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Simpler
Times and Fried Chicken by
Dorothy Hamm | |
Three
or more lanes of traffic traveling in each direction, drivers talking on cell
phones, cruise controls set ten miles over posted speed limits, rushing always
rushing, going to work, picking up the kids, dropping off kids, school, soccer,
little league, dance recitals, choir practice, it never seems to stop. Everyone
is in a hurry to be somewhere else. Everything, it seems, is computerized. We
have call waiting, call forwarding, conference calling and telephone tag on the
answering machine. No one can get by without a Day Planner or PDA. Sometimes it
all gets to be too much. Sometimes a person just wishes they could go back to
simpler times.
Simple, according to the dictionary refers to something
that is easy, or uncomplicated, effortless or plain. Can’t blame anyone for wanting
that! But were things really all that simple, back before computers and microwaves
and cell phones? Were simpler times all that simple?
Take something really
simple like fried chicken. If I want fried chicken today, I can drive by a restaurant
and pick up a box or bucket of crispy chicken, fried and ready to eat. It takes
about five minutes. I can even get in bite size pieces with the bones removed.
If I opt to cook the chicken myself I reach in the home freezer and take out a
whole, dressed or cut up chicken. I place it on the kitchen counter for a few
hours to thaw, then I, oh everyone knows how to fry a chicken don’t they? Throw
the chicken in a bag with some salt, pepper and flour, turn a button on the stove,
get a skillet, add some oil and I’m on my way to what was, in simpler times, Sunday
dinner.
When I was young girl, if we wanted fried chicken at our house,
we first had to grow the chicken. This took a couple of months or more. When a
chicken was mature enough to invite to dinner the procedure went something like
the following: |
Draw several buckets
of water from the well and fill *wash pot. (*A wash pot was a large cast iron
kettle used for many purposes, including: heating water to bathe in, washing clothes,
rendering fat when killing hogs, and making lye soap.)
Using an axe, split
some wood and kindling. Place kindling beneath the wash pot and when it is burning
add larger pieces of wood. When the fire burning go to next step.
You must
catch a chicken. This may not be as easy as it sounds. They are faster than they
look and are accustomed to running around the barn yard all day chasing grasshoppers
and other insects. And they can fly for short distances when sufficiently motivated.
Once you have a chicken securely in hand, wring its neck or chop off its head.
After which, toss it on the ground until it stops trying to fly. If you opted
to wring its neck, and after flopping around on the ground for awhile, the chicken
jumps up and runs away, go back to step three. When you are certain the chicken
has…uh…passed away, it is time to check the water temperature in the wash pot.
When the water is steaming, near the boiling point, submerge the chicken
in the hot water for a few minutes. This makes the feathers smell very bad and
was, to my child’s mind, the only reason for this step of the procedure.
As quickly as possible pluck the steamy, bad-smelling feathers from the chicken.
(You may want to save the soft breast feathers to make pillows or feather mattresses.)
Rake some hot coals away from the wash pot. Wave chicken back and forth
over the coals to singe away pin feathers. What are pin feathers? Look, just do
it.
Take a sharp knife and cut chicken open and remove the innards. (And
you thought wet steamy feathers smelled bad?)
Now draw a bucket of cool
water from the well and thoroughly wash the chicken.
Build a fire in
the cook stove (kitchen range). If you do not have wood refer back to the first
part of step Two.
Place a skillet on the stove and add about a cup of
lard which you rendered from the fatty parts of the last hog you killed. |
By
now you almost have fried chicken. If you would also like some mashed potatoes,
I hope you remembered to plant some last spring (by the dark of the moon of course.)
Now, simply peel, boil and mash them. Gravy? Did you remember to milk the cow?
Milking is actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it. And you only have
to do it twice a day.
If you have flour you can make biscuits. They go
well with fried chicken and gravy. A peach cobbler might be nice for dessert.
How To Make A Peach Cobbler:
1. First, you will need to plant
a peach tree… | | |
