The Red Flannel Rag

During the week before hog killing day everybody began making last minute

preparations. Mom began to gather the products she had preserved from her summer

garden. She went to the cellar and got cans of sauerkraut, corn, pickled beets, green

beans, dill pickles, and jars of jelly. Other trips to the cellar yielded sweet potatoes,

regular potatoes, and apples. She went to the attic to get “hay” beans. These were

green beans that she had threaded onto a string and hung in the attic to dry. In the

freezer, she located frozen blackberries, cherries, and peaches she had gathered in the

summer. She used the fruit to bake at least sixteen pies on the day before butchering.

This same day she also made two three-layer cakes from scratch, usually a banana cake

and a prune cake.

Mom rushing around to get ready for butchering day

Mom often said, with some dread in her voice as the day for hog killing drew

near, “I’ll have to ‘put the big pot in the little one’.” This statement expressed her

knowledge of the hard work ahead the next day. She was going to use every pot she had

to cook and maybe have to borrow some extra pots from Aunt Goldie.

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