Food that stirs up memories

Lately present day happenings have been reminding me of past things that I once cherished. I thought I would share some of the memories with you. Enjoy and remember…I will be seeing you around…Agnes

At Christmas, my daughter, Elizabeth, gave all the family members a 10 pound burlap bag of cleaned black walnuts. She dried pods of okra and painted them like Santa. She tied the Okra Santas around the top of the bag with red and white small satin ribbon. This reminded me of my oldest sister, Mildred. She made Black Walnut pound cake and Divinity with black walnuts. I recently found the following cookie recipe, and it is delicious…Agnes

Black Walnut Cookies

3/4 cup shortening

2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs-beaten

1 cup black walnuts

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cup pastry flour (I use all-purpose flour and it works fine)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Cream shortening and sugar; add eggs and mix well. Mix in black walnuts and vanilla. Sift flour, salt, and soda together and set aside. Alternately-add flour mixture and evaporated milk to sugar mixture…Directions say to beat mixture vigorously. Once the cookie dough is mixed it can be kept in the refrigerator and used as needed. Drop teaspoon size portions of dough onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes or until the cookie is light golden brown. These cookies are really good-the taste is perfect and the cookies have a chewy texture that is especially nice…Recipe from Tipper…from Blind Pig and The Acorn

Grandpa’s Leftover Corn Bread

(My Great Grandpa used to make this. I was reminded of it when I was making Mexican Cornbread.)

½ pound cooked and chopped breakfast bacon

2 and ¼ cups self-rising corn meal

¼ cup sugar

1and ½ cups cooked, leftover corn

1 large sweet onion, finely chopped

½ cup buttermilk

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup bacon drippings

Pour the bacon drippings in a large skillet. In a mixing bowl mix together corn meal and sugar. In another bowl mix together corn, milk, eggs and most of the bacon drippings (make sure the pan is well oiled). Pour into corn meal mixture and gently mix until wet. It will be a little lumpy. Pour into hot skillet and spread out to level. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven until done.

As a child, one of my favorite vegetables was turnip greens, especially served with cornmeal dumplings in the pot likker. I could never get my dumplings to hold together…until the late Jean Rea taught me to use boiling water with the corn meal. This is her recipe…I added the onions. Turnip Greens with Cornmeal Dumplings

1 medium ham hock (I prefer the salt cured of streak of lean.)

1 large bunch (about 2 – 2 ½ pounds)

1 medium sweet onion, minced

Wash meat and put in a large Dutch oven. Add water and bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover, and sook until meat is tender. Clean greens, chop and add to pot. Cover, lower heat and cook until tender. Remove greens and meat. To make dumplings. Return pot likker to boil. Mix 1 cup stone ground plain meal1/4 teaspoon salt and stir in 1 and ½ cups boiling water. Make into small balls and drop into boiling liquid. Reduce to simmer, cover and cook for about 15 minutes. Serve with the leaves, roots, and meat on a platter and the dumplings and pot likker in a bowl.

I love to listen to the stories/songs of singer/song writer, Tom T. Hall. One of my favorites is ‘Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine.’ I always wondered about the Watermelon Wine. Well thanks to the internet, I discovered that there is a ‘Watermelon Wine.’ Hope one day to try my luck at making it…Agnes

Watermelon Wine

(makes 3 gallons)

2-3 large watermelons

Up to 7-1/2 pounds finely granulated sugar

3 tsp acid blend

2 crushed Campden tablet

3 tsp yeast nutrient

Packet Champagne yeast

Extract the juice from two or three large watermelons (2 gallons 3 quarts total juice), discarding pulp. Ideally, you’d like to end up with 2-3/4 gallons of pure juice. Measure 2 gal and 1 quart juice and put in primary. Set aside any residual juice in quart bottle(s) and store it in the refrigerator. To the primary add 7 pounds sugar [NOTE the warning at the end of the introduction, above, and determine exactly how much sugar your juice really needs], the acid blend and yeast nutrient and stir well to dissolve. Stir in crushed Campden tablets and cover primary with sterile cloth. Set aside 24 hours and sprinkle Champagne yeast on top of juice. When fermentation is evident, stir juice daily for seven days. Add remaining sugar [if needed] and stir to dissolve. Recover primary and set aside another 7 days without further stirring. Rack into 3-gallon secondary and fit airlock without topping up. Set aside for 10 days, top up with retained juice in refrigerator and set aside another 3 months. Drink or discard juice in refrigerator. Rack again and bottle if clear. If not clear, top up and refit airlock until crystal clear. Rack into bottles and age one year. [Adapted from Norma Jean and Carole Darden’s Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine]

Recipe for Laughter:

Arriving home, a husband was met at the door by his sobbing wife.

Tearfully she explained, “It’s the pharmacist. He insulted me terribly this morning on the phone.  I had to call multiple times before he would even answer the phone.” Immediately, the husband drove down town to confront the chemist and demand an apology. Before he could say more than a word or two, the chemist told him, “Just a minute, listen to my side of it.  This morning the alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went without breakfast and hurried out to the car, just to realize that I’d locked the house with both house and car keys inside and had to break a window to get my keys. Then, driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket.  Later, when I was about three blocks from the store, I had a flat tire. When I finally got to the store a bunch of people were waiting for me to open. I got the store opened and started waiting on these people, all the time the darn phone was ringing.” He continued, “Then I had to break a roll of coins against the cash register drawer to make change, and they spilled all over the floor. I had to get down on my hands and knees to pick up the coins and the phone was still ringing.  When I came up I cracked my head on the open cash drawer, which made me stagger back against a showcase with a bunch of perfume bottles on it. Half of them hit the floor and broke. Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing with no let up, and I finally got back to answer it. It was your wife. She wanted to know how to use a rectal thermometer. Believe me mister, as God is my witness, all I did was tell her what she wanted to know.”