my favorite meals is fried deer meat, stewed potatoes, cornbread, pickled beans and corn, and a glass of sweet tea-it just don't get any better than that.

In the days before grocery stores, freezers, and canning jars-folks had to have a way of preserving food to make it through the winter. Often they chose the pickling method.

For pickling a large amount of food they used crocks-large pottery containers-some hold up to 10 gallons. I've read, before crocks were plentiful folks used wooden tubs. After picking, the mixture could be stored in the crock-folks would dip out the product as they needed it.

Over the years as my love of Pickled Beans and Corn has grown-I've decided The Deer Hunter's Dad, Papaw Tony, is the master of pickling beans and corn. Here is his recipe:

Papaw's Recipe is for a 8 Gallon Crock-1 Bushel of Green Beans, 5 Dozen Ears of Corn, 3 Large Heads of Cabbage, Peppers to taste-you can use-banana, jalapeno, or cayenne (or you can leave the peppers out completely), 2 lbs of Pickling Salt-DO NOT use Iodized Salt it will not pickle. Papaw follows the signs and makes Pickled Beans and Corn when the signs are in the Head.

First: String and break green beans, wash well in sink.

 

Blanch-put in pot bring to a boil-drain-rinse again, put back in pot and boil for 30 minutes, drain and cool. (We use a gas fish fryer/turkey cooker to cook outside-this keeps the house cooler-and cooks faster)

 

Shuck and silk corn, bring water to a rolling boil-then add ears of corn-cook for 45 seconds. (Papaw says "if you don't bring the water to a boil first-before adding the corn-you will over cook the corn")

Drain corn, cool, cut off the cob.

 

Chop cabbage-Papaw uses a food processor-chop the cabbage to a small consistency-but not as small as you would for slaw. Papaw adds cabbage-because his Mother did-if you don't want to add cabbage leave it out-the recipe will still work. You do not cook the cabbage.

 

Chop up peppers-the amount you add depends on your taste. The Deer Hunter likes his with a little heat-so he added about 10 Jalapeno Peppers. Me-I'm hoping he didn't add to many-cause I don't like it hot. Remember you can use-banana peppers-jalapenos-or cayenne peppers. Or you can leave the peppers completely out.

 

Now it's time to put all the ingredients into the crock. Begin with a layer of salt in the bottom of crock, next layer of green beans-about 1 1/2 inch thick, layer of corn 1 1/2 inch thick, layer of cabbage 1 1/2 inch thick, sprinkle a few peppers, add another layer of salt.

Repeat the layering process until you reach the top of the crock.

 

When you've layered in all the ingredients-you add enough warm tap water to cover the mixture. As the water mixes with the salt, it will be the brine that pickles the corn, beans, and cabbage.

 

Use a kitchen plate to push all the ingredients under the brine water. Weight it down with 2 mason jars filled with water. Cover with a towel. After 2 weeks the pickling will be finished. You can leave the mixture in the crock-or remove and can. We can ours using the open kettle method of canning (which means getting the pickles hot and the jars hot)-it will last several years after being canned.

Making Pickled Beans and Corn is quite a process-but it is so worth it-that we make them almost every year.

Have you ever eaten Pickled Beans and Corn? Do you like them? Have you ever used a crock for pickling?

Tipper

p.s. If you have any questions about the recipe-you can email me at tipper@blindpigandtheacorn.com