Chapter 12 cont. COOKING To witness the various processes of cooking in those days would alike surprise and amuse those who have grown up since cooking stoves and ranges came into use.  Kettles were hung over the large fire, suspended with pot hooks, iron or wooden, on the crane, or on poles, one end of which would rest upon a chain.  The long handled frying pan was used for cooking meat.  It was either held over the blaze by hand or set down upon coals drawn out upon the hearth.  This pan was also used for baking pancakes, also called "flap-jacks," batter cakes, etc.  A better article for this, however, was the cast iron spider, or Dutch skillet.  The best thing for baking bread those days, and possible even in these latter days, was the flat bottomed bake kettle, of greater depth, with closely fitting cast iron cover, and commonly known as the Dutch oven.  With coals over and under it bread and biscuit would quickly and nicely bake.  Turkey and spare-ribs were sometimes roasted before the fire, suspended by a string, a dish being placed underneath to catch the drippings. Hominy and samp were very much used.  The hominy, however, was generally hulled corn - boiled corn from which the hull or bran had been taken by hot lye, hence somethimes called "lye hominy."  True hominy and samp were made of pounded corn.  A popular method of making this, as well as real meal for bread, was to cut out or burn a large hole in the top of a huge stump in the shape of a mortar and pounding the corn in this by a maul or beetle suspended by a swing pole like a well sweep.  This and the well sweep consisted of a pole twenty to thirty feet long fixed in an upright fork so that it could be worked, "teeter" fashion.  It was a rapid and simple way of drawing water.  When the samp was sufficiently pounded it was taken out, the bran floated off, and the delicious grain boiled like rice. The chief articles of diet in an early day were corn bread, hominy or samp, venison, pork, honey, pumpkin (dried pumpkin for more than half the year), turkey, prairie chicken, squirrel and some other game, with a few additional vegetables a portion of the year.  Wheat bread, tea, coffee and fruit were luxuries not to be indulged in except on special occasions, as when visitors were present. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L