My last post, about Gomer,
Reminds me of my Final in Anthropology.
The Paper that I submitted, and the samples provided.....
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Tucked among the mountains and valleys of the eastern United States are a people with a unique culture; the Appalachians. Named for a stretch of a mountain range that runs from southern New York to Georgia, the people of Appalachia have learned to adapt to the harsh environment of mountain living and isolation.
“In the 1700’s, immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, England, and Germany moved into the area, bringing with them the customs, stories, and language of their ‘grands and greats.’ The first settlers were also farmers; growing their own food, making their own clothes, forging their own tools, and building their own homes.” (1). It was/is a life with simple needs; food, shelter, and “likker.”
There is no waste of the precious resources for the Appalachians. When domesticated livestock is butchered for food, all parts of the animal are used. Even the feathers of chickens were used in pillow stuffing. From a hog, this includes the rendering of fat to lard to cook with and to make lye for soap, hog hair for the bristles of a tooth brush or hair brush, the snout or “rooter” is roasted, the skin fried for “cracklings,” the feet are either pickled or used for soup stock as is the tail. Indeed, everything on a hog is used except the “oink!”
Many indigenous plants were found to be edible and were thus cultivated along with crops newly introduced to the area such as corn, grains and tubers. It was also believed that cures for many ailments could be found in the local flora. Several “cures” involved the use of a “poultice.”
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While some of the remedies have valid properties, some border upon the inane. For example, one suggestion for someone afflicted with chest congestion is to, “
Render the fat of a polecat. Eat two or three spoonfuls. This brings up the phlegm.” (2). I’m sure that it will bring up more than just phlegm!
Along with the domesticated livestock, wild game teemed throughout the mountains. Methods learned and handed down from generation to generation were employed in trapping, fishing and hunting. A good hunting dog was often thought of more highly than children and prized as much as a “straight shooting iron.” Wild game, “in season,” such as deer, rabbits, squirrel, turkeys and hogs were always a welcome sight on the dinner table and often larger game was smoked, cured, dried or preserved for the long cold winter months. Wild hogs were semi-domesticated. One who owned hogs usually marked the hogs with splitting of the hog’s ears. The hogs were allowed to run free in a stretch of woods during the spring, summer and fall to graze on chestnuts. In November, several were rounded up and brought to the homestead for two to four weeks to be fed a corn diet to purify the meat and fat of the bitterness of the chestnut diet. The lard rendered without the purification would be dark and bitter.
Occasionally, disagreements arose among neighbors over ownership of the “wild” hogs, land boundaries and a general mistrust of strangers or someone not in their own “clan.” It was an argument over a hog that ignited the infamous “Hatfield-McCoy Feud.” While instances of disagreements with neighbors are not common, the closeness of neighbors in helping each other is.
Though your closest neighbor may live five miles away, across two creeks and on the other side of the valley or mountain, you knew them and their family as well as your own. Unlike today’s urban dweller who doesn’t even know their neighbor’s name, your neighbors were always willing to help with a barn building, a deer hunt, an illness in the family or just getting together for a “shindig.” And you are just as willing to be there for your neighbor.
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In the tradition of gender assigned responsibilities, women of different families would share recipes, swap cloth and patterns on sewing, swap canning jars and supplies and share cleaning tips. The men would share hunting stories of where game could be found, maybe swap some nails for some bullets, lend tools, admire each other’s hunting dogs and both genders would share these times over a twist or a pipeful of tobacco. The men would also share samples of their pride and joy; home-made alcohol. For drinking. Or “medicinal use.”
The “Whiskey Rebellion” of 1791, as a result of a tax levied by the federal government to pay for the cost of the revolutionary war, caused many in Appalachia to hide their stills in the woods and make their liquor at night creating the term, “moonshine.” “
Other aspects of the excise law also caused concern. The law required all stills to be registered, and those cited for failure to pay the tax had to appear in distant Federal, rather than local, courts. In Pennsylvania, for example, the only Federal courthouse was in Philadelphia, some 300 miles away from the small frontier settlement of Pittsburgh.” (3).
This mistrust of government officials “poking around” asking questions and monitoring the sales of sugar, yeast, copper tubing, etc. led to great animosity via the “Revenuer.” Though I do not know anything about how it’s made, I have tasted it and find it suitable for paint removal, weed killing and temporary stupidity if consumed in any quantity over a teaspoonful. Perhaps the only beneficial use that I can conceive of
IS a teaspoonful in a hot toddy mixture including hot water and honey. My grandmother used to make a hot toddy when she felt a cold coming on, however; she replaced the liquor with vinegar as she was of temperance beliefs.
Many activities are planned around signs of nature including crop planting, crop reaping, hunting and fishing. For example on fishing concerning the direction of the wind; “Wind from the East the fish bites the least. Wind from the North the fish bites the poorest. Wind from the South blows the bait in the fish’s mouth. Wind from the West fishing is best.”
It is of interest to note that all cultures have endeavored to understand Nature and try to reap benefits when the opportunity is favorable and presents itself. Some observations and
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correlations are surprisingly accurate, especially when weather is concerned, whereas,
most are of little benefit or at the worst, dangerous. Perhaps a couple of teaspoonfuls of rendered polecat fat?
Slowly, in the early to mid twentieth century, modern conveniences found their way to the people of Appalachia. Beginning with the WPA, which employed many men on projects like the TVA which helped to bring electricity to the mountains and the introduction of transportation other than horseback or buggy, life evolved. In both instances, the degree of isolationism decreased resulting in the integration into a more national identity and the old, hard ways of survival became less hard and time consuming. Sadly, at the same time, the lifestyle, the closeness of neighbors, the history and oral traditions began to decline and are found only in a few remote pockets scattered among the mountains. “They are as rare as hen’s teeth.”
I am fond of the lifestyle of self-sustenance, being embraced by nature and in general, a less frenzied 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century existence found only in the mountains of Appalachia.
Do YOU know your neighbors?
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1) The Girl Scouts of Black Diamond.
Appalachian Heritage Activity Guide for Girl Scouts. https://www.bdgsc.org/getattachment...an-Heritage-Activity-Guide-for-Girls.pdf.aspx
2) Wigginton, Eliot. Edit and Introduction.
The Foxfire Book. 1972. p234.
3) United States Department of the Treasury. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
The Whiskey Rebellion.
TTB | The Whiskey Rebellion
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1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 egg
1 1/4 cups white cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Heat oven to 400ºF.
Grease bottom and side of round pan, 9x1 1/2 inches, or square pan, 8x8x2 inches.
Beat milk, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Pour batter into pan.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
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Best,
Scott
Yeah,
I got an "A"
(Also includes the work put in for the entire Semester....)
Took my samples in having been baked in a well seasoned
deep, Griswold cast Iron skillet!
