Three Things Cake

Pioneer women often had lots of eggs but treasured their flour and sugar. Here is a cake women loved to bake because the eggs carry the cake.

9 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder (sift this into the flour)

Beat egg whites until stiff. Beat in sugar, slowly. Fold in beaten egg yolks and vanilla. Now fold in the flour with the baking powder mixed in with it. Bake in a tube pan for 50 minutes or so at 350 degrees.

Pennsylvania Dutch Scrapple

Here's what you'll need:

About a 3 lb. pork butt or shoulder with bone in, 3 quarts of water, 2 cups yellow corn meal, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons sage, and 1 teaspoon pepper.

Cook pork in water over a low heat for about 3 hours or until the meat falls right off the bone. Strain broth into a 4 quart pan. Add enough water to broth to make 2 quarts. Stir corn meal into the broth and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often. Set aside from fire.

Meat should be cooled enough by now for you to pick the meat off the bone and chop it up fine. Stir into the broth mixture the chopped meat, salt, sage, and pepper. Mix it up good.

Spoon this mixture into 2 loaf pans and refrigerate overnight. For breakfast the next morning, slice the chilled scrapple 1/2 thick and brown well on both sides in lightly oiled skillet. Serve hot with syrup or catsup. (Makes 4 1/2 pounds of scrapple)

NOTE: I found this recipe on an old Safeway grocery store flyer from the 1950s.

Spicy Ozark Stewed Tomatoes

Mix together 2 cups sugar and half cup water in large saucepan. Cook until sugar is dissolved. Add a cinnamon stick and lemon peel then bring to a boil.

To this syrup, add peeled tomatoes and cook about 20 minutes. Dip out the cinnamon stick and lemon peel and boil another 25 minutes, stirring often.

Remove from heat and let cool. Spoon into canning jars and seal.

Fried Turtle

If you were shopping in a grocery store in China, you'd see packages of turtle meat (left) for sale at the meat counter and would love finding it.

Here is an old Ozark recipe for fried turtle meat:

After cleaning the turtle (see previous entry), before frying, parboil the meat until it is tender, easy to stick with fork. When desired tenderness is reached, remove and let cool a bit. Now roll in flour or cornmeal, add favorite seasonings then fry in deep fat.

Caraway Herb Pleasant and Useful

Caraway is an herb used by cooks in nearly all parts of the world, most often used in rye bread and cheeses. Traditional folklore attributes caraway with powers of retaining things -- it was mixed in love potions or fed to homing pigeons for that reason.

Also, it is widely believed that to protect an object from being stolen, sprinkle it with caraway.

As you can see, the caraway plant has fern-like leaves, almost feathery like coriander and fennel. Be aware that although they resemble each other, caraway will not grow well next to fennel.