Well hello to all my foodies friends out there in web land I hope all is well with you this fine Spring Day, at least that's what the media is still calling it. I think spring passed us here in South Carolina right on by. I've been busy with taking my grand daughter to doctors and such. Now we are headed to Charleston Next week to get a second opinion as we should do when it comes to surgery's. Let's hope it all turns out just right for her and us. Any who I had a chance to talk to my cuz there in Tennessee when I went down for his brother's funeral. Sad, I hate when that happens as we all do, I hope. Any who whenever I go see my relatives I always enjoy the stories that they have to share of them growing up with our grand parents and they were lucky to have known our grandfather John, he was full blooded Irish and all man. He did like his whiskey as most of the Irish I met do. Any who he told me a story about his brother Pat, he was the oldest grandson of the Newby clan however that said they still don't know if my grand father is a Newby or a troupe. As his mother my grant-grandmother was never married from what I understand and am not sure if she told them the truth as to who our grandfather came from which clan I mean Yea it seems the Troupes still aren't happy with the Newby's and I even think some of them are my cousins at least that what am told when I've met a couple of the kin in Spring City Tennessee, that's where my daddy was born anyway and that's where our farm was and still is but grandma sold it to another family when grandpa died and that family still owns the farm.. The name on the deed is Flora Mae Newby. We went up there last summer and would you believe there was a still right by the side of a house but it wasn't connected and my sister Imogene knew what it was but not me, silly thing that I'am. Imo said, Eileen you don't even know what that is do you? She just shook her head. Oh well, and when the man and two women came out to see who we were the gentleman had a 45 strapped to his side with no shirt on. That was a pretty site! Perry said you girls go on down on the road and let me handle this so he told him what we were doing there and asked if we could see the cemetery up the hill. Perry told them that our kin used to live on the farm and that's when we found out the deed name. I wrote a blog on this last year and Perry told us about a Uncle that road a horse, worked for the railroad, was a drunk, had one arm, and was know to have killed some man and buried him in the family cemetery. Perry also said he was mean and so did our mother. Any who am going on and on and am not even talked about the Lye Soap that Perry remembers our grandma making.. She made it out of Oak Ash because that's where the Lye came from to make the soap. Back then they made there own Lye out of hard woods, rain water, and kept it in a barrow. He said they would cook it and pour it into a cast iron oblong pan and when it cooled they cut it. Am sure they used some kind of Fat like Lard mixed into it. He said that that soap would clean anything and that grandma used to boil the sheets in pots with a few flecks of the soap and they would come out white white and smelled so good. He loved sleeping on the sheets after they were cleaned. He said that the soap left you skin nice and soft. He loved it. I do remember grandma doing that with aunt Flossie whenever Id spend some time with them over the summer.. I remember my grandma's long hair that we'd brush out for her every night and she would braid it and in the morning she'd put it in a bun at the back of her head. Here's an article on making the soap which I thought was interesting.
In making soap the first ingredient required was a liquid solution of
potash commonly called lye.
The lye solution was
obtained by placing wood ashes in a bottomless barrel set on a stone slab with
a groove and a lip carved in it. The stone in turn rested on a pile of rocks.
To prevent the ashes from getting in the solution a layer of straw and small
sticks was placed in the barrel then the ashes were put on top. The lye was
produced by slowly pouring water over the ashes until a brownish liquid oozed
out the bottom of the barrel. This solution of potash lye was collected by
allowing it to flow into the groove around the stone slab and drip down into a
clay vessel at the lip of the groove.
Some colonists used an ash hopper for the making of lye instead of the barrel
method. The ash hopper, was kept in a shed to protect the ashes from being
leached unintentionally by a rain fall. Ashes were added periodically and water
was poured over at intervals to insure a continuous supply of lye. The lye
dripped into a collecting vessel located beneath the hopper.
The hardest part was in determining if the lye was of the correct strength, as
we have said. In order to learn this, the soap maker floated either a potato or
an egg in the lye. If the object floated with a specified amount of its surface
above the lye solution, the lye was declared fit for soap making. Most of the
colonists felt that lye of the correct strength would float a potato or an egg
with an area the size of a ninepence (about the size of a modern quarter) above
the surface. To make a weak lye stronger, the solution could either be boiled
down more or the lye solution could be poured through a new batch of ashes. To
make a solution weaker, water was added.
From Colonial Soap Making: Its History and Techniques -- The Soap Factory
http://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/history.html
"When a fresh egg floats with a nickel-sized to quarter-sized area above
the surface, the liquor is ready for soap making." -- Homestead mailing
list.
Nickel = 2 cm diameter
Quarter = 2.5 cm diameter
At the turn of the last century lye was obtained by leaching water through wood
ashes. At best, the concentration of potassium hydroxide in the resulting lye
water was always questionable. My grandmother said that she could tell if the
lye water was the right strength by using the wing feather pulled from her
favorite goose.
Being that my grandma was a great Southern cook one of the dishes that they would make was Fried Pork Chops and here is a recipe for you to try that I made up last week to finish this blog with. I say bon'a to you all. Happy trails to you until we meet again. Follow me on Face book at Cooking With MadJon & Friends. Follow me on twitter at @madjon51 and send me a recipe or two to try. If you have any questions about any recipes I'd be happy to help you with. If you live in the CSRA area contact me for catering at madjon51@aol.com.
Fried Pork Chops
1 cup Flour
Salt & Pepper to taste
1/4 cup Corn Meal
Oil to fry pork chops in a pan, I use a Cast Iron Skillet
4 thick Pork Chops
1 cup Buttermilk
Heat your oil in a skillet. Mix the salt, pepper, cornmeal, and flour together. Dredge the pork chops in the buttermilk then into the meal mix and fry until brown on both sides. Then for a really tender pork chop bake the chops in a pre-heated oven on about 375 degrees for about 15 additional minutes. This really makes them tender. Do try this recipe you will like it. Thx Y'all.
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