Orlando Home Cooking

NOTICE

There have always been fine country cooks in Orlando. The Reunion Committee is celebrating them with a cookbook. Have you any recipes passed down to you that you would like to include in this heirloom cookbook? Contact Marilyn Posey at 1 (304) 853- 2368 or mposey525@aol.com. Call soon, as the deadline is the end of July.


from Jackie (Witzgall) Holbrook

Jackie (Witzgall) Holbrook is a granddaughter of Edith (Skinner) Stutler. Edith was one of those fine country cooks, but she is particularly remembered for her cooking because she was the cook at Orlando’s three room school house in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Jackie shares with us four of Edith’s recipes. Edith wasn’t raised with written recipes. Like all country cooks, it was a handful of this and a pinch of that. However, the following two desert recipes, peanut butter cookies and apple raisin bar, probably were for school cooks, from the government. The third recipe for biscuits she measured out for her daughters. The fourth is recipe for the mixture to sugar-cure a ham.

Left: Edith (Skinner) Stutler

Right: Jackie (Witzgall) Holbrook

Edith’s Recipes

Peanut Butter Cookies
1 cup shortening
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs well beaten
1 cup peanut butter
3 cups sifted flour
2 tsp soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Cream the shortening thoroughly. Add sugar gradually then the beaten eggs and peanut butter.
Sift flour, soda and salt. Add gradually to the wet mixture, mixing well.
Shape into balls the size of walnuts. Flatten with fork, bake until brown. 400 degrees. Makes 100 cookies.

Apple Raisin Bar
2 sticks butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp. soda (baking soda)
1 cup rolled oats

Melt butter and blend all together. Put half in greased pan. Pat down.Put in the following filling

2 cups applesauce
1 cup raisins
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup nuts

Cover with the rest of the crumb mixture and bake in a 300 F. oven for 30 to 45 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

Above right Edith as a young woman

Right: Edith just come in from milking on a winter morning

Biscuits
1 ½ tsp salt
2 Tbs Baking Powder
1/3 cup Shortening (Crisco)
2 cups Flour
1 ¼ cups Buttermilk (this would have been fresh from the butter churn.)
Edith’s recipe doesn’t include instructions on how to mix or form the biscuits or the temperature and cooking time for them.

Mixture to Sugar-Cure a Ham
1 pint salt (that’s 2 cups)
½ pint brown sugar (that’s 1 cup)
1 Tbs black pepper
¼ tsp saltpeter
1 tsp red pepper
¼ tsp Borax

According to Edith’s grandson Bill Beckner, the mixture is rubbed and packed on the fresh ham. The coated ham is slipped into a feed sack and hung in the meat house. When the juices quit dripping from the ham, the ham is cured. Note that this is not a smoked ham. It is a sugar-cured ham. Although folks in Orlando speak of smoked ham, we have yet to find someone who remembers hams being smoked.

Left: Edith (in green) with some of her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren during a visit to Detroit in the late 1960s.

Comment by Sonny and Dochie Wymer about Orlando Cook Vada Gay
Sonny Wymer recalls that he went to school at the Orlando School from the first to the third grade. He thinks because of overcrowding at Orlando, the Braxton County Board of Education mandated that students who lived in Lewis County would not be allowed to continue attending the Braxton County Orlando School. He and other Lewis County students who had been attending Orlando were then sent to the nearby Walnut Grove School at Peterson Siding by the short yellow bus which looked like a “cheese box.” At that time the Oil Creek road was unpaved and mostly mud. Sonny says, “ I did more walking to school than riding because the bus simply wouldn’t go through the mud.”

Sonny remembers well the school lunches at Walnut Grove School. “Vada Gay was the school cook and she made the best ever mac and cheese.” Her peanut butter cookies were “yum, yum.”
Sonny’s wife Dochie also attended the Walnut Grove School and recalls that Icie Skinner made the best boiled and browned potatoes. “I can still taste it after all these years.”
Sonny recalls that the school lunches at Walnut Grove School were “all good and there was plenty of it.”

Comment about Orlando Cook Icie (Gay) Skinner
Delma Jean (Foster) Skinner of Peterson Siding recalls that her mother-in-law Icie (Gay) Skinner was a cook at the Walnut Grove School for six or seven years during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

“She was just a good all-around cook,” recalls Delma Jean. “Her pies would melt in your mouth. She made all kinds of pies: raisin, pumpkin, berry, and apple; they were so good.” Delma Jean also recalls Wanda Gay telling her that Icie’s potato soup was the “best she ever tasted, and try as hard as she could and as many times as she could, she just never could make it like Icie’s.”

Delma Jean also recalls that she and her sister-in-law Mary Skinner (Wine) would go over to the Walnut Grove School after lunch was over and help Icie wash dishes and clean up the kitchen.
Icie and her husband, Delmer Skinner, lived on Rag Run.

Right: Icie (Gay) Skinner

. . . . .

Note: Edith (Skinner) Stutler was the great granddaughter of Alexander and Fibi (Conrad) Skinner, Daniel and Margaret (Shields) Conrad, George T. and Mary (Godfrey) Duvall, George and Patience (Blake) Mathews, Isaac and Mary (Sponaugle) Bennett and other pioneers of what is now central West Virginia.

Right: Alexander and Fibi (Conrad) Skinner

Note: Another Edith (Skinner) Stutler food entry is at http://orlandostonesoup.blogspot.com/2006/09/funeral-pie.html

Arch A. Riffle – Orlando Nimrod and Groundhog Nemesis

by David Parmer

The favorite pastime of Orlando men without question was hunting. Today hunting is considered somewhat of a “sport” or “recreation.” In Orlando’s early days, hunting was considered more “putting food on the table” than a sport.

When we think of hunting, deer is the first animal which comes to mind. However, deer in the early part of the last century were scarce around Orlando. Farmers who earned their livelihood from the raising of crops could not allow the voracious appetites of ravenous deer take food from their tables. Deer as a result lived short lives around Orlando and were in fact scarcely seen.

Groundhog photo by Robert McCaw.

Large families were the rule during the early days of Orlando and it was always a struggle to keep food on the table for a large family. Generally the only domestic meat protein which found its way onto the Orlando table was pork. Most families raised swine and perhaps sheep; few however raised beef cattle. In order to make the family pork or lamb last the winter careful rationing was required. Still with a large family, a butchered hog or lamb could only go so far.

In the early 20th century, an animal which was plentiful as well as edible was the groundhog. Many Orlando families supplemented their meager supply of meat protein with groundhog.

Preparing Groundhog for the Table
Properly prepared, groundhog is as tasty and nourishing as any other meat. Orlando women prepared groundhog routinely as they would any other wild animal meat. It was however, first necessary to remove the scent glands, or “kernels” from the back and under the forearms from the groundhog to avoid the unpleasant taste of the glands. Some families allowed the groundhog to age a few days before using. Some preparers soaked groundhog in salted water to remove any “wild” flavor from the meat. Groundhog could be prepared by cooking in water or frying. Either way it was a tasty dish for the Orlando table surrounded by hungry children.

About Arch Riffle
Perhaps the most prolific hunter of the groundhog in the history of Orlando was Arch A. Riffle of Three Lick. Arch Riffle was the son of Jacob Isaac Riffle and Matilda Riffle and was born on Clover Fork in 1885. Arch was from a very large family of around twenty children, give or take a few. Food, no doubt, was always in short supply on the family table. Arch learned from a young age to hunt wild game to supplement the Riffle’s meager rations. Clover Fork was mostly grazing country with a few hilltop and bottom land crops thrown in. This was ideal country for the groundhog and they were plentiful. Arch developed a taste for groundhog growing up and continued that tradition as he grew older.

Arch married Minnie Blake and began raising his family of nine children on Three Lick. Arch lived on a farm owned by Mike Moran as a sharecropper of sorts about a mile or so from Orlando. Arch worked for a short time for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad but mostly he was a farmer and a hunter. Groundhog was his specialty.

Arch ranged many miles to hunt the groundhog. Since he never learned to operate an automobile, he was always afoot. His son Leo relates that Arch would go many miles in a day hunting. On one hunting day Leo recalls that his dad went as far as Long Shoal in Gilmer County before turning back for home.

Arch hunted with his mongrel dog which was an excellent seeker and hunter of groundhogs. After his dog put the groundhog to hole, Arch would dig the groundhog from its burrow and dispatch it with his Winchester pump .22 caliber rifle he bought from Marple’s Store in Burnsville. This rifle is still in family ownership today. Arch was also an excellent shooter and often could forego the digging part of the hunt by his accurate marksmanship.

Uncle Zeke's Observations
Arch Riffle’s reputation as a hunter was spread far and wide by P. N. Blake who wrote the Buzzardtown News as “Uncle Zeke” for the Braxton Democrat newspaper. Uncle Zeke may have exaggerated his tales a mite to make them even more interesting. In his column of October 10, 1927 , Uncle Zeke bragged that Arch and the Posey boys had killed 162 groundhogs so far that year. The Posey boys were Arch’s brothers in law. About a month later, Uncle Zeke reported that the groundhog kill total was up to 177 and that Arch hoped to make it 200 by year’s end. In a 1924 column, Uncle Zeke remarked that “since Arch Riffle’s hen has refused to set he wants to know if it would be all right to set a groundhog on the eggs.” Later in the same year, Uncle Zeke reported that “Arch Riffle says he is going to buy a new Ford this summer if he can catch enough groundhogs to pay for one.” Uncle Zeke also reported that Arch had complained that since he went to work for the railroad “he was three days behind in his groundhog hunting.” Arch did not hunt groundhogs exclusively. Uncle Zeke also reported in 1924 that “Arch Riffle says he got enough gasoline out of one polecat last week to run a Ford to Halifax”.

Arch Riffle was not however the only nimrod in the Orlando area when it came to groundhog hunting. Uncle Zeke also reported a great battle between the furry creature and J. R. Posey of Buzzardtown. Uncle Zeke told the public that “a large groundhog declared war on J. R. Posey the other day. After a fierce battle, J. R., with the dexterity of David, landed a stone on Mr. G. Hog’s forehead and laid him out for dead”.

Advancing age and financial necessity came to Arch Riffle and he left the area of his birth to live out the rest of his days in the smoky city of Parkersburg where his children had gone for work and to raise their families. There is no doubt Arch missed the sunny days of scouting the hills of Braxton and Lewis County for his arch nemesis, the groundhog, and the taste of groundhog pie.

Arch died in 1970 at the age of 85 and was laid to rest in the Mitchell Cemetery on Clover Fork in prime groundhog territory.

Note: Nimrod was the great-grandson of Noah and he was a mighty hunter. (Genesis 10:8-10)


For more on preparing small wildife for the table see the Sept '06 entry Squirrel for Dinner

Fried Fish

In her memories of her uncle, Barbara (Jeffries) Parmer told us "on heat-shimmery summer afternoons he'd take his fishing pole in hand and say 'Think I’ll go up the crick'. After awhile, he would return with what he called 'a mess of fish'—suckers and 'baccer boxes'—which my aunt or grandmother would fix for breakfast the next day."

Upper right is a mess of sunfish ( The pan fish which Heaterhuck Henline called "'baccer boxes," because they were as small a Prince Albert tobacco tin).

I doubt there was any question, in any kitchen in Orlando, about how fish would be prepared. Baked? Broiled? Maybe poached, then tossed in a salad, with a light vinaigrette? No. Not even smoked, although the homestead probably had a smokehouse. Fish was caught nearby, cleaned and pan fried. I've asked folks how their grandmothers fixed fish. They've explained as best they could, but in each case I've gotten the impression that it was as if I'd asked how you drink a glass of water. Still, if you weren't raised with iron skillets and grease cans on the stove, additional information may be in order.

First, for a sound primer for this discussion see Angela Gillaspie's Ode to Bacon Grease.

Now this, to the best of my knowledge, is the way fish was cooked in Orlando (and probably everywhere else in the region) when cornmeal was a staple and folks ate slab bacon most every day. If your family did it differently, please let us know.

Clean the fish. Remove the innards, head, scales and (maybe) skin so that each fish yields two fillets, strips of meat, one from each side of the fish.

Bread the fillets with cornmeal by dipping them first into milk or a beaten egg, then into cornmeal seasoned with salt and maybe pepper.

Heat the big iron skillet pretty hot and spoon a couple or three serving spoons of bacon drippings into the pan.1

Lay the breaded fillets in the hot skillet and fry until a crispy, brown crust forms. Then flip the fish and fry the other side. Add more bacon grease as needed.

See the entries for
Dec 10, '06 My Great-Uncle Heater Henline
Dec 12, '06: Fishing In Oil Creek

1. Bacon drippings was the standard cooking fat, like olive oil or butter might be in other cultures. After cooking the morning's bacon, or anything else with good flavored fat, like steak or pork chops, whatever fat was left in the pan was poured into a container kept on or near the stove for that purpose. The container could have been as simple as an old coffee can, but in the 1950s and '60s (I can't speak to what was used earlier) we used store-bought metal containers designed for the purpose. This "Fryer's Friend Grease Keeper " is the closest to a grease can I could find on the internet.

Dandelion Wine & Applejack

Patrick and Ellen (Naughton) Carney, along with the John Moran and other Irish immigrants in the mid 1800s, settled in Orlando. For more on this important Orlando Community see the entry for May 29, '06 The Irish Immigration

John Carney, now a retired pharmacist, remembers his grandmother Katherine "Kate" (Moran) Carney's dandelion wine. Their grandmother told John and his twin brother Patrick how it was made. (By then, the 1950s, she had moved to Clarksburg to live with her daughter Margaret and son-in-law John Dolan.)

Discovering that the humble and abundant dandelion flowers could be turned into strong brew was one of the memorable experiences of that summer. When they got home the two boys put all their ingenuity and enterprise into their new-found mission of secretly making dandelion wine in the cellar. Alas, they discovered the making of dandelion wine was not as easy as grandma had made it seem.

In the photo to the right Katherine "Kate" (Moran) Carney is standing between her twin grandsons in stripped shirts.

With my brother Mike and me, it was applejack, also in the 1950s and also on Clover Fork. Our great-grandfather Gid Skinner pulled out an old cider press and all the cousins gathered apples and washed them in the stream while the aunts and uncles chopped and pressed the apples using the cider press.

Well, cool, sweet apple cider was a treat, but even more interesting was the whispering we heard: "Just let a jug of cider sit outside and after a while when it freezes pour off the alcohol on the top." (Such things would never be spoken aloud as my grandmother, Edith (Skinner) Stutler, like any good Methodist, was opposed to alcoholic beverages.) Applejack. It seemed so simple. We tried it a couple of winters, but we never got booze.

To the left above is a photo of the cider mill at my parents' home in Michigan in the 1980s. (My dad rebuilt the wood slat buckets, but the rest of the press remains original.) The fellow with the red & black plaid shirt is cousin Bill Beckner who was about 10 at greatgrandpa Gideon's pressing.

Squirrel for Dinner

Hunting game is a part of our heritage that remains strong1. Deer and squirrel are two popular prey. I'd think wild turkey would be, too, but I haven't heard that it is.

Bill Beckner likes that squirrel hunting comes before deer hunting in the fall. In addition to the chance to be out in the wild and the good food squirrel hunting provides, it's good target practice for deer hunting.

This photo from the internet illustrates how the squirrel is fried.

Here is Bill Beckner's recipe for squirrel. Bill cuts the critter into chicken-like pieces and par-boils it to make it tender. Then he goes ahead just like fried chicken. He coats it with four and browns it in a medium high skillet and seasons it with salt and pepper. When it's all crispy brown, he puts a lid on, turns down the heat and lets it cook till it's almost falling off the bone.
Bill makes gravy by thickening the liquid the squirrel was parboiled in.

Just a quick word about "the best part:" a great delicacy for Bill's grandma, Josie Beckner, were the brains. She loved breaded, sauted squirrel brains. This put an extra but welcomed burden on grandson Bill. The standard way to kill a squirrel was to blow its brains out: quick and painless a death as can be. But if he was going to bring home brains for his grandma, Bill had to shoot the squirrels in their body, squarely enough so they didn't suffer. Fortunately, Bill is a very good shot.

Now here is a quite different approach to squirrel, which shows just how versatile squirrel can be. This is not from and Orlando hunter but a hunter from the Hacker's Creek Pioneer Descendants (Don't have his name, but his e-mail "handle" is "Steel78") He offered the following recipe: "The only way we fixed rabbit and squirrel was to drop them off to a neighbor lady, and the next day or so, she sent a cherry pie over. I recommend it."

Funeral Pie

When there was a funeral my sister Jackie had to deliver grandma's raisin pies to the family's home. Jackie would be on foot, of course, or maybe her bike. The home, where the wake would take place after the burial, could easily be several miles away. It wasn't one of her faviorite things to do.

It was a surprise to discover, recently, the pie's relationship to the German in our culture1. The following info comes from Googling "Funeral Pie."
"Also called Raisin Pie and Rosina Pie (German for raisin). For many years raisin pie was served with the meal prepared for family and friends at the wake following a funeral. The probable reason was that this pie could be made at any season and kept well when prepared a day or two before the funeral. It does not need refrigeration. This pie traditionally is served at funerals of Old Order Mennonites and Amish."

We're searching for grandma's receipe, but in the meantime, here's a typical one.
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups raisins
2 cups water
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 pinch salt
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

My mother's piecrust receipe for a double nine inch piecrust was
2 & 1/4C Flour
3/4 C lard (or Crisco)
4 T cold water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a pan with half the pastry and chill. Place the raisins and 2/3 cup of the water in a saucepan and heat over medium heat for 5 minutes. Combine the sugars, cornstarch, spices, and salt in a bowl and , mixing all the time, slowly add the remaining water. Add this mixture to the heating raisins. Cook and stir this until the mixture starts to bubble. Add the vinegar and butter and heat until the butter is melted. Cool until just warm. Pour into the prepared shell and top with the second crust. Bake 25 minutes or until golden. Cool.

The school photo is 13 year old Jackie, the reluctant funeral pie carrier.

1. See entry from July17, '06: Orlando's Ancestors From The Palatine

Going Gigging for Frogs

One time, just one time during all the summers we went to Orlando, I remember grandpa going out with his buddies of an evening. It was all so hush-hush I thought it was illegal. Maybe it was. It was way after dark that the preparations were being made in my grandparents' big county kitchen and they involved flashlights, hipboots and spears (the gigs). When I pestered my folks for information I was told that grandpa was going gigging for frogs. I remember that the next day I thoroughly enjoyed those unbelievably sweet, mild, flavorful, tender little delicacies.

For a first person account of a gigging expedition, see Clementine James' story at http://www.dartreview.com/issues/11.12.01/gigging.html Clementine says, "Gigging is a dying sport. While it used to be a common practice, few hunt anymore. For its fellowship, its challenge, and its cuisine, frog gigging is unsurpassed." 1

This is how I remember froglegs being prepared. It is similar to Clementine's receipe. Dip the cut and skinned legs in egg yolk and then flour. Saute them in a skillet in lots of butter and season lightly to taste. Have them nicely browned, but don't overcook.

1. The Dartmouth Review Nov 21, 2001. "The Joys of Frog Gigging" by Clementine James
http://www.dartreview.com/issues/11.12.01/gigging.html

Cow Milk & Where Calves Come From

Until she was too feeble to get up before dawn every morning, summer and winter, to milk it, Grandma Edith Stutler had a cow. I think I remember her collecting the milk in a galvanized pail. She let the milk set to cool down, then she put it in the fridge. A short time ago I asked Ma how grandma kept the milk before she got electricity in the late 1950s. Ma said she had a gas refrigerator.

The milk and cream would separate before long. So, there was skim milk with cream sitting on top. If you wanted whole milk for your cereal you beat the milk and cream together with your spoon before you poured.

Once a week Grandma took all the cream and churned it into butter. She had a rectangular metal churn much like the one in the photo. From that there was buttermilk as well as skim, whole and cream. If we weren't drinking the milk as fast as the cow was producing it, Grandma dumped the remainder in the hogs' slop bucket that sat next to the stove.

Oh, yes. Where calves come from . . . My sister Jackie, fascinated with the new little calf in the barn, asked Grandma where the calf came from. Grandma told her the cow dug it up in the dirt.