February 10, 2009

“Kill your hogs when the wind is from the north-west. The night before you salt the meat take a string of red pepper and make a strong tea. (Let it remain on the stove over night.) Put in the tea 2 heaping tablespoons of saltpetre to every 2 gallons. Take this strong tea and pour on the salt. Salt the meat lightly the first time to run off the blood. Let the meat lie packed 3 days–longer, if the weather is very cold. Then overhaul the meat and put 1 teaspoon of pulverized saltpetre on the flesh side of each ham and rub in well. Then rub with molasses mixed with salt. Pack close for 10 days. After this overhaul again, rubbing each piece, and pack close again. Hang the meat in 3 weeks from the time the hogs were killed. Before hanging, wash each piece in warm water, and while wet roll in hickory ashes. Then smoke with green hickory wood, and tie up in cotton bags in February.”

—Minerva C. Fox, The Blue Grass Cook Book. New York: Fox, Duffield & Company, 1904

January 30, 2009

“One calf’s head, mashed throughly; then boil four hours; take head out; cut meat off; strain the soup; add one pint of veal, chopped fine and fried in butter; a hard boiled egg, two boiled potatoes, both chopped fine; six tablespoonfuls of flour, browned in butter. Add butter balls, size of pea, made of one cup flour, tablespoonful of butter and little salt. Season soup with salt, pepper, sweet marjoram, all-spice and cloves to taste. Everything to boil in ten minutes.”

– Ladies’ Aid Society, Freemason Street Baptist Church, Norfolk, VA: Jamestown Cook Book. Norfolk, VA: Burke & Gregory, Printers, 1907

January 26, 2009

“One cup of preserves, one cup of butter, one cup of sugar, one cup of flour, five eggs. Cream the butter and sugar together, add the flour and eggs well beaten ; lastly the preserves. Bake in a quick oven. Serve hot with sauce.”

–Mrs. W. A. Horne, Echoes Of Southern Kitchens. Compiled and published by the Robert E. Lee Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy No. 278, Los Angeles, 1916

January 17, 2009

The name for this early bread comes from the Algonquian Indian word apan, meaning, “baked.”

“Six or eight potatoes (according to size), two eggs, half a cup of sugar (brown), a cup of syrup, a little orange peel and a teaspoonful of cinnamon. Wash and grate, without peeling,  the potatoes. Beat sugar, and eggs together, mix syrup with potatoes, then sugar and eggs and orange peel and cinnamon. Put all in a dish and bake.”
—Laura Thornton Knowles, Southern Recipes Tested by Myself. New York: George H. Doran, 1913.

January 3, 2009

Whites of 5 eggs, 1 3/4 cups sugar, 3/4 cup of butter or butter substitute, 4 cups flour, 2 level teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons flavoring, 1 cup sweet milk or water.

Dark part: yolks 5 eggs, 1 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter or substitute, 1/2 cup sour milk,     3 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon soda, 1/2 cake chocolate shaved in 1 cup water. Put on stove and boil until reduced to 1/2 cup; set off and cool, then add to cake mixture, 2 teaspoons vanilla. Bake in loaf or layer, alternating light and dark part. If in layers put together with chocolate filling.

–(Mrs.) C.P. Addington, Scott County Cook Book 1918. Gate City, VA: Boatright Printing Co., 1918.

November 21, 2008

Joint chicken or cut in joints, dip in sweet milk, dredge with white corn meal instead of flour ; salt and pepper. Fry in boiling hot fat. (I preferred lard and butter mixed.)
Make a cream gravy. Serve with corn fritters made of canned or fresh corn. For three to four, one can of corn or six ears cut. Make a batter same as for hot cakes; put corn, salt and sugar to taste. Pour out of end of spoon into boiling fat. Cook a golden brown and serve.

—Mrs. J. E. Buckley, Echoes Of Southern Kitchens. Compiled and published by the Robert E. Lee Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy No. 278, Los Angeles, 1916

November 18, 2008

• 1 large turkey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon browned flour
• 1 pod pepper
• 1 loaf bread
• 1 pt water
• 50 oysters
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• 1/4 large onion
• 4 pieces celery
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup minced mushrooms
• 1/2 teaspoon minced parsley

Make a dressing by chopping together bread, mush-
rooms, oysters, salt, pepper, onions, celery, parsley and
hard boiled eggs, then fry about 15 minutes in butter; put
this in turkey and rub with oil, flour, salt and pepper.
Put in pan, add water, baste frequently and bake, allow-
ing 20 minutes to the pound.
—Mrs. Martha Pritchard Stanford, Old and New Cook Book, 1904