Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation need help from all you cooks out there.

Oh Yeah, Bro' Ken. Grandmaw had a kitchen safe too. Had a flour bin with sifter built right into the middle of it. Porciline (sp) top and you could make biscuits and pie dough right there.

Spent many an hour spinning the handle of an old Daisy churn. Fresh churned butter, man on man. Had an old one horned jersy cow with teats like bannannas. Easy milker. Three for us and one for the calf. Had an old yellow tom cat that was the barn cat. Old thing learned to sit up and hold his mouth open while I directed a stream of that rich jersey milk at him. He'd finally just fall over backwards when his belly got full.

Now I'll make you salivate, take a slab of that corn bread and skim it across the top of a crock of milk after the cream has risen. Have a few strawberries or fresh sliced peaches to eat along with it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

BCR

That fresh-skimmed new cream is what was called "rich milk" in the old old days. A colonial-days recipe for oyster stew called for "rich milk," for which later cooks have substituted a quart of half-and-half. I've long wondered how good a substitute that is.

Colonial Oyster Stew



3 pt large fresh oysters (with liquid)

1 qt �rich milk� (cream just skimmed off fresh milk)*

2 Tbs butter (rolled in flour)

sweet herbs (e g: marjoram, oregano, thyme)

black pepper to taste



*or substitute half-and-half if you have to



Shuck the oysters.

Strain the liquid into a pot over medium-high heat.

Add the butter, the pepper, and a cheese-cloth bag of the herbs.

Boil.

Add the cream and bring to a boil again.

Remove the bag of herbs.

Add the oysters.

Simmer for three minutes.

Serve immediately.

Now Ken them east coast folks did make a mighty fine oyster stew but it took us pacific northwest folks to get it right <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
First you need some good sized oysters mediums or larger. I am presuming you have your oysters out of the shell, if not now is the time to do so. Take the oysters and place in boiling water for a minute or two, just enough to firm them up. Then cube the oysters up into bite sized pieces, use plenty of oysters, at least a dozen, a quart of qysters is abour right for four people. I add some thinly sliced potatoes about one medium sized spud will do. I also use about one half of a small sweet onion chopped up very fine. Spices if you must but i prefer just ground black pepper. NO SALT..... cover with water about an inch over the top of the oysters and simmer for at least one hour.....do not over heat just simmer untill the potatoes are nearly disolved. Now add a quart of Half and Half. and a half cube of salted butter.... this give you all the salt you need...simmer on low heat for 30 minutes minimum. I like all afternoon. Serve with fresh oyster crackers....if you really want the best stew let it cool overnight then reheat.....this is the finest oyster stew you will ever eat. Trust me I know a thing or two about oysters.

Bullwnkl.

Bullie boy, I didn't post that recipe as the best ever recipe for oyster stew. You said that you wanted old traditional recipes, for insight into how the old-timers used what they had available, not candidates for all-time-champion dishes.

So what are you really after?

Sorry about that Ken, I just get so excited about oyster stew <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />that I forgot the premise of my request. A bit of oyster history will be included in my seafood chapter, and I will include "YOUR" recipe as it is a old one from the time when the folks on the east coast prepaired such wonderfull foods from local products.
You wouldn't happen to have a recipe for "Rocky Mtn. Oysters" would you?

Bullwnkl.

If he don't I sure as heck do <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


BCR

I don't.

Can't even guess how best to do 'em.

-- over to you, Boggy:

OK then here we go.

Mountain or Prairie Oysters

These are most readily available in spring and fall when the cattle workings occur. The best ones come off a calf of about 200 pounds. These will be about the size of your thumb. Bigger or smaller are fine but the bigger ones need to be split or quartered lengthwise and smaller just cook to nothing if you aren't carefull.

Take them out of the old coffee can they are collected in and wash off the blood, dirt, grass, hair and other matter associated with collection.

They will have an outer sheath on them that is tough and needs to be removed before cooking. To do this grab them by the middle and squeeze. Slit the bottom end with a sharp knife and the meat will pop right out. Discard outer sheath and trim off the sperm cord with a pair of sissors.

Put them in a bag with some corn meal and season salt and coat them like you would fish. Deep fry about five minutes.

Cream gravy is good with them or use a dip of Ranch Dressing or some like just catsup.


Just eat them and don't think about it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

BCR

Boggy I will eat a lot of things maybe even Rocky mtn oysters, just for bragging rites. But there are some things that will never get past my tonsils and one of those is okra the other is canned asparagrass. Now how about some back ground on them oysters. I tried a common garden slug once on a bet....just once. Live little cancer crabs are not bad if you proceed them with enough cheap wine. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> That was a few birthday partys ago.

Bullwnkl.

Bullwnkl.

Winky what background? You want I should tell you how to castrate calves? They just come from changing little boy cows minds from ass to grass. They are good and good for you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Not as good as turkey nuts but those are really hard to get unless you have an in with the packing houses. I don't any more.

Never eat a slug knowingly. Haven't been that hungry yet. Have eaten the worm out of the bottom of a mescal bottle a few times. They ain't bad. Kind of crunchy like pickled cheetoes.


BCR

Boggy since I no longer partake of the demon liquer I won't be eating any more slugs <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> But I was wondering how eating calf nuts came about....who was the first to try them and why? You know there are people in this world that will eat any thing that don't eat them first so I guess it's ok. But I am not eating any blow fly maggots...no way no how.

Bullwnkl.

Ah Winky, I misunderstood your question. Sorry. My best suppositon as to the eating of calf fries would be that in the old open range days when cattle were worked communaly and a chuck wagon was usually employed the hands were hungry for anything fresh in the meat line. Chuckwagon food, despite the romance of hollywood and novels, ranged from bad to horrible depending on the skill of the cook. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Because of time and things like storage etc it would be hard to handle a steer that was beefed for food. The little jewells that came about from castration are solid meat and occur as a natural by-product and they are undoubtedly fresh. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Also they are very tender as opposed to a fresh killed, lean, steer or heifer.

Who had the idea to eat them first God only knows. Who ate the first raw oyster? Either a very hungry or very brave fellow I suppose. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> But he found out they were darn good didn't he?


BCR

(Are you old enough to remember the old hit song "Mammy Loves Shawtnin' Bread?" Simple lyrics, simple old-time recipe.)

SHORTENING BREAD

1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
1/4 cup light-brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350� F.
Cream the butter and the sugar.
Add the flour and mix it in well.
Roll the dough out 1/2-inch-thick on a floured surface.
Cut it into small rounds, squares, or triangles.
On a lightly oiled and floured cookie sheet, bake 'em for 20 minutes.

I thought you was susposed to cook moutian oysters on a hot branding iron?

There's no telling, ahead of time, what else I'll throw into the mix when I make crackling bread, but here's the classic, basic recipe:

4 cups yellow corn meal (preferably coarse, complete, stone-ground)
2 cups pork cracklings
2 tsp salt
boiling water

Pour enough boiling water into the corn meal to soften it well.
Add the salt.
Let it cool enough to handle, then add the cracklings and mix well.
Shape into cakes. Put cakes on well buttered baking sheet.
Bake 25-30 minutes in moderate oven.

Ken, I am sure you know the recipe for Cracklins but some of the other boys may not. Really is simple. Just take some pig intestines and fry the s##t out of them! Yum, Yum! TM

Travellinman, shame on you for giving away our Southern Recipes ! I'll bet Ken's a Yankee, too !! jus jokin ya'll.

Actually, what you described and gave him the recipe for was for Chitterlins, not Cracklins. Gotta boil the Chitterlins 1st, get'em tender, then fry them. For Cracklins, you just go to the butcher and buy fresh scrapped hog skin with the meat in it, cut it in chunks and fry it in a cast iron or magnalite pot in their own oil that they render and fry them until they are crisp and crunchy. Need to do this outside. After taking them out of oil and draining them on paper towels, sprinkle a little cajun seasoning on them and have at it. You can add these cooked Cracklins to your corn bread batter along with 2 minced up, seeded, fresh Jalapenos and small chunks of an extra sharp cheddar cheese. You can have at that, too. All of the above is certified by Martha Stewart to be Cholesterol free.

By the way, TM, I'm still in Hong Kong but leaving on the 31st for home then to out past Abilene to chase those Rio Grandes for 10 days beginning on the 4th. Cant wait. Let me know if you need a recipe for Wild Turkey breast. Goes something like - 1st you get a good looking lady, then unscrew the top off of the bottle,,,,

Regards,
Old Toot.

I'm more familiar with the cracklings that Merriam-Webster defines (2nd meaning) as "the crisp residue left after the rendering of lard from fat or the frying or roasting of the skin (as of pork)." Pork-skin cracklings are tough. Lard cracklings are the delicate matrix of protein that's left after the fat has been cooked out of it.

I also used to like fried tripe (M-W: "stomach tissue of a ruminant and especially of the ox used as food") but haven't had any since better times followed the Depression and the War. Does anybody eat tripe these days?

When my late mother did not have cracklins, she would line the bottom of the skillet with bacon. She called it striped corn bread. You could get in big trouble for using her cornbread skillet for any thing else. miles