[Granville-Hough] 18 Nov 2009 - Preserving Food

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:17:54 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Preserving Food - 18 Nov 2009

Preserving Food

On a farm with no electricity and no running water, we learned to think 
ahead and prepare our food for the winter in the previous summer. I have 
mentioned how we cured our meat in smokehouses with salt and dense and 
acrid hickory smoke. Of course, this included the long casings of 
sausages. The meat in these sausages was ground up in a hand-turned 
sausage grinder. You put the pieces of meat in the top and held it down 
to force it to go through the cutter knives. The exit was a spout to 
which you attached an empty casing, and the ground up meat pushed along 
the casing for four or five feet. Then you removed the casing and tied 
up the filling end, and the raw sausage was ready to be hung over the 
smoke-house pole for drying. Of course, you had added whatever spices, 
salt and pepper to the raw meat before it was went into the grinder. 
Home-made sausage went very well with eggs, molasses, re-fried corn 
bread, or whatever else you were having for breakfast. We never 
considered it to be a noon-time or evening choice.
Before we leave the sausage grinder, we used it in other ways. We once 
saw a description of home-made peanut butter and saw how we could make 
it. We set up the sausage grinder with the smallest knives or smallest 
exit holes and ground up our peanuts. Then we added molasses and salt 
until we had a sort of gooey mass of very tasty stuff. We then decided 
to try another device we used for various purposes, a two gallon wine 
press. We put our peanut butter into the press, and screwed the top down 
until we began to see peanut oil oozing out. We let it sit for awhile, 
then removed the pressure and the top lid. We had a solid cake of peanut 
butter we could cut up and put in jars for storage. It was so good it 
never lasted long. I still have peanut butter with my instant cereal in 
the morning.
Still another use we made of the sausage grinder was making catchup. In 
cooking the tomatoes, we could either peel them or wash them well and 
tolerate the big pieces of tomato skin. We learned to run them through 
the sausage grinder before cooking, and you did not notice the bits of 
skin in the final product.
The mention of catchup reminds me that we collected Coca-Cola or any 
other kind of coke bottles for filling with catchup. We put all these 
collected bottles in our wash pot, filled it with water and boiled them 
for awhile, and they came clean as could be with no labels outside or 
residue inside. Then we prepared our tomato catchup to the right 
consistency and taste and funneled it into the bottles. When the bottle 
was full, we used another nice tool, the bottle capper. We could buy 
bottle caps rather cheaply, so we had the variable size bottle capper 
with a hand lever which sealed the top. ThatÆs how we had winter catchup 
for eggs, meat, hominy, or whatever. It was even quite good spread on 
corn bread.
I mentioned the wine press. When we had a good crop of grapes, 
scuppernongs, or muscadines, we used the wine press for its designed 
purpose and came out with fresh juice. My mother experimented with 
making wine from different fruits and berries. She was quite successful 
sometimes, and we would get a taste, but not much. Our main contribution 
was delivering a fruit jar full to certain neighbors who had never 
adjusted to Prohibition.
One of the wonderful devices for preserving food was the Mason jar, or 
Ball-Mason jar. Now of course, the main market is the moonshiner 
producers of the back country. Just find out who is buying lots of 
quart-size Ball-Mason jars and your have a good list of available 
moonshiners. But the use in canning still continues. The jar was 
invented in the 1850 decade, but I do not know when it became popular in 
Smith County. I think you had to have wood burning stoves for cooking 
before you made much use of them. That dates them to late 1800s. I have 
the story of the first wood-burning stoves elsewhere. My grandmother and 
mother were great canners and canned anything they liked, peaches, 
apples, blackberries, grapes, peas, tomatoes, corn, etc. The jars had a 
rubber grommet which sealed out air and sealed in whatever you had 
cooked. In the winter, no meal was complete at Grandma Mary RichardsonÆs 
house without some of her canned food. The jar was simplicity itself. 
All it required were strong wrists for closing the jar and opening it. 
The canned food was safe for eating for a year or two.
As some time about 1935 or later, we got a device for sealing and 
opening aluminum cans. We would put the items to be preserved into the 
can, seal it up, and put it into our wash pot, fill the pot with water 
and boil and boil. We had to move the cans about so that they would all 
get heated to a preserving temperature. This was somewhat hit or miss, 
and we sometimes missed. I believe we later used a pressure cooker to 
get more reliable results.
When pressure cookers became available, my mother saw a solution to 
cooking tough rooster, or some pork or beef portions. Pressure cookers 
had a pop-off valve if the pressure starting rising beyond the limit you 
had set; however lard or tallow hardened when it cooled and got dry. We 
had to be very careful in cleaning all its parts after we used the 
cooker. There were innumerable accidents from pressure cookers blowing 
up and scalding anyone in the kitchen. The precaution was to watch the 
pressure cooker and if it began to overheat, to get it off the burner 
away from the heat. We had several near accidents, but we did make good 
use of pressure cookers.
A time honored way to preserve food was to dry it in the sun. We placed 
clean corrogated tin roofing sheets on our hedge and lined up the pieces 
of fruit on them so each would get the sun. We preserved both sliced 
apples and sliced peaches this way. A favorite pastime for a small child 
was to chew dried peaches and then spit like the elders who cheawed 
tobacco. We even had spitting contests just like the elders. It seems to 
me that we could keep the dried fruit in any sort of can. I do remember 
it was reconstituted in boiling water when we had it in the winter. It 
had its own taste, favored by elders who could remember the days before 
canning. Grampa

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In this footnote, I want to answer a question by Larry Hough, who was 
asking on behalf of himself and his three daughters. What does it take 
to join the NSSAR (National Society, Sons of the American Revolution) or 
the NSDAR (National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution)? 
Really, two things are required, first that your ancestor served in some 
capacity in the Revolutionary War, and second, evidence that you 
descend, generation by generation, from that veteran. For most people, 
it is easier because some relative has already joined one of the 
organizations, and has proved the service and some of the early 
generations.they have which are the same as yours.
At this point, I have to divide the discussion into two parts, one for 
males and one for females, because the NSSAR accepts the work of either 
NSSAR or NSDAR members, but the NSDAR will only accept the work of its 
own female members. If you use the work prepared by someone else, it 
must be a confirmed copy from the national headquarters involved, used 
with permission from the member, unless the member is deceased, after 
which no permission is required.
Now for males. I, Granville W. Hough, NSSAR #135,477, CA #5782, of 3438 
Bahia Blanca West, Unit B, Laguna Woods, CA 92637-2830, do hereby allow 
anyone to have a copy, or copies of my NSSAR applications based on 
Michael McCarty, private, SC; James Miller, private, SC; Edward Larimor, 
Citizen, Jury Duty, 96th Dist., SC; or Samuel Hough, pvt GA. Just choose 
one that fits your ancestry and go with that. When you get the copy, 
begin work to get you back to the generations common with yours already 
covered.
Now for females. If a descendant of Richardson, Arender, McCarty, etc, 
order the NSDAR application for Lois (Arender) Drain, NSDAR #633,121, 
descendant from Michael McCarty. Lois is deceased, so there is no 
restriction. She and Uncle Tom Richardson worked out the details of this 
application many years ago as the first in our family. Lois was daughter 
to Great Uncle Henry Arender and was a college professor in OK and MS. I 
used her application. She had worked out the service and family for 
Michael McCarty, the Soldier, Edward and Sarah (Larimor) McCarty, Henry 
and Alouthea (McCarty) Orrender/Arender; and Sampson and Nancy (Bowen) 
Arender. So that left me to do James and Mary Alouthea (Arender) 
Richardson, Elisha and Lizzie (Richardson) Hough, then Granville and 
Carol (Steckelberg) Hough. (For Larry Hough, he would have to change 
from Granville and Carol to Dueward and Dorothy (Little) Hough, then 
Larry and the proper wife, then the daughter.)
Now for the Miller, Walker, Owens, Clark, and other descendants of Hiram 
Miller. You need the application for Hiram's grandfather, James Miller, 
Sr, pvt, SC.. I do know that you can get the applications of deceased 
NSDAR members for James Miller, Sr, and I used them in getting a 
supplemental. The most recent and most pertinent one is NSDAR #493154 
from Thelma (Carruth) Hatfield, which comes through James Miller, Jr, 
father of Hiram Miller. The other two are older, but may be required. 
They are NSDAR #472, 185 for Alice D. (Martin) Wiseley, and NSDAR # 295, 
878 for Ermine Northcutt Marshall..
This leaves Hough descendants of Samuel Hough, Pvt, GA, who do not 
descend from Elisha and Lizzie Hough. There are lots of them, but only 
two are currently correspondents. I did the original work on Samuel 
Hough, so my records would be essential. However, I do recall that a 
cousin in Texas was going to apply to the NSDAR, and I believe she was 
successful. I believe it was for a supplemental, and I do not know 
whether or not the NSDAR has indexed supplementals so they could be 
recovered
Anyone who descends from Edward and Sarah (Larimor) McCarty, can apply 
for NSDAR membership through Edward Larimor. I do not know whether 
anyone has done so. Grampa.