Chapter 11

It took eight bushels of ripe fruit, to make one of dry--this when the peaches were big and fleshy. Small, seedy sorts demanded ten bushels for one. Unpeeled, the ratio fell to seven for one. But there was seldom any lack of fruit--beside the orchard, there were trees up and down all the static fence rows--the corner of a worm fence furnishing an ideal seat. Further, every field boasted trees, self-planted, sprung from chance seed vagrantly cast. These volunteer trees often had the very best fruit--perhaps because only peaches of superior excellence had been worth carrying a-field. Tilth also helped--the field trees bent and often broke under their fruity burdens. It was only when late frosts made half or three parts of the young fruit drop, that we knew how fine and beautiful these field peaches could be. Our trees, being all seedlings, were in a degree, immortelles. Branches, even trunks might bend and break, but the seminal roots sent up new shoots next season, which in another year, bore fruit scantily. Still, these renewals never gave quite such perfect fruit as grew upon vigorous young trees, just come to full bearing.

Here or there a plantation owner like my starch and stately grandfather, turned surplus peaches into brandy. In that happy time excise was--only a word in the dictionary, so the yield of certain trees, very free-bearing, of small, deep, red, clear-seed fruit, was allowed to get dead-ripe on the trees, then mashed to a pulp in the cider trough, and put into stands to ferment, then duly distilled. Barrelled, after two years in the lumber house, it was racked into clean barrels, and some part of it converted into "peach and honey," the favorite gentleman's tipple. Strained honey was mixed with the brandy in varying proportions--the amount depending somewhat upon individual tastes. Some used one measure of honey to three of brandy, others put one to two, still others, half and half, qualifying the sweetness by adding neat brandy at the time of drinking. Peach and honey was kept properly in stone jugs or in demijohns, improved mightily with age, and was, at its best, to the last degree insidious. Newly mixed it was heady, but after a year or more, as smooth as oil, and as mellow. The honey had something to do with final excellence. That which the bees gathered from wild raspberries in flower, being very clear, light-colored and fine-flavored, was in especial request.

I think these peaches of the brandy orchards traced back to those the Indians, Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees, planted in the mountain valleys of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. They got the seed from early Spaniard voyagers to Florida. There was indeed a special Indian peach, as dark-skinned as its namesake, blood-red inside and out, very sweet and full of juice, if permitted to ripen fully--but as ill-tasting almost as a green persimmon, if unripe. There were clearstone and clingstone sorts, and one tree differed from another in glory of flavor, even as one star. That was the charm of our seedlings--which had further a distinction of flavor no commercial fruit ever yet owned.

August peaches were for drying--in September, early, came the Heaths, for preserves, brandy fruit, and so on. October peaches, nearly all clear-seed, made the finest peach butter. Understand, in those days, canning, known as "hermetic sealing," was still a laboratory process. I wonder if anybody else recalls, as I do, the first editions of fruit cans? They were of tin, tall and straight, with a flaring upstanding tin ruffle around the tops. The ruffle was for holding the sealing wax, into which the edge of the tin top was thrust. They did not last long--pretty soon, there were cans of the present shape--but sealing them with wax was hard work, likewise uncertain. Women everywhere should rise and call blessed he who invented the self-sealing jar.

Return we to our peach butter. It began in cider--the cider from fall apples, very rich and sweet. To boil it down properly required a battery of brass kettles swung over a log fire in the yard, the same as at drying up lard time. Naturally brass kettles were at a premium--but luckily everybody did not make peach butter, so it was no strain upon neighborly comity to borrow of such. It took more than half a day to boil down the cider properly--kettles were filled up constantly as there was room. By and by, when the contents became almost syrup, peaches went in--preferably the late, soft, white ones, dead ripe, very juicy, and nearly as sweet as sugar. After the kettles were full of them, peeled and halved, of course, the boiling went on until the fruit was mushy. Constant stirring helped to make it so. Fresh peaches were added twice, and cooked down until the paddle stood upright in the middle of the kettle. Then came the spicing--putting in cloves, mace, bruised ginger, and alspice--sparingly, but enough to flavor delicately. If the white peaches ran short, there might be a supplemental butter-making when the Red Octobers came in, at the very last of the month. They were big and handsome, oval, with the richest crimson cheeks, but nothing like so sweet as the white ones. So sugar, or honey, was added scantly, at the end of the boiling down. If it had been put in earlier, it would have added to the danger of burning.

A six-gallon crock of peach butter was no mean household asset--indeed it ranked next to the crock of blackberry jam. It was good as a sauce, or lightly sweetened, to spread on crust. As a filling for roly-polys it had but one superior--namely dried peaches properly stewed.

Proper stewing meant washing a quart of dry fruit in two waters, soaking overnight, then putting over the fire in the soaking water, covering with a plate to hold the fruit down, and simmering at the least five hours, filling up the kettle from time to time, and adding after the fruit was soft a pound of sugar. Then at the very last spices to taste went in. If the fruit were to be eaten along with meat, as a relish, a cupful of vinegar was added after the sugar. This made it a near approach to the finest sweet pickle. But as Mammy said often: "Dried peaches wus good ernough fer anybody--dest by dee sefs, dry so."

Apple drying commonly came a little before peach. Horse apples, the best and plentiest, ripened in the beginning of August. They were kiln-dried, or scaffold-dried, and much less tedious than peaches since they were sliced thin. When they got very mellow, drying ceased--commonly everybody had plenty by that time--and the making of apple butter began. It differed little from peach butter in the making, though mightily in taste--being of a less piquant flavor. Cider, newly run was essential to any sort of butter--hence the beating was done before breakfast. Cider mills were not--but cider troughs abounded. They were dug from huge poplar logs, squared outside with the broad axe, and adzed within to a smooth finish. Apples well washed, were beaten in them with round headed wooden pestles, and pressed in slat presses, the pomace laid on clean straw, after the manner of cider pressing in English orchards. The first runnings, somewhat muddy, were best for boiling down, but the clear last runnings drank divinely--especially after keeping until there was just the trace of sparkle to them.

Winter cider was commonly allowed to get hard. So was that meant for distilling--apple brandy was only second to peach. But a barrel or keg, would be kept sweet for women, children, and ministers--either by smoking the inside of a clean barrel well with sulphur before putting in the cider, or by hanging inside a barrel nearly full, a thin muslin bag full of white mustard seed. Cider from russets and pear apples had a peculiar excellence, so was kept for Christmas and other high days.

Pear cider--perry--we knew only in books. Not through lack of pears but inclination to make it. Pears were dried the same as other fruit, but commonly packed down after drying in sugar. Thus they were esteemed nearly as good as peach chips, or even peach leather.

Peach chips were sliced thin, packed down in their own weight of sugar and let stand twenty-four hours to toughen. Then the syrup was drained from them, boiled, skimmed clean, spiced with mace and lemon peel, and the slices dropped into it a few at a time and cooked until sweet through. Then they were skimmed out, spread on dishes well sprinkled with sugar, dredged with more sugar, set under glass in sunshine and turned daily until dry. They were delicious, and served as other confections--passed around with nuts and wine, or eaten instead of candy.

So were cherries, dried in exactly the same manner, after pitting. When dried without sugar they were used for cooking. So also were tomato figs. Yellow tomatoes, smooth and even were best--but red ones answered--the meatier the better. After scalding, peeling, soaking an hour in clear lime-water to harden, they were rinsed clean, then dropped in thick boiling syrup, a few at a time, simmered an hour, then skimmed out, drained, sugared and dried under glass in the sun, or failing sunshine, upon dishes in a very slow oven. Full-dry, they were packed down in powdered sugar, in glass jars kept tightly closed. Unless thus kept they had a knack of turning sticky--which defeated the purpose of their creation.

Peach leather may not appeal to this day of many sweets--but it was good indeed back in the spare elder time. To make it the very ripest, softest peaches were peeled, and mashed smooth, working quickly so the pulp might not color too deeply, then spread an inch thick upon large dishes or even clean boards, and dried slowly in sunshine or the oven. After it was full-dry, came the cutting into inch-strips. This took a very sharp knife and a steady hand. Then the strips were coiled edgewise into flat rounds, with sugar between the rounds of the coils, which had to be packed down in more sugar and kept close, to save them from dampness, which meant ruin.

If you had a fond and extravagant grandmother, you were almost sure to have also a clove apple. That is to say, a fine firm winter apple, stuck as full of cloves as it could hold, then allowed to dry very, very slowly, in air neither hot nor cold. The cloves banished decay--their fragrance joined to the fruity scent of the apple, certainly set off things kept in the drawer with the apple. The applemakers justified their extravagance--cloves cost money, then as now--by asserting a belief in clove apples as sovereign against mildew or moths--which may have had a color of reason.

The quince tree is the clown of the orchard, growing twisted and writhing, as though hating a straight line. Notwithstanding, its fruit, and the uses thereof, set the hall mark of housewifery. Especially in the matter of jelly-making and marmalade. Further a quince pudding is in the nature of an experience--so few have ever heard of it, so much fewer made or tasted it. The making requires very ripe quinces--begin by scrubbing them clean of fuzz, then set them in a deep pan, cover, after adding a tablespoonful of water, and bake slowly until very soft. Scrape out the pulp, throw away cores and skin. To a pint of pulp take four eggs, beat the yolks light with three cups of sugar and a cup of creamed butter, add the quince pulp, a little mace broken small or grated nutmeg, then half a cup of cream, and the egg-whites beaten stiff. Bake in a deep pan, and serve hot with hard or wine sauce.

Here are some fine points of jelly-making learned in that long ago. To make the finest, clearest jelly, cook but little at a time. A large kettleful will never have the color and brightness of two or three glasses. Never undertake to make jelly of inferior fruit--that which is unripe or over-ripe, or has begun to sour. Wash clean, and drain--paring is not only waste work, but in a measure lessens flavor. Put a little water with the fruit when you begin cooking it--cook rather slowly so there shall be no scorching, and drain out rather than press out the juice. Draining is much freer if the fruit is spread thin, rather than dumped compactly in a bag. Double cheese cloth sewed fast over stout wire, and laid on top of a wide bowl, makes a fine jelly drainer--one cheap enough to be thrown away when discolored. A discolored bag, by the way, makes jelly a bit darker. If there is no pressure flannel is not required.

Plenty as fruit was with us, Mammy made jelly and marmalade from the same quinces. They were well washed, peeled, quartered and the cores removed, then the quarters boiled until soft in water to half-cover them, skimmed out, mashed smooth with their own weight of sugar, and spices to taste, then cooked very slowly until the spoon stood upright in the mass, after which it went into glass jars, and had a brandy paper laid duly on top.

Cores and paring were boiled to rags in water to fully cover them, then strained out, the water strained again, and added to that in which the fruit had boiled. Sugar was added--a pound to the pint of juice. But first the juice was brought to a boil, and skimmed very clean. The sugar, heated without scorching, went in, and cooking continued until the drop on the tip of the spoon jellied as it fell. Mammy hated jelly that ran--it must cut like butter to reach her standard. Occasionally she flavored it with ginger--boiling the bruised root with the cores--but only occasionally, as ginger would make the jelly darker. Occasionally also she cooked apples, usually fall pippins, with the quinces, thus increasing the bulk of both jelly and marmalade, with hardly a sensible diminution of flavor.

All here written applies equally to every sort of fruit jelly--apple, peach, currant, the whole family of berries. Mammy never knew it, but I myself have found the oven at half-heat a very present help in jelly-making. Fruit well prepared, and put into a stone or agate vessel, covered and baked gently for a time proportionate to its bulk, yields all its juice, and it seems to me clearer juice, than when stewed in the time-honored brass kettle. Hot sugar helps to jellying quickly--and the more haste there, the lighter and brighter the result. Gelatin in fruit jellies I never use--it increases the product sensibly, but that is more than offset by the decrease in quality.

It was no trouble at all to make occasions. Indeed, the greatest of them, weddings, really made themselves. A wedding made imperative an infare--that is to say, if the high contracting parties had parental approval. Maybe I had better explain that infare meant the bride's going home--to her new house, or at least her new family. This etymologically--the root is the Saxon _faran_, to go, whence come wayfaring, faring forth and so on. All this I am setting forth not in pedantry, but because so many folk had stared blankly upon hearing the word--which was to me as familiar as word could be. In application it had a wide latitude. Commonly the groom or his family gave the infare, but often enough some generous and well-to-do friend, or kinsman, pre-empted the privilege. Wherever held, it was an occasion of keen and jealous rivalry--those in charge being doubly bent on making the faring in more splendid than the wedding feast. Naturally that put the wedding folk on their mettle. Another factor inciting to extra effort was--the bundles. All guests were expected to take home with them generous bundles of wedding cake in all its varieties. I recall once hearing a famous cake baker sigh relief as she frosted the hundredth snow ball, and said: "Now we are sure to have enough left for the bundles--they are such a help."

But baking cakes, and cooking in general, though important, were not the main things. Setting the table, so it should outshine all other wedding tables gave most concern. To this end all the resources of the family, and its friends for a radius of ten miles, were available--glass, silver, china, linen, even cook pots and ovens at need. Also and further it was a slight of the keenest, if you were known as a fine cake maker, not to be asked to help. A past mistress of paper cutting was likewise in request. Cut papers and evergreens were the great reliances in decoration. They made a brave showing by candlelight. Oil lamps were few, kerosene undiscovered, and either lard oil, or whale oil, all too often smelled to heaven, to say nothing of smoking upon the least provocation. So a lamp, if there were one, sat in state within the parlor. The long table got its light from candelabra--which as often as not were homemade. The base was three graduated blocks of wood, nailed to form a sort of pyramid, with a hole bored in the middle to receive a stout round upright, two inches across. It stood a foot high, and held up cross-arms three feet across, with a tin candlesocket upon each end. Another socket was set where the arms crossed--thus each candelabra was of five-candle power. Set a-row down the middle of the table, with single candles in tall brass sticks interspersed, they gave a fine soft illumination. Often they were supplemented with candelabra of bronze or brass, tricked out with tinkly pendant prisms. Such household gauds were commonly concentrated at the spot where the bride and her maids would stand. They were more elegant, of course, than the made candle-holders--but not to my thinking a whit the handsomer--after the paper-cutters had done their work.

Their work was turning white paper into fringe and lace. Fringed strips wound all over and about, hid the foundation wood. Paper tulips, deftly fashioned, held the tin rings in ambush--with clusters of lacy leaves pendant below. Sometimes a paper rose tipped each arm-end--sometimes also, there were pendant sprays of pea-shaped blossoms. How they were made, with nothing beyond scissors, pen-knives for crimping, and the palm of the hand for mold, I confess I do not understand--but I know they were marvels. The marvels required a special knack, of course--also much time and patience. Wherefore those who had it, exercised it in scraps of leisure as paper came to hand, laying away the results against the next wedding even though none were imminent. Leaves and the round lace-edged pieces to go under cakes, it was easy thus to keep. Flowers, roses, tulips and so on, had a trick of losing shape--besides, although so showy, they were really much easier to make.

It took nice contrivance to make table-room--but double thicknesses of damask falling to the floor either side hid all roughness in the foundation. Shape depended much upon the size of the supper-room--if it were but an inclosed piazza, straight length was imperative. But in a big square or parallelogram, one could easily achieve a capital _H_--or else a letter _Z_. _Z_ was rather a favorite in that it required less heavy decoration, yet gave almost as much space. A heart-cake for either tip, a stack at each acute angle, with the bride's cake midway the stem, flanked either hand by bowls of syllabub and boiled custard, made a fine showing. A letter _H_ demanded four heart-cakes--one for each end, also four stacks, and crowded the bride and her party along the joining bar.

Heart-cakes were imperative to any wedding of degree. Local tinsmiths made the moulds for them--they were deeply cleft, and not strictly classic of outline. But, well and truly baked, frosted a glistening white, then latticed and fringed with more frosting, dribbled on delicately from the point of a tube, they were surely good to look at. If the bride's cake were white all through, the heart-pans were usually filled with gold-cake batter--thus white and yolk of eggs had equal honor. More commonly though, the most part of wedding cake was pound cake in the beginning--the richer the better. Baked in deep round-bottomed, handleless coffee cups, and iced, it made the helpful snow balls. Baked in square pans, rather shallow, cut into bars, crisped, frosted and piled cob-house fashion, it made pens. Sliced crosswise and interlaid with jelly it became jelly cake. To supplement it, there were marble cake, spice cake, plum cake, ever so many more cakes--but they were--only supplements.

Stacks were either round or square, baked in pans of graduated size, set one on the other after cooling thoroughly, then frosted and re-frosted till they had a polar suggestion. If round there was commonly a hole running down the middle, into this was fitted a wide mouthed but small glass bottle, to hold the stems of the evergreen plume topping the stack. Here or there in the plume, shone a paper rose or starflower--in the wreath of evergreen laid about the base, were tulips, lilies, and bigger roses, all made of paper. Occasionally trailing myrtle, well washed and dried, was put about the components of the stacks just before they were set in place. If the heart-cakes had missed being latticed, they likewise were myrtle-wreathed. The bride's cake was left dead-white, but it always stood on something footed, and had a wreath of evergreen and paper flowers, laid upon a lace-cut paper about the foot.

Baking it was an art. So many things had to go in it--the darning needle, thimble, picayune, ring, and button. The makers would have scorned utterly the modern subterfuge of baking plain, and thrusting in the portents of fate before frosting. They mixed the batter a trifle stiff, washed and scoured everything, shut eyes, dropped them, and stirred them well about. Thus nobody had the least idea where they finally landed--so the cutting was bound to be strictly fair. It made much fun--the bride herself cut the first slice--hoping it might hold the picayune, and thus symbolize good fortune. The ring presaged the next bride or groom, the darning needle single blessedness to the end, the thimble, many to sew for, or feed, the button, fickleness or disappointment. After the bridal party had done cutting, other young folk tempted fate. Bride's cake was not for eating--instead, fragments of it, duly wrapped and put under the pillow, were thought to make whatever the sleeper dreamed come true. Especially if the dream included a sweetheart, actual or potential. The dreams were supposed to be truly related next day at the infare--but I question if they always were. Perhaps the magic worked--and in this wise--the person dreamed of took on so new a significance, the difference was quickly felt. But this is a cook book--with reminiscent attachments, not a treatise on psychology.

The table held only the kickshaws--cakes, candy, nuts, syllabub and custard. Wide handsome plates piled high with tempting sliced cake sat up and down the length of it, with glass dishes of gay candies in between. In cold weather wine jelly often took the place of syllabub. There were neither napkins nor service plates--all such things came from the side table, the plates laden with turkey, ham, fried chicken, or broiled, and some sort of jelly or relish. One ate standing, with her escort doing yeoman service as waiter, until her appetite was fully appeased. Hot biscuit, hot egg bread, and light bread--salt rising, freshly sliced--were passed about by deft black servitors. The side tables were under charge of family friends, each specially skilled in helping and serving. Carving, of course, had been done before hand. Occasionally, very occasionally, where a wedding throng ran well into the hundreds, there was barbecue in addition to other meat. In that case it was cut up outside, and sent in upon huge platters. But it was more a feature of infares, held commonly by daylight, than of wedding suppers.