by Jeannie Travis
Ma (my Grandmother) looked so natural in her apron. It’s bib was generous enough to protect her bodice pretty well, and it covered the front of her skirt from one side to the other and almost to the hem, which was above her ankles, but definitely below her knees. I have a picture of her standing in front of a young tree at my Aunt Clyde’s house. In one shot she is standing ‘nicely’ and in another one made seconds apart she has one foot behind her, propped against the tree. She was over there helping to kill hogs, and had on those long brown cotton stocking females used to wear in the cold weather and her long apron to protect her dress, of course. Her hair was black as a crow’s wing, worn in braids around her head. No gray hair till she was in her late 60’s, Indian blood, you know.
Papa had been dead many years by this time, and she lived alone. When anyone killed hogs she went along to help and they gave her some scraps of meat as they did everyone that came in to help and maybe a sack of sausage.. Now, Ma ate everything on that pig but the squeal according to Mama, so might have gone home weighed down with parts the average family would give to the dogs. She drew the line at chitlins, but ate the ears , tail, and made a fine stew of the innards like kidney, heart, lungs, sweetbreads, etc, etc. If they gave her the heads because they didn’t want to fool with them she would make mincemeat, souse meat, something called head cheese, best I remember. She would pickle the ‘trotters’ and can meaty chunks of backbone and other scraps of lean meat. Widders didn’t get food stamps, commodities, or hubby’s pension back then, and the neighbors helped them out.
Ma even canned extra sausage, and I remember Mama (my Mother) doing that too. When we made sausage she used sacks she’d sewed up ahead of time from bleached flour or feed sacks or good pieces of well washed bed sheets. Some of this sage and pepper laced meat was hung in the smoke house alongside the hams and shoulders, and some of the sausage was fried almost done then canned. She would pour some of the hot grease into the jar of sausage cakes and prop it upside down but on it’s side a bit so the entire inner lid was coated with fat. This was then stored in a cold place until it was time to open and cook for later breakfasts. It was dug out of the jar and put in a skillet and cooked till well done. Gravy was made from the grease. I’ve read that any type of meat can be preserved that way, as long as there are no bones in it. Just cook pork steak or whatever, remove any bones and layer it in a crock with melted fat covering all sides of the meat – If the meat touches it will ruin. It has to stay in a cold place. One time Mama canned some tenderloin this way, but usually we ate all of that right away. Mama didn’t have much appetite after fooling with that meat all day, but us 9 kids were hungry. Guess folks just put extra meat in the deep freeze now days.
Gettin plumb off the subject here, but I must tell you that Mama would just about always cook tenderloin for supper on hog killing day, as it didn’t keep very well and we had no fridge..Or electricity to run one. She would fry big beaten slabs of tenderloin that had been dipped in flour, salt and a wee bit of pepper. Yummmmm! I can picture it today….that crust just melting off in little clumps of gravy like coating….Guess she fried it in lard then added a little water to steam it fork tender….My goodness, I wish I could set down to that old oil cloth covered table for one of those feasts again! Mama’s cooking for God now, though ..and He’s not liable to send her back to us…….Jeannie T