Our
cooking utensils consisted of two kettles, two skillets, a teakettle,
and two deep bread pans, all of iron, and a coffee pot. A hand-turned
coffee mill was used to grind fresh coffee for each meal. The coffee
that we used at the time was Arbuckles brand, which sold at two pounds
for twenty-five cents.
One might ask what we did for food. Nature provided us with such fruit
as the sand cherries that grew on the prairie, and plums and grapes
that grew along the river. I remember the many jars of jam my mother
made, all sweetened with brown sugar, as granulated sugar was not then
available. For meat, fish, prairie chickens, and quails were plentiful.
One could go to the river to fish without having a license or watching
for a game warden and while returning home could get a few chickens.
Keeping such meat for any period of time was impossible, as there was
no refrigeration. My parents had a good garden each summer. During the
garden season we enjoyed an abundance of the common garden vegetables
and melons. None of them could be stored for winter use, as methods
of canning vegetables were not commonly known. There were, however,
potatoes, navy beans, dried corn, pumpkins, squash, turnips, and such
dry crops that were stored for winter. These were used with plenty of
cured pork.
FINDING
FUEL was our greatest problem for the first year or two. Hay and cow
chips seemed to be the only available fuel. For cooking, we twisted
the hay into little hanks and fed the fire from the front of the stove.
This same process was necessary when the flat irons were heating for
ironing. One member of the family was kept busy feeding the fire. Hay
burners were used for heat. Such a burner made of cast iron, was shaped
much like a large wash boiler but was considerably deeper. It was taken
to the stack and filled with hay. The two front lids and the separating
cross piece were removed from the stove. The burner was then turned
over the opening and the hay was lighted. Such a fire as there was,
for a few minutes! Then the burner had to be refilled.
With such fuel it was hard to keep the house warm at night. Many mornings
we found the dipper caught in ice, frozen in the water pail. We often
had biscuits for breakfast and it was not unusual in winter for the
milk to have be thawed before they could be mixed.
