We set out, after having a yummy lunch of chili and milk with apples. We got into the car and set out. It was a longer drive so we listened to a CD in the car- Wee Sing America. We anticipated the day before us- onto Remick -a long drive back and a soccer game in Hillsboro. Whew, we thought as we drove on...WHAT A BUSY DAY!!!
We arrived at Remick and hurriedly made use of their bathrooms, after meeting up with our friends from the Co-Op, with whom we were going to be taking the field trip. We looked at the lovely view-mountains and fields and grassy areas with goats and cows in the distance from our picnic table, the squawking of chickens a little distance off, and the fresh smell of hay greeted us as we walked up the path. We took it all in and took advantage of the first few minutes when we were waiting for our tour guides and the rest of our group by feeding some goats, walking around and snapping pictures-which of course, I put below. :)
Filia enjoys the beautiful scenery.
Silly Tert!Rus and Tert Feed the Goats...
The tour guides walked over. They told us what we were going to be doing that day. We split into two separate groups, the younger ones and the older ones. We older ones went to the kitchen, where an old fashioned hearth had a fire roaring inside it.
We went to the bathroom to wash our hands. After scrubbing our hands we lined up in groups. We learned some more about cooking in the olden days. There were so many ways to cook meals! For breakfast you could take the crane and hang a pot on it and swing it over the fire and cook a pot of oatmeal, or make a nice supper of soup. There was this metal spit-like thing, which you could slide your chicken on it and you would put it in this metal box and it would be open on one side and on the other side it would have a window. The metal box had holes bored through each side of it, so instead of the modern way-(where you watch the spit turning automatically in the grocery store and lick your lips at the sight of it) you had to take the spit and move it up a notch to the next hole after a few minutes. The drippings from the chicken would fall into the bottom of the metal box and there was a spout so you could take the drippings and make a delicious gravy to go with it! It makes us appreciate our easy ovens and microwaves today!After we learned more about cooking we were told we would be making biscuits. The younger group, (including Tert and Rus) were going to make butter to go with it.
We looked at the table before us. There was all of our ingredients, and the measures. Well, back in the olden days they didn't have the nice little cup measures and teaspoon measures and the labeled handles-no! They had spoons and cups and their fingers and pots and pans-that was it. They had to estimate-which we had to do as well. Some of the cooking tools we used were interesting, and I took pictures of them, which I'm pasting below...
This was the cutter which we used after we made the dough for our biscuits-it was like a weird shaped cookie cutter!
This is a spoon made of animal horn-which I thought was really cool! It felt just like plastic-and was a much cheaper way back then to get utensils than medal was...We made the biscuits using the recipe-which I have printed below...
(Note: Back then there were NOT nicely printed out recipes-the women had probably been making these recipes as long as they could remember-so I'm sure they kept the recipe in their heads!) :D
This is the recipe we used:
3 cups flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoon fat (lard of bacon drippings)
Approx. 1 cup of milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
(Mix) together dry ingredients, (Flour, Baking Powder, Salt, Sugar) then rub in lard with fingertips, (this is much easier than mixing it in with a spoon, as we figured out) until flaky. Pour about a cupful milk to moisten. (We added milk until it was properly moistened through, and there was no more flour crusted to the bowl.) Turn out on well floured board and pat about 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter and place in greased dutch oven that has been slightly preheated. Biscuits should be touching but NOT crowded. Place preheated lid on oven and cover with hot coals. Place on bed of good red coals and let bake about twenty minutes or until brown on top and bottom.
--Clair Haight, Hashknife Outfit, Winslow, AZ, 1922 (reprinted in: Chuck Wagon Cookin', by Stella Hughes
We used this recipe, making the biscuits and putting them in the Dutch Oven. Then we took the burning hot logs and moved the logs off of the coals, and we took the coals and piled them in one section on the hearth. After shoveling the coals onto the hearth we place the Dutch Oven carefully on top. Then we placed more coals on top of the Dutch Oven, which had a lip for that purpose. This heated the biscuits all the way through, and made a delicious outcome.
These are the biscuits in the Dutch Oven. We crowded them a little bit-and by the way, the number of biscuits above is the amount you would get in a double recipe. This gives you an idea of how many you'd get in one single recipe.
Shoveling the coals onto the top of the Dutch oven. (What a HUGE hearth!) Just above the shovel in the picture is where we put the flaming logs, and you can see the coals to the left of the shovel.If you want to make the recipe-your oven at home works too! Pop them in the oven until they are a slight brown on the top and bottom!
While we waited for our biscuits to cool we washed our flour covered hands and then took a quick tour of the rest of the kitchen.
This is a butter churn-like the boys used to make farm fresh butter for our scrumptious biscuits!
Refrigerator-or ice box! :DWe then stepped outside again, into the scorching heat and walked with our next tour guide to the new (still in progress) discovery center. We passed the ice house and sugar house on the way.
Outside the ice house...When we walked up the steps into the discovery center, we were greeted with the lovely scent of wax-for dipping candles! The smell was so sweet! We all plunked ourselves down on the floor, the grownups getting the chair, and listened to our tour guide. She told us all about the different forms of candles, and the different forms of stuff they used to burn. The first use for candles was of course....
If you said LIGHT-you got it RIGHT! They also used to use lamps for burning. They put oil in them-(No, not the type you put in your car-) olive oil.
No-there's no genie in it, we tried...We got to see
Look at the fresh beeswax! It was just taken from the hive!
This is a poster about the Early Lighting. The jar to the far left is full of wax-older wax.The bees produce a different colored wax for your candle dipping at different times of the year. The wax right now is beautiful!
We then stood up and got right to candle dipping. In our group we had about eight people, so we stood in a circle and went around, taking our wax and quickly dipping it in and pulling it back out. We went around in a steady circle while being given several interesting facts.
Leo Dipping Candles...This last picture from the candle dipping I thought was really funny. In the olden days they used to have these really, really long candles wrapped around a metal frame. There was a metal bracket to hold the candle up-however much you wanted to burn.
So what? That's what I thought until I heard the story behind it! These candles are called courting candles. You see, in the olden days the men came to visit the ladies. I mean, where were they going to go? They couldn't go on dates to a fancy restaurant! Your parlor had to do for that. So the man would come over, and the parents, depending how much they liked the guy would raise the candle however high they liked him. When the candle burned down-their date was over. So, if you don't like the guy, put the candle really low. :P
We walked back from the discovery center to the main building and hurried up the stairs. We were rushing because we had a soccer game in Hillsboro that night! We tried our DELICIOUS biscuits, with the homemade butter from the little kids. It was amazing! After that we hurried out into the parking lot. Taking one last look at the beautiful farm, we declared it an amazing field trip-one that we would do again, really soon!
By: Stella
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