Victuals

What kinds of food did you usually eat, growing up?  What would be a typical meal for supper?

Well, they would raise their own beef, mostly...cattle.  And there was no way of freezing it.  And they would also have pigs.  And they smoked the hams, and they made their own bacon...

So, your family had your own cattle and pigs?

Oh, yes.  Oh my, I milked the cow, yes, I did so.  I don't mind telling it, either--I'm not ashamed of it.

Good--you shouldn't be.

It was good, clean work.  Yes, we had our own cow for a long time.

What would the cattle eat around here?

Well, they'd let them run.  It was what they called open pasture.  And they would go around the road here, and back in the woods.  Lots of times we had to go and get them at night and bring them home...they wouldn't come home!  Sometimes, one we had, would come as far as the church up here and then lay down.  We'd have to go up there and get her.

Everybody raised a pig, and made their own...they would have to salt the pork, of course, 'cause there was no freezers for a long time.  Then they got a freezer over here at the fish plant, and they had the ice, and we could get some ice there.  Keep it a little while, but not very long.  But in the freezer part, you could take things over.  It was kept clean, you know, with it all clean ice.

What was your favorite food growing up...your favorite thing to eat?

Well, to be truthful, I liked chicken.  Yes, chicken.  Once, I liked corned beef and cabbage, but I don't care for it now.  Your taste changes when you get older, yes.  And we used to make...have you heard tell of sauerkraut?

Yes, in fact, I like sauerkraut.

Oh, I do, too.  I love sauerkraut.  But I'm scared to eat it now.  I have a hiatus hernia, and I have to be very careful.  But I love it.  We made our own sauerkraut.

How do you make sauerkraut?

Well, they had a new little...half a barrel, maybe a quarter.  Just a small, little round barrel.  And so much salt would go in it, and you had to cut the cabbage in the fine strips.  And they'd put a layer of that, and just a sprinkling of salt.  Because they had to have a pickle, to keep it.  And it would make its own pickle.  But they would mash that...they had a masher made specially, it had a long handle, and just so big around, and then this big wooden clump on the end, for to mash it.  That's how they made it.  It was good!

And picked berries, in the fall.  Go on the berryings, and pick a little quarter barrel of berrys, and keep them in water, and they'd keep all winter long.

The berries I've seen around here...raspberries and blueberries?

Yes; these were what we called foxberries.  Little red berries.

I remember once a foxberry pie that Claire Fanning made.

Oh...tartish...

Very tartish.

Yes, yes, yeah...