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History, Culture & Craftsmanship
• Ozark Cooking |
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| Ozark Cooking Index • Cushaw Custard • Making Fruitcake • Dried Fruit • Vegetable Fixin's Culture Index • Agriculture • Book Learning • Cooking • Craftsmanship • Faith in the Hills • History • Music • People of the Hills • Storytelling • Tourism |
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(from How They Lived In The Ozarks by Chick Allen)
Chick Allen, fourth generation in the Ozarks — of Indian blood — was born in a log cabin on the James River. This is the story of the way the early Indians and white settlers lived — and how they prepared their food without refrigeration. [The book also includes] some Hillbilly recipes.
(CORN PUDDIN')
Go to the corn patch and fetch six nice ears of tender corn and shuck them on the porch. Save the shucks because you can use them to make things.
Cut the corn off'n the cob (just the tips of the kernels). Then scrape the cob and get all the rest of the kernel goody in the pan. Get two egg yellers and beat them good. Add 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons butter and a little salt and pepper to taste.
Mix the corn, egg yellers, milk, butter and salt 'n pepper and beat the whtes f the hen fruit till they are stiff. Fold this into the mess of corn fixin's.
Pour all this into a well-buttered baking dish and bake real slow for an hour or so until it is set like a custard and lighly browned.
You can put a few small pieces of green pepper in the fixin's if'n you like. It gives it a real extry flavor. Everyone likes this — with some cornpone.
(ACORN SQUASH)
Go to the garden and get three large acorn squashes and wash them and cut them up in pieces (the size of a saucer) and take out the seeds and strings and brush all these pieces with melted butter. Bake unti tender in a slow oven.
Boil and mash a few potatoes and beat up 1 egg, some powdered ginger, a little salt (to taste), and some pepper.
When the squash is done, take it out of the oven and spoon out the squash (careful like) and mix up all the fixin's real good. Stuff it back in the squash shells and put a dot of butter on top. Put them back in the oven to brown (just a little).
This a real fillin' main dish and is good with a mess of pork ribs and some cornbread.
(BLACK EYE PEAS)
Soak the peas as you would beans and put in a big ole iron kettle, covered with water and some slices of salt pork (from the barrel crock), a hunk of ion and a lot of slow cookin' — a little pepper for extry flavor.
Fried apples goes good with this dish — with honey and butter added, and a dash of cinammon. [That and a] pan of corn pone.
| Editor's note: the heirloom vegetable selection above was provided by Bker Creek Seeds. Find out more in the State of the Ozarks article, The Road To Baker Creek! At left, this story was first written and published by Chick Allen in 1975. Pictured below, Allen is remembered as an Ozark historian and "root digger," a founding member of the Baldknobber Music Show, and, perhaps most importantly, as a deeply respected and loved father and grandfather. It is with great appreciation to John Fullerton — Chick Allen's great grandson and Branson historian — that this excerpt is published. |
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Get six big sweet 'taters out of the cellar and peel and grate them. Beat up 4 eggs, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup molasses, 1/2 cup soft butter, 1/4 teaspoon cinammon, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.
Stir in the sweet 'taters and mix real good. Pour into a well-buttered baking dish and bake until it is set like custard and lightly browned.
A few dots of butter on top makes it brown and taste real good.
(PEA BEAN DELIGHT)
Soak 2 cups small pea beans overnight and in the morning, pour off the water. Put them in a pan with plenty of fresh waer and cook slow until tender. Then pour off the cooking water and save it.
Get a big iron kettle and cover the bottom of th epot with slices of thick, smoked bacon, then another of beans, then another of layer of caon slices.
Do this until you get 3/4 of the pot filled. Then mix up 3/4 cup of dark molasses, 2 tablespoons powdered mustard, 1 onion chopped fine, 1 tablespoon fresh, ground pepper and 1/2 cup apple cider.
Mix this mess with the cooking water you poured off and pour over the beans and bacon
(SULPHUR APPLES)
Apples were peeled and cut in quarters, then cut to make eight pieces [per apple] and put in a mesh basket. This basket was put over a stick in a big, 50-gallon barrel with a pan of hot coals with sulphur (1 tablespoon) sprinkled on the coals.
Immediately cover the top of the barrel with a rug or something to hold the msoke for about three hours.
Then take the basket of apples out and put them in a stone jar. The sulphur taste lasts for about six weeks. Then they are ready to use.
Tie a clean, white cloth over the jar. A juice will form in the fruit. The apples will stay moist all winter. They can be eaten as they are, or used in cooking.
October 11, 2008