Years ago my father gave me some handwritten recipes we found among his Wicker-Whitcher memorabilia. I spent a while deciphering and transcribing them. I was able to separate the handwriting between my great-grandma Minnie Estelle Wicker Ruston and her mother, my great-great grandmother Emma Angeline Whitcher Wicker.
The recipes were written on various slips of paper. Some were written on the back of grocery lists. A few were even written in Emma’s hand over scraps of young Minnie’s homework. I found one fraction assignment dated January 25, 1906.
My favorite slip of paper was the one where she explains how to brine pork in a barrel. My great-great grandma Emma was born in 1845. She was sixteen when the Civil War started, nineteen when she married, and forty-five when my great-grandma Minnie was born in 1890.
This recipe gave me a glimpse into the past, before processed packaging of groceries. And a 2x great-grandma is not so far removed from me. All of these bits were on the same slip of paper.
Curing Pork
It takes 3 weeks. For 1 lb of meat thoroughly mix: 5 lb salt, 3 lb granulated sugar, 2 oz salt-peter. Every 3 days the meat is rubbed with 1/3 mixture. After last rubbing, leave meat in the barrel for 2 weeks, then smoke.
Plain Salt Pork
Every piece is rubbed with salt and packed closely in barrel and stand overnight. For 100 lbs of pork make a brine of: 10 lbs salt, 2 lbs salt peter, both dissolved in 5 gal of water. Boil the water. Cool brine and pour over meat. Weigh down and cover.
Sugar Cure
For 100 lbs of meat: 8 lbs salt, 2 lbs brown sugar, 2 oz salt peter, 4 gallons of water. In the summer boil the brine. It is not necessary to boil in the winter. Bacon should be left in the solution for 4 weeks and hams 6 or 8 weeks.
I won’t be brining pork in a barrel anytime soon but I am delighted to have his glimpse into the past. Even more precious to me is the paper with her handwriting on it. I know that she touched that paper. She held it steady with one hand while scrawling the recipe out with the other. I have her handwriting from when she was younger, where she took greater care with her penmanship in a correspondence to a beau.
But she touched that paper and when I touch it the time distance between us slips away for a millisecond. She is always with me. All of the ancestors are.
What is remembered, lives.
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| Emma writes a cake recipe in pencil over Minnie's fraction homework from 1906. |
