Hi, group!

I know we've had lots of fun with out working threads about food, recipes and gardening. So I thought we'd continue our discussions and expand on these topics.

I have continued to research food storage techniques and plan to pass a short article along to everyone when I get it ready. But to get things started, I just had to pass along this recipe I found from 1739 on How to Pot a Swan! Not something we do much of these days, but potting meat was one of the most popular methods of extending the shelf life of meats in colonial times.

So here it is... and don't come get the swans off the lake here in Austin. We have enough trouble keeping the turtles from eating our baby swans!

Bone and skin your Swan, and beat the flesh in a mortar, taking out the strings as you beat it. Then take some clear fat bacon, and beat with the Swan, and when 'tis of a light flesh-colour, there is bacon enough in it, and when 'tis beaten till 'tis like dough, 'tis enough; then season it with pepper, salt, cloves, mace and nutmeg all beaten fine, mix it well with your flesh, and give it a beat or two all together. Then put it in an earthen pot, with a little claret and fair water, and at the top two pounds of fresh butter spread over it. Cover it with coarse paste, and bake it with bread, then turn it out into a dish. Squeeze it gently to get out the moisture. Then put it in a pot fit for it and when 'tis cold, cover it over with clarified butter, and next day paper it up. In this manner you may do Goose, Duck or Beef or Hare's flesh.

Yummmmmm!!!

Okay, Genia, you stumped me on that one! But as usual, I GOOGLED it and found out that it is indeed an "Ozark Hillbilly concoction" (don't shoot the messanger, that's just what it said on the 'net) and is more like pudding than a real gravy. So maybe it might just be pretty good after all!! Since I come from the land of Chicken Fried Bacon, I can't cast dispersions on anyone else's idea of what tastes good or is healthy to eat!

Yummmmm! Looks like pudding to me!! Guess I'll have to whip some up at the next brunch around the house. Will definitely need help with that dish! Thanks, Genia.... sounds like fun eatin'.

History of Cast Iron Cooking Pots


I know we talk about a lot of different items that have been passed down through the generations, but one item in particular has always interested me because it was so important to our ancestors. If you have ever looked at the wills of your ancestors from the 1700’s – 1800’s you’ll often find references to cast iron kitchen cookware. In the 1820 will of my 5th great grandfather, Col. Frederick Hambright, he left a number of iron cooking pots to his daughters along with beds and quilts. Often, an iron pot, a quilt, a bed and a slave were the total of their inheritance!

The importance of iron ‘kitchen furniture’ continued through many generations of my family and it appeared in so many different ‘lines’ of my ancestors that I know for a fact that cast iron cookware wasn’t just a fluke for my family. So I decided to research the history of this wonderful cookware. My kitchen is still full of it today, and I inherited a lot of it from my dad when he passed away a few years ago, I now have it everywhere. There are skillets of all sizes, Dutch ovens with and without legs, bean pots, corn bread and muffin pans, kettles, sauce pans and griddles. Much of it is from my grandmother, and some is from the annual Father’s Day gifts that I gave my dad each year. Cast iron was always a good choice for the difficult to shop for man in my life and he used the pots on our BBQ and Chili cookoffs and camping trips.

Keeping up with all this wealth of family kitchen items left me wondering about the history of cast iron and that is why I decided to research it further this morning. Here’s what I’ve discovered. The earliest pots and cauldrons were made from brass because iron could not be worked until furnaces creating heat enough to melt it were invented. This happened about 513 B.C. in China and around 1100 A.D. in England. They were made by pouring hot metal into molds out of sand…and easy solution to early smiths.

We all have seen the photos of the log cabins of our ancestors and know that there was often a separate kitchen cabin for cooking. (Kitchen fires often took down the entire building so a separate kitchen kept the potential loss to a minimum.) The pots were placed in the hearth or fireplace and heated on top of the coals. With the advancement of stoves and stove top cooking in the 1700s, cast iron pots and pans were produced in mass quantities and lids were developed. This really changed things in the kitchens of our grandmothers!

As early as 1620, the Pilgrims arrived aboard the Mayflower with their most prized possessions, which was cast iron cookware. And in 1642, American colonists broke their dependence on English kitchenware with the Saugus Pot, a cast iron, three legged cauldron forged in Massachusetts. Paul Revere is credited with developing the flanged lid to keep coals or ash from falling inside the pot, which is often sandwiched between hot coals for top-to-bottom heating. Explorers Lewis and Clark dumped much of their gear during their two year expedition out West, but when they returned to St. Louis in 1806, the only manufactured items they still carried were guns and Dutch ovens. Sturdy and versatile, these pots were cut out for life on the road. The pioneers lugged them as they forged west. No chuck wagon cook in the 1870s would hit the trail without one. And in 2005, the Texas Legislature named it the state cooking implement!

Back to wills and ancestors, I find it so interesting that George Washington’s mother, Mary Ball Washington, specified in her will of May 20, 1788 that one-half of her ‘iron kitchen furniture’ should go to her grandson, Fielding Lewis, and the other half to Betty Carter, a granddaughter. I’m sure if you look through your own family history, you’ll find similar references to the importance of this cookware in your family trees.

Just for fun, I thought I’d share a recipe of cooking in a Dutch oven. You might have one around the house that you’ve inherited (if you’re lucky) and while your great- grandmother might not have had the ingredients for this recipe, it sure does sound good to me!

Mississippi Swamp Cake

1 21-oz. can cherry pie filling
1 21-oz. can Dr. Pepper
1 box chocolate cake mix
2 cups coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 stick margarine or butter

Line 12-inch Dutch oven with aluminum foil. Spray foil with a light coat of cooking spray. Put in cherry pie filling and spread over bottom. Combine the Dr Pepper with the cake mix and stir until it is mixed. Pour over the cherry pie filling. Cover top with coconut and then pecans . Arrange 5 small slices of butter or margarine over cake. Cover and cook for about one hour. Put 17 coals on top and 8 on bottom. Tip: Rotate the lid a quarter-turn every 15 minutes to prevent hot spots.