Do you see it? I did and we had to turn around and stop and walk to the gate.
For just a little while it felt like going home. When my children were young we had a small mini farm. This gate looked like the one we had and it just drew me in. We had two horses some pigs and chickens, a catfish pond and 10 acres. That does not sound like many acres to some but 10 acres was plenty for us.
Many of my family members lived on farms and I have a lot of good memories.
It seems the older I get the more I think about the simple times but I have a feeling that the hectic world we live in causes some of this.
As a child I was a city girl mostly but much of my extended family lived rural. Then when I became an adult and had my own family we lived rural for awhile.
And this brings me to Pot Liquor.
The mention of Pot and Liquor in the same sentence might mean just what they say to many but not to an "old" southern girl like me.
I was cooking lunch the other day and was cooking a pot of greens.
Greens cook down and it takes a lot of greens to make enough for a meal. It does not matter if it is turnip, mustard, collards or kale, they will all cook down a good bit.
In the past we frequently ate Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, peas and cooked greens. Sides would be cornbread, sliced tomatoes and sliced onion. But many times the meal was more simple.
Sometimes it was pot liquor/ likker and cornbread. With most foods that are boiled the liquor, you see above in the spoon, is what many people looked forward to eating. It is packed with flavor and often nutrition. Pot liquor and cornbread is some good eating and as our Great Aunt Evelyn would say, "tastes some more good".
We all should remember when we boil carrots and other vegetables to include that liquor with our meal or after in another way. One way of thinking about this is when we make homemade broth with chicken carcass and add onions, celery, and carrots and other things. We simmer that for several hours then strain away the carcass and vegetables because the nutrition was boiled out of the solid food items and is now in the broth. A side bowl of soup made from boiling vegetables is a good nutritious thing, especially from greens.
My mother and her family were not well off financially when she was growing up, the great depression had a lot to do with that. When she went to school many times her lunch was a cold biscuit because that is all they had but people long ago knew that the broth or liquor from the food was nutritious and it is still the same today.
It seems we have come so far from our roots that we have lost common helpful knowledge. Many people just don't know because of the generation in which they have lived but us older folks need to tell these things because these young people are raising their own families now and need to know.
There are many things that the older generations can share that would be helpful such as meal planning which can save money on food. As I told you recently I had to buckle down on this one myself.
Every meal does not have to include meat....
We can live without a dryer...
Don't throw something away because it has stains...
If there is a rust stain on fabric squeeze lemon juice and salt on the stain and put it in the sunshine.
I was sitting in my kitchen resting chair with my apron on looking into the oven.
Besides wondering how I could take that oven door apart to clean in between the glass I was thinking about how in the past many women were at home in their aprons cooking dinner about this time of day and how I hardly ever smell meals cooking from the houses around us anymore.
I want so badly for young people to be able to experience how it was in the past but that time has gone by. But that does not mean I cannot keep it alive here in my blog with hopes that it will help our young folks to know that it really was a more simple life and still can be for them if they want to make it this way.
We can turn our house into a home just by cooking warm meals, putting fresh linens on our beds and taking care of the space in which we live.
It can be contagious, uplifting, challenging and a good dose of feel good once we understand the importance of what we do to make a home.
It can be calming, encouraging, exciting if we start living more like our generations did in the past. For me it was a connection I felt to my ancestors, the generations before us.
Eating Pot Liquor and cornbread brings back memories and isn't it funny how some of the most simple things in life remain with us for so long? This shows us what is important in life.
Grandma Donna
(By the way the picture on the home page with the title Pot Liquor is wild poke sallet growing in our side yard)
