Preserving Food and a Way of Life

 

        

 Summer sampling; frozen fried corn in front; canned green beans, liberty pickles, canned tomatoes, smoked apples in middle; shuck beans/leather britches in back                                   

In the past, our Appalachian ancestors had to be very adept at coaxing their sustenance from the land they lived on. They knew how to garden and oft-times they did this by the signs. The hillsides around their homes provided additional plants that were foraged to eat, as well as for medicinal uses. Those ancestors raised animals for eggs, milk, and meat to provide nourishment for large families. Hunting and fishing supplemented their families’ food supplies.

Now back in those times, folks had to know, not only how to provide sustenance, but how to preserve it. They had no refrigerators or freezers except those provided by nature. Milk and perishables could be kept in spring houses where cold water could let the family keep these things a bit longer. They would usually butcher their hogs when the weather was cool so that the fresh meat might last longer. They could cure meat with smoke, salt, sugar... so that it might keep ‘til the leaner times. They could can meat. My dad says that Grandma would make balls out of ground sausage, fry the balls and then place the sausage balls into canning jars, cover them with grease and store them for a delicious sausage, gravy and biscuits meal in the future.


                                      

                                           Public domain photo                      

Fruits and vegetables were canned outside in large water-filled tubs that held the produce-filled glass jars. They would keep the water boiling for hours over a wood-fueled fire in order to properly preserve the canned foodstuffs.

Food could also be dried. Pumpkin could be sliced into rings which could be draped around string and hung up in hot attics or outside until the heat from the sun dehydrated them. Green beans could be pierced by a needle and strung on strings and dried also. Some folks call these dried beans shuck or shuckie beans; others call them leather britches. I call them good.

                   Public domain photo; Pumpkin rounds drying

                                        

  Public domain photo; Green beans drying to become shuck beans.

Produce could be pickled. Corn, beans, cucumbers, cabbage were a few things that might be preserved by pickling. I asked Mom and Dad why anyone would pickle green beans or corn when they were so good canned. This pickled produce could be stored in large crocks. Dad said that maybe folks ran out of canning jars and could not afford to buy more and thus they pickled the produce so it could be stored in crocks. Lye could even be used to convert grains of corn into hominy which could be stored in crocks also. Past folks had to know how to preserve the harvest of the feast time to provide sustenance durin’ the hunger of the lean times.

Now Dad, Mom, and I had gone to an orchard one Wednesday last fall to pick up a bushel of Arkansas Black apples. Past family members might have preserved them in any number of ways. Some apples were simply stored in the coolness of a root cellar that had been dug into the cooler ground. Some were dried. Grandma spread out clean sheets onto sheets of tin out in the yard. Then she would carefully spread the peeled and sliced apples on top of the sheets. There they would lie in the hot sun until they were completely dry. After dry, they would be placed into muslin bags and kept for future use in a stack cake or to make fried, dried apple pies. Grandma might have peeled apples and cooked them over a low fire with spices to make apple butter. She would even use the peelings to make apple jelly.

                              

                    Public domain photo; Apples drying outside

                      a mountain home in Jackson, Kentucky. 

The apples could also be smoked. Dad calls it smoking apples but some folks call it sulfuring or bleaching apples. Whatever you call the process, they sure are good!

So one fine day last fall, Dad, Mom, and I spent the morning peeling and slicing apples so Dad could smoke them.

 

I think that fried smoked apples, seem to have a hint of a sorghum taste and that gave me the idea to start putting a bit of sorghum in apples that I am frying instead of adding sugar. Fried apples AND sorghum... that is a tasty combo!

So, anyhow, we got the apples all peeled and sliced. We had a 16-quart pressure cooker full. Dad put half of the peeled apples into one clean cotton pillowcase and the other half into another one. He tied the two pillowcases together with some twine and took it outside to the garage. 

Dad has a whiskey barrel in the garage that he smokes apples in. He has the barrel wrapped in plastic sheets to keep the smoke in. Dad puts some charcoal into a small shallow pan, lights it and when the charcoals are glowing, he carefully puts it into the bottom of the barrel using pliers. 

He places a little pouch, that he makes out of a square of cotton fabric or paper towel, filled with three to four tablespoons of sulfur powder on top of the coals.

 Then he drapes the two apple-filled pillowcases over an ax handle that he places across the top of the barrel. He covers the barrel with an old quilt that he fastens around the top. 

The apples are saddle bagged in clean cotton pillowcases over the ax handle over the coals.

 
                                  

Dad smokes the apples overnight and then places the apples into sterilized quart jars with lids. We put a little piece of wax paper between the disc and the jar. The sulfur tends to rust the lid, making it hard to take off and the wax paper makes it easier. Then they are ready to store until you are ready to eat them. After they have been smoked, they look like you just peeled and sliced an apple. Overtime, they do shrink up a bit as they lose some of their moisture but they still sure taste good with a homemade hot and buttered buttermilk biscuit! 

Smoked apples the day after smoking.

Smoked apples one week after smoking.

I cooked these this morning 9/3/2020, nearly a year after they were smoked.

They fried up nice.

I love that sound; almost like rain falling!

                           

                                   And they went down good!

So one fall day in Middle Tennessee, my family carried on a bit of Appalachian culture that family members have probably done for centuries. There may have been some minor differences in what we did. I can’t help but think in spite of those minor differences, Grandpa and Grandma and family members that passed long before we were even born were looking down and recognized exactly what we were doing. I also can’t help but think that they might just be a little pleased that we were not just preserving apples, but also a little bit of their way of life.