Etta Mae is the mother of the main character Clifton. Etta Mae, farmer's wife, product of the Great Depression, grows enough in her garden each year to feed several families. She cans much of it. Her recipes are in quantities and are vague.
About this time of year I remember my mother's mincemeat pies. They were different than what we call mincemeat now days. What we get in the store now is a sorry imitation. Oddly enough when I go back to old recipe books, the recipes for mincemeat back then are basically the same as now. But what my mother made was different. There was no citrus. There was no tallow. I did a search for my mother's recipe and my niece finally found it. I had Etta Mae use it in the book.
When she shares the recipe with a friend, she doesn't have written down, but recites from memory, "It takes two hogs heads, cooked. Remove most of the fat...." Is this a clue to the quantity it makes?
I told my friend who teaches culinary arts at Central Oregon Community College about the recipe, and he said the whole hogs heads was probably the secret ingredient. He thought the process of rendering the heads mixed the juices of the bones, gristle, etc to the meat and gave it a richness that just meat alone could never produce.
I've been trying for several years to get my little clan to go in with me around Thanksgiving or Christmas to get a big canner, a hogs head, some venison, big box of apples, couple of quarts of cherries, raisins, currents....
Guess I better stop before I give the whole secret recipe away.
I think the comments feature in the blog works now. Click on it. Particularly if you have a Google account, you can sign in on your account and leave a comment very easily. Thanks for your patience.
Respectfully
Ken Fenter
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