| Food Preservation without Electricity Vegetables: Dried Pickled (requires stoneware crocks or glass jars & vinegar. Vinegar CAN be made at home.) Canned (requires glass mason jars) Peas & Beans: Dried Fruits & Berries Jelly, Preserves & Jams: Requires glass jars & sugar Dried on screens in the sunshine Potatoes: Usually stored in a "hill" or even under a house or in a root cellar. Corn: Dried and stored in a small building called a corn crib. Corn was used for food both for humans & animals. Apples- Often stored in bins in a root cellar or dried. Carrots & Turnips- stored in bins Meats: Dried, smoked, packed in salt or sometimes canned An early canning method (potting) involves packing the meat into crocks and covering it with lard/fat to keep out the air. |
| Dairy Work A brief summary of dairy work. Remember that each person did things differently. Milking & Milk handling 1) Wash animal's udder 2) Milk, often discarding the first few squirts of milk 3) "Strip" the last amount of cream from animal's udder 4) Today, many people dip the animal's teats in a cleaning solution to keep out bacteria. This was not done in the past. 5) Strain milk (through cloth or strainer) to remove any hair, bits of hay, etc. 6) Pasteurize (modern) 7) Set into pans for cream to rise or use cream separator 8) Skim cream Washing Up Scrub milk pails, milking machine, bowls, strainer, separator, etc. Today this is done with specialized detergents and can take longer than the actual milking process. Butter Making Butter is a way to preserve the nutrients in milk. Butter can be made in different ways. Sweet Cream Method: Uses cream skimmed from the milk. The cream may be pasturized; this is the type of butter found today. "Southern" Clabber Method: Uses whole milk that has "clabbered" or begun to turn. The milk cannot be pasteurized, as the clabber is a result of bacterial action. The butter made in this way has a tangy taste. Both methods: Milk was poured in a clean (scalded) stoneware churn and then worked with a wooden dasher until the butter started to appear as small flakes. Larger churns were made like barrels on rocking legs and later churns were large, square glass jars with hand-powered mixers inside. After the butter has appeared, it is strained from the butter milk and worked with butter paddles in very cold water until the water no longer turns cloudy. (The buttermilk has all been worked from the butter.) The butter can then be packed into a butter mold and shaped, if desired. Cheese Making There are hundreds of different types of cheeses in the world, many of them depending on their local environment to provide the needed climate and bacteria for their specific taste. Some cheese are very difficult to make, while others are very simple. At it's most basic, cheese usually requires something to curdle the milk. This can be rennet (from a young animal's stomach), vinegar or lemon juice. The curdled milk is then usually heated to further separate the curds (milk solids) from the whey (liquid). When these have separated, the fresh cheese may be strained to remove the whey, which then can be used for other purposes. The curds may be heated again, pressed, or eaten soft depending on what type of cheese is being made. Cheese isn't hard to make.....there are several companies on the Internet that sell cheese-making kits. It might be fun to try one! |