Ain’t No Cokes In Hell!
Part one
When grandma Laura made out the tentative work schedule for the week it would at times make me contemplate running away from home. Especially, from late July on through August when the gardens and orchards were really producing. What ever was ripe or ready to be preserved took more than a few hours to process.
For example, peaches that ripened in her orchard had to be picked the previous evening and set in the fruit cellar that was beneath the wash house. It was cool down there and the best place for them overnight. We, “womenfolk” would gather the fruit and with the aid of an ancient child’s wagon or a wheelbarrow we would get the fruit to the wash house door. Then grandpa would lug the baskets down the steep steps to the coolness of the cellar.
Early the next morning at first light I would be rousted out of bed and the long day would commence. Among the first chores was to start a fire in the wood burning cook stove in the wash house. Then the packing of water from the well began. After the necessary pots were filled it would be time to stop briefly for a hurried breakfast. The menu would consist of fried meat, usually bacon but sometimes ham from the smoke house rafters. This was accompanied by eggs, gravy & biscuits and almost always a pan of oatmeal. I always ate heartily as I knew it was going to take a lot for me to keep up with the terrible trio. The trio was Grandma Laura, Aunt Leota (Mother’s only sister) and Mother herself.
They always shared work chores such as butchering chickens and canning. Some of the glass Mason jars were stored in the attic when they were emptied but extras were put away in the barn loft or the granary. They had not been stored with lids on which meant they had become home to mud daubers, spiders, various other pests and just plain old dirt. Since I had the smallest hands at the time, it fell to me to wash the jars, as my hands fit easily inside.
As soon as I had them clean they were turned upside down in a shallow pan of water atop the stove to be sterilized. Then the peaches were dropped into water for a good scalding. This would loosen the skins from the fruit and they would easily pop from their fuzzy little jackets. Now a peach dropped into boiling water briefly is very easy to peel but they are still hot to handle and would burn your hands.
The peaches we were preserving do not even exist here anymore. My family always referred to them as cling peaches but another name was Indian peach. They were small with reddish flesh and a seed that remained firmly implanted in its center and were perfect for pickling. And as much work as they were to do, I somehow didn’t mind because I already knew how great they were going to taste some winter afternoon lunch with fried down sausage, fresh hot bread and homemade butter.
Grandma and Mother both had a couple of trees in their orchards and the fruit was not hard to gather because the trees were small. A short ladder got you high enough to pick every peach. They were so prolific they produced enough for us and plenty left over for the neighbors.
The family recipe for pickled peaches was basic: 1 ½ cups sugar, 1 cup vinegar, ½ cup water and cinnamon bark. This made a syrup when heated together and was poured over the peaches in the jar. This same mixture was used to pickle beets. My Aunt always preferred to can the peaches using the zinc lids, sealed with rubber rings. Mother preferred the newer types of Ball or Mason jar lids that sealed down with a snap! When they would have friendly debates over which was the better way, grandma would intervene with a reminiscence about the old stone canning jars of her mothers and the horrible steam from heating them in large boiling pots of water until they were “processed.” I still have one of great-grandma’s stoneware canning jars and I don’t wonder that my mother thought the glass Mason jars with the snap sealing lids were a modern miracle.
Almost as tedious was when apple drying time arrived. That was usually in early September. One of the more suitable apple trees was ready at that time and the added bonus was the sun still radiated enough heat in the mid-day to do the job. Housewives are still drying fruit but now days it is done in a dehydrator. Then it was accomplished on the low roof of the kitchen.
This was prior to the days of storm windows on the home. The old wooden and screen wire frames were still on the house to keep the flies out. In early September they would take a couple of screens off and scrub them exceedingly well with soap and water. The peeled and sliced apples were laid between the window screens and c-clamps held the two together firmly. This prevented insects and flies from crawling on the fruit. The screens were laid upon the roof in the hot midday sun until it was sufficiently dried. They were laid inside the wash house at night to keep them from the dew. When the apples were sufficiently dried they would be stored in large glass Old Judge coffee jars and placed on the pantry shelf until needed for a pie.
To be continued . . .
