COOK!!!

When Grandmother cooked and baked in her early years in Rosewood, she did it on a wood stove. In the stove was a reservoir. The reservoir was filled with water either carried and pumped from outside, then later, a hand pump was put in the kitchen by the sink. The sink had a bucket under neath that caught the water which was thrown out as it got full. Some called it the slop pail.

Simmer, broil, bake, and fry....but mostly she boiled. I remember a triangle shaped pot in which she cooked roast on the back burner of the stove. She would have loved a crock pot. She was the queen of use of leftovers! Her grand children all thought she made the best meatloaf, which we always had on Christmas Eve. I did not believe it was all left overs run through the grinder--but later I learned it really was. Ham, beef, and pork made it extra special.

My own Mother roasted everything, except of course, for the Thursday liver, which was fried. Our family did not have a garden, our vegetables were canned and later frozen vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli were available at the market. Mother bought frozen strawberries in the winter.

I was told we lived too far north and it cost too much to have fresh fruit and vegetables year around. Mother bought products in season. Although, it seemed, potatoes, yams, onions, and iceberg lettuce seemed to be available year around just as apples, oranges, and bananas were. (I wondered how it was cost effective to ship bananas from South America when other items were not available year around).

Now Daddy held the knowledge of how to buy meat. One must realize that during this era, beef was older and grain fed. That means that when one buys, let's say, a T Bone, you are looking for off white fat, (called marbling) in the steak. We fed out a steer at the farm. I fed Old Hickory twice a day. He mooed at me; I mooed back. When it came time to eat this fine, grain fattened steer, I just cried and said, "I can't eat Old Hickory." I did not eat beef until I was certain all those white, freezer wrapped packages were used up.

Mother was a consistent cook. There were three meals on the table each day. Perhaps, like many, it was chicken on Sunday. At our house, it also meant liver on Thursday. There were no one pot meals, except for stew. And if Daddy took a little more than Mother thought he should have, she would say, "Don't eat up for the dogs", Grandmother could have made a lot of meatloaf out of what the dogs got!

Happy cooking! Aren't you glad you don't have a slop pail?

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