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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Saturday, September 14, 2002

IN THE comments section of the online order form for the Mehu-Liisa steamer juicer, I put this: "Can't wait! Been hearing about this wonderful toy for years. Now I'm getting one!" On the right is the handwritten note enclosed with the order. Nice touch! 2:34:30 PM    comment []

Believe it or not, Mirro still makes these things! They call it a "food press". I picked one up this morning at a local hardware store for $22. You can find a more expensive and slightly more elegant version at Main Street Supply.  They also have pecan crackers, pea shellers, walnut crackers, old-fashioned corn poppers, apple & potatp parers, and grain mills - all hand-operated. I would have settled for a Foley food mill at about the same price, but the food press will do the job of extracting the pulp after the canning tomatoes (picked up at the Farmers' Market) are steam-juiced in the Mehu-Liisa. The steam juicer will get a workout this weekend, it's also going to do some red seedless grapes. The canner will come out of the closet for plum jelly and the smoker is going full tilt on the baby backs right now. Time to lard the pantry... 10:51:47 AM    comment []

Liz is a big fan of V8 juice. I've decided to attempt "reverse-engineering" V8 just to see how close I can come. From the V8 FAQ come the basics: What vegetable juices are included in V8® Vegetable Juice? V8® 100% vegetable juice contains the juices of tomatoes, carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress, and spinach. Arghhh! Beets! I'm a firm believer that the good lord put beets underground in hopes we wouldn't find them, to protect from them after that bad experience with the apples in the garden). Oh well, if they have to go in. Here's the caveat: What company makes V8® vegetable juice? Campbell Soup Company acquired the V8® brand and secret recipe in 1948. They have been making V8® beverages ever since. Secret, eh? With the leafy stuff in there, the Mehu-Liisa seems like the perfect tool. Throw 'em in with the tomatoes, run the carrots, celery, and beet (ugh! - one is enough) through a Waring Juice Extractor, then mix it all together. 10:27:34 AM    comment []

Thanks to the miracle of OCR, here is an excerpt from Black Swamp Farm (Howard E. Good, Ohio State University Press, ISBN 0-8142-0734-0). This book has been out of print and is now available in paperback. It may be of special interest to anyone who grew up in the Maumee River valley of northwestern Ohio... On most farms, women assumed principal responsibility for the vegetable garden after the ground had been plowed and the rougher preliminary work had been done. They collected, dried, and stored seeds and grew their own transplants, starting them early from seeds indoors. Seeds that could not be grown conveniently in the home garden were ordered from the catalogues of big seed houses. They drafted a good deal of help, supervising the work and doing much of it themselves. As soon as frost was out of the ground in early spring, Mother began bringing in for table use parsnips grown in the garden the previous summer-it was commonly believed that these vegetables were unfit for use until they had gone through the winter frozen in the ground where they grew. At the same time freshly grated horseradish, from roots that grew in garden clumps, would appear upon the table. Soon afterward came tender rhubarb shoots to be stewed or baked in pies; rhubarb was an infallible harbinger of spring. Bushels of tomatoes and tree-grown fruits were canned. Numerous kinds of pickles and relishes were made and stored. Quantities of sweet corn, peaches, and apples were spread out in the sun to dry day after day, protected from insects by mosquito netting. A quantity of sauerkraut was turned out each fall. This tended to be a family project, some cutting and chopping cabbages while a muscular individual, with a big wooden "stomper," pounded the shredded and salted vegetable in a big earthen jar until it became a pulpy, juicy mass. In early winter about a bushel of shelled corn was converted into hominy. In the process the grains were treated with lye from wood ashes, then stirred and rubbed with a wooden paddle until the tough skins were removed from the kernels. Finally, all traces of lye were removed by thorough soaking and washing. Most housewives did a great deal of work at butchering time in connection with sausage-making and the preservation and storage of meat products. As matters of course, they tackled the tasks of soap-making in spring and turning out a big batch of apple butter in the fall. Much time and effort were involved in these projects, for the best equipment they had was primitive and clumsy, For soap, waste fats were collected throughout the year. Wood ashes from stoves were stored in barrels, protected from rain. When mild spring weather came, water was poured into the barrels, blocked up on wide boards so arranged that lye from the ashes would run into crocks beneath the boards. Lye was poured over the grease in a large iron kettle. The mixture was boiled gently and stirred from time to time until saponified. The finished product, of about the consistency of vaseline, was used for scrubbing, laundry work, and dish washing. Commercial products for cleaning and scouring were limited both in quantity and quality. Many housekeepers used brick dust for rough scouring. They prepared it by crushing and powdering bricks with a hammer. 3:11:42 AM    comment []