My wife has been worn out lately as she works to preserve the bounty from our vegetable garden. She has been pickling cucumbers and okra, freezing purple hull peas and peppers, and our bumper crop of tomatoes has been canned. Potatoes were dug and stored in the shade of the back porch. While our ancestors did not have freezers or pressure canners, they were adept at preserving food -- a necessity if they were to eat during the cold winter months.
Perhaps the earliest and easiest technique for preserving food was drying. Peas and beans especially lent themselves to long-term dry storage. The late W.O. Taylor, who grew up in southern Arkansas near El Dorado, recalled in his memoirs that "with our cotton sacks and baskets, we proceeded to pick the dried peas -- bushels and bushels of them. They were used as food for both man and beast, and a liberal supply saved for planting the next spring."
One rural Pope County resident recalled how the dried pea pods were put inside a large canvas sheet, and the children were expected to pound the peas with "shillelaghs" until the peas were separated from the pods. Even the empty pods were saved for feeding to milk cows during the winter. Dried peas were often sold. W.L. McGuire of Batesville, for example, bought a bushel of dried peas for a dollar in January 1862.
Fruits and vegetables were frequently dried for storage. Wayman Hogue recalled in his autobiography Back Yonder that his mother stored "strings of red pepper, small bags of garden sage and hands of tobacco." He continued: "I also remember how, in the fall of the year, my mother would slice pumpkins into rings and string them on a stick to dry. These sticks containing rings of pumpkins extending from one [ceiling] joist to another were a familiar sight." Apples were often dried, as were other fruits such as figs and even persimmons.
Pickling was a common practice among Arkansans. The process involves the use of vinegar or a salt brine -- along with appropriate spices and sugar -- to preserve foods by excluding air and killing bacteria. In addition to pickling cucumbers, our ancestors pickled a spectrum of vegetables -- such as okra -- as well as meats.
Fermentation, which has become popular again in recent years, was another means used to preserve foods. Cabbages were sometimes made into sauerkraut. In 1858 Clara Dickson of Ouachita County wrote her sister back in Alabama that she had made "a half barrel of sour-crout of the nicest white headed cabbage I ever saw ..." Clara allowed as how "I am not very fond of it," but her brother liked it.
Preserving meat was a particular challenge in the days before the development of refrigeration. Storing properly prepared meats was no problem in the winter months, but the heat and insects of summer posed real challenges.
Pork was the most commonly eaten meat in Arkansas and much of the south -- called the "ham heartland" by two modern scholars. One journalist in 1860 wrote that "hogs' lard is the very oil that moves the machinery of life" in the south.
Butchering hogs and processing the meat was carried out in early winter after a hard freeze. Almost every part of the hog was used "except the squeal." Internal organs were not neglected, the liver sometimes being eaten at supper at the end of the butchering day. The small intestines, called "chitterlings," were cleaned carefully, battered, and cooked, making a dish prized by people of both races. Some families even collected the blood for "blood pies."
The pig's head and feet were boiled for making souse -- or "head cheese" as it was sometimes called. Memoirist Tate C. "Piney" Page of Pope County, recalled "the mass of gelatinous residue ... would be made into souse meat. This highly seasoned food was prized by older folks but had little appeal for the young."
While souse might be an acquired taste, almost every southerner savored the hams and side meat. After the meat was rubbed with copious amounts of salt (and sometimes sugar), it was hung in a smokehouse for curing -- which usually involved prolonged exposure to smoke from a hickory fire. Sausages were also smoked.
Preserving meats during the warm months, when flies were a menace, was a challenge. The early newspapers often carried advice on preserving meats. In April 1820, the Arkansas Gazette carried a notice on "how to preserve bacon." The unnamed writer claimed that "bacon or any other kind of smoked meat may be preserved from skippers [fly larvae], by washing it in the juice of elder [trees]." An 1835 correspondent advised dipping hams into "a strong ley [lye] made of wood ashes," promising that "no taste of the ley is ever perceived ..."
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at [email protected].
NAN Profiles on 08/21/2016