September 2003

How is preparing food different from the good old days?  Thinking back I think of my Grandmother Phoebe Cook of Coal Valley who was my mother Mary Ellen Cook McNeal’s mother. They had no running water and also had to carry the water they drank and used for most cooking from a well that was some distance away.  Since Coal Valley was a mining community good wells were hard to find.  They did have a cistern so they could use that for bathing. 

My Grandmother Cook was a great cook.  I remember her taffy candy that you pulled.   She made great bread.  I know I have told you about her dressing that finally tasted like hers after I got the bread baker and made homemade bread to dry for dressing. Then it tasted just like hers. She had to bake hers in a coal stove or cook stove..  I often wonder how they controlled the temperature to bake anything. We never went there that she didn’t have something great to eat.  She also made great raisin pie.  Mine is good but it never tastes as good as grandmas did.

My Grandmother Mattie McNeal was also a good cook but she cooked different things.  She made large soft sugar cookies that had sour cream in them.  She always had a cow and milked.  She would skim the cream from the top of the milk with a large spoon.  She also often made cottage cheese.  I very rarely eat cottage cheese today because it doesn’t taste like Grandma’s.  The cottage cheese you are served at Amana is the most nearly like it.  She also knew many ways to make round steak.  She used to tenderize it with a saucer on edge and pound away.  She also made a great steamed pudding at Christmas that she put what she called dip on it.  I have made several of these and never really made one as good as hers.

Needless to say I have very few of their recipes.  Grandma Cook died with cancer back in 1944 when I was 12 years old and not into collecting recipes.  I do have one recipe for making sauerkraut.  I have never made it.  I remember hers was in a big crock in the basement and in the winter when it was ice cold it was the best thing I ever tasted.  I am sure it would not be as good done in jars.  I will include the recipe.  I have none of Grandma McNeal’s recipes.  Although a chocolate cake recipe of Grandma Cooks is very similar to one that Grandma McNeal made.  I don’t know who has their recipe books.  I would have sure liked to have them.  Many cooks in the old days had the recipes in their heads and didn’t write them down. I know I have several that I make all the time in my head too.  My Great Grandmother Madora Wells made wonderful cinnamon rolls.  It seemed like she stirred them up quickly but they had yeast in them.  I have a Jumer’s Roll recipe that is don quickly.

Well have fun trying some old fashioned recipes with a little modern twist.

CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 ½ c sugar

½ c butter

2 eggs

1 c sour milk

1t baking soda

2 c flour

3 T cocoa

1 t vanilla

¼ t salt

Mix sugar and butter with beater.  Beat in eggs.  Mix sour milk and baking soda.  Add first and then add the dry ingredients sifted together.  Beat until well blended.  Bake 25 min at 350 degrees.  Frost with some white powdered sugar frosting

SCALLOP CORN

1 C milk

1 egg

1 can corn

½ c cracker crumbs

Beat egg and add milk.  Add corn to milk and egg mixture  Mix in cracker crumbs  Bake45 min at 350 degrees.  Butter the dish you use to bake the casserole

My Grandmother Cook used to cook a lot of wild game because my grandfather and their sons were hunters.  One of the most wonderful things I ever age was a quail roasted with dressing.  I also remember fried squirrel that was right tasty.  I have none of these recipes.  Rock my husband looked on the internet and found these two.  So set a trap in your back yard and I am sure you will catch the ingredients for one of the following recipes.

PAW’S CHICKEN FRIED BEAVER OR MUSKRAT

1 beaver or muskrat, cut to serving portions

2 Italian sweet onions

4 oz. Saltine crackers”1 sleeve”

½ c shortening

¼ c bacon drippings

1c flour

½ t thyme

½ t paprika

salt and pepper to taste

Parboil beaver or muskrat in salted water with onions until tender.  Heat shortening and bacon grease in a large heavy skillet.  Mix thyme, paprika, salt, and pepper, rub into the meat, coat well.  Crush crackers to fine crumbs.  Roll beaver pieces through cracker crumbs to coat well.  Cook real slow, with pan ½ covered until browned and tender Serves 6-8

The comment was they preferred having this dish with some corn fritters, scalloped potatoes and pecan pie for dessert

RACCOON –Q OR POSSUM

Coon is kind of like cooking goat.  You have to goat this a bit indirectly.  Older coons are good for feeding coonhounds- they’re tough and strong.  The younger, but grown ones, however are delicious on the BBQ

1-2 Raccoons- cleaned and cut into pieces

SAUCE

1 c ketchup

½ c cooking oil or butter

¼ c brown sugar

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1or 2 cloves garlic

1 small chopped onion

1 T salt

¼ c lemon juice

1 t pepper

First, make sure when you were dressing these critters, you have removed the “kernels” (scent glands) from under the arms and legs.  They leave a distinct flavor if you don’t.  Ccut up the carcass and simmer in slightly salted water  until almost done ( depends on your altitude and the size of the pieces).  Remove from the water and place on a grill over coals.  Coat with the following sauce like you would ribs or chicken and cook over medium heat until done and tender.  Fried or mashed potatoes, coleslaw, green salad, and toasted French bread compliment this dish well

 Needless to say I have never trapped and the closest I have ever come to cooking wild game are ducks and pheasants.  Fried pheasant is very much like fried chicken.  One time I fixed duck and they were terrible because they were fishy.  Let me know if you catch a raccoon and barbeque it.  I really would like a taste.  Next month some Halloween ideas