Oh What Happy Days

I just love reading the recipes that come out for the Christmas season. Of course, there comes a time in ones life that things should be more simple than last year or 30 years ago or even 10 years ago. As we get older, it is nice for the youngsters to take over the cooking. That still doesn't take the joy out of reading cookbooks and remembering how we used to cook.

I was born just before the big fall of 1932. Seems I remember that only the people in town had any conveniences. Why, we had no electric, running water and our bathroom was an old fashioned galvanized tin bathtub and an outside wooden toilet. Well, thats enough of that, since you already know I was born and raised in the country, I'll share one of my Mom's favorite recipes.

OVEN PORK STEW
(We didn't raise beef but lots of hogs, but thats another story.)

First you get a cast iron dutch oven hot on top of the wood stove.

When that is hot, you drop about 2 lbs of Pork into it to brown. 2 lbs would be about 24 one and 1/2 inch pieces. More is OK, but you want to leave room for the veggies. You know stew is never good without the veggies, in my book anyway.

While the pork is browning, get the veggies ready.

First you need to know that these veggies come from the farm garden Mom raised. First she would pull them out of the ground. Sometimes the carrots would be stubborn and she would have to go down with a shovel to get them out of their growing spot.

Now back to the browning of the pork. She has already washed the veggies but now it is time to peel them. The carrots go first as they take the longest to cook. Following the carrots are the turnips, parsnips, onions and potatoes. Potatoes go in last as they cook quickly.

All is simmering in the cast iron dutch oven on the top of the wood stove and Mom is still working on the stew. Then came the surprise.

She had been mixing something in a bowl, but we coulnd't see what it was and she didn't say. Soon the mixture was complete. She set the dutch oven on the cool side of the stove and poured this mixture on top of the pot of stew. Then she opened the oven door that looked like a cave in the side of a hill, put a lid on the dutch oven, closed the door and waited about 30 minutes. When that time was up, she took the cover off the dutch oven and closed the cavernous oven door again.

She scurried us over to set the table with beautiful flowered dishes. Forks on the left; knives and spoons on the right. Five minutes went by and oh, we were so hungry as we got a whiff of the stew in the oven in the cast iron dutch oven.

Then she opened that oven door. To our surprise it looked like it was just cornbread. She started dipping and filling our plates. It was so good!

And that ends the story of my Mom's Oven Pork Stew topped with cornbread..