Preparing Meals

There seemed to always be something needed done. My pop butchered pigs and calves during the cooler weather so the meat wouldn’t spoil as quickly while he was preparing it. I watched a few times for awhile. It was not a pleasant sight, nor was it a pleasant task for my dad but it had to be done. He would hit the animal on the head with a heavy mallet to kill it and then hung it by its legs on a limb of one of the fruit trees near by in the shade. Next, he cut its throat to bleed it into a wash tub sitting under it to catch the blood. I don't recall the blood being used for anything, ugh! When this was done there was a large tub of boiling water waiting to dump the pig in so its hair could be scrapped off. Then the next step was to gut it and section it into pieces, like head, feet and body parts. Everything was saved and eaten later. He cleaned the best guts and stuffed them with sausage he made. He later smoked it in the smoke house along with bacon and anything left that was eatable. Then it was stored in a cellar. A cellar was the way most of the poorer farmers had to keep food in and I don’t remember there being much, if any spoilage. It was used up too fast to spoil. My mom and pop both worked preparing the meat. Mom made headcheese and cracklings, and pickled the pigs feet, or just boiled them, they were good eaten that way also. She used the cracklings in cornbread and some of her other dishes. And it could be eaten by itself for a quick snack. Our snacks could be anything we could find that was at all eatable. After school a cold biscuit and green onion from the garden tasted pretty good, or a peeled raw potato with salt in one hand to dip it in. A raw tomato with salt was also good, and radishes and turnips. We were always welcome to eat what we wanted from the garden within reason. We were supposed to leave the strawberries alone though. They were picked and sold in town except for the ones mom picked for us to make a big crock of short cake she made with layers of pie crust instead of cake, topped with real whipped cream. She would fix that and a big pot of vegetable soup and cornbread. That was one of our favorite meals for supper. She had a style of cooking that was hard to beat.