GRANDMA’S KITCHEN

Sylvia Hughes with her grandmother, Bertie Dameron.

82

This issue is about history and I love it. It has been my favorite subject since I was first introduced to it in elementary school. I find it fascinating to learn how people in the past lived. That makes archeology a great love of mine. It seems to prove King Solomon’s observation, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

While it took a great deal more work, people in Colonial America ate some of the same things we do today. Men fished and hunted for food to put on the table. Many of the colonists brought goats, chickens, pigs. cows and sheep with them. They also brought seeds for planting. The seeds were for food, but they brought flower seeds as well.

Women were in charge of the home garden and of making butter and other dairy products. Preserving food for the winter was necessary or the family would starve. Meat was smoked or layered in salt. Some vegetables were placed deep in the ground with sawdust around them. Vegetables, fruits and herbs were also dried. Butter, milk and dairy products were often kept in houses built around springs. Pickling was another method of preserving food.

I can remember vaguely going with my grandmother to a relative’s home in the Shenandoah Valley. It was a dairy farm but they had maintained the old way of living. The home was built next to a spring and the spring was in a room off the kitchen. The room was constructed of stone which helped keep the room cool. In it were benches built around the spring.

Dairy products were kept on the stools to keep them cool. I think the reason I remember it so well is they gave me a cold glass of milk that was straight from the cow. It was stringy and thick. I thought it was the worst thing I ever tried to drink.

Another memory is of an elderly woman who lived a block up from my grandmother. She still dried the fruit grown in her yard for the winter. My clearest memory is of her drying apples.

She sat on the back steps and cored the apples. Then she cut them in thin rings across the whole apple. She next put them on sheets and covered them with cheesecloth to dry in the sun.

It was a rare and great treat when she would give her granddaughter and me a slice or two of her dried apples. I still love them today. I have dried them in my oven and while they are good, they don’t compare to my memory of those sheet dried apples.

Some of the things we still enjoy today are meat and vegetables cooked together in pot roasts and stews, pies, cobblers, cakes and cookies.

• 6 to 8 tart apples (preferably granny smith), pared, cored and thinly sliced (six cups) • ¾ to 1 cup of sugar

(to taste) • 2 tablespoons flour • 1 teaspoon cinnamon • 2 tablespoons butter Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and a dash of salt.

Mix with apples Line pie plate with pastry. Fill with apple mixture. Dot with butter.Adjust tip crust. Cut slits for steam to escape. Seal Edges. Sprinkle with sugar.Bake at 400 degrees for 50 minutes. Note: Can use 5 cups of canned sliced apples.

Slice 2 apples as thin as possible (Granny Smith for tart, Honey Crisp for sweeter) Mix 4 cups of water and ½ cup of lemon juice, place apple slices in mixture to prevent slices browning.

Dry with paper towels Place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake one hour, turn over and bake one to two more hours. Check occasionally, add or reduce time to desired dryness. Turn off oven, crack the oven door and let cool completely.

Sylvia Hughes is a retired newspaper editor and columnist residing in Windsor. In addition to three sons, she has a gaggle of grandchildren, many of whom love cooking with her just as she did with her mother and grandmother.

83