HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1953-08-20, Page 6rrt
w 'Possom Trot'
Got Its Name
"Where did you get that name
--Posson3 Tot?" How often the
question is asked is something
we've never tried to keep track
of, but it's plenty often. And
after an experience we had this
week I'm going to be able to
answer it with a flourish. The
name itself is a good and time-
honored place -name of the
mountain people who started
from the eastern seaboard, along
about the time they'd won the
war that made America a na-
tion, and trickled westward
'through Cumberland Gap. In
the years that followed they
settled the mountains of Ken-
tucky and Tennessee and the
hills of north Georgia and sou-
thern Indiana. Then they came
to "th' purtiest hills of all" and
drove their roots deep down in-
to the rocky crevices of the
Ozarks. Wherever these folks
stopped and wherever they pas-,
sed, you'll find the names they
carried with them. An you
need do is take out over Thorny
Low Gap and drop down into
Poot Holler: then cross Chilly
Branch and head up Turkey Run
and that'll bring you right to
possom Trot. If the path runs
into a squirrel track which heads
up a big den -tree and peters out
en a knothole, use the technique
Bob Burns made famous and
.. "swing in on a grapevine!" Just
take my word for it and follow
those directions and you'll come
safely to Possom Trot.
Four autumns ago, when we
had bought our bit of land but
hadn't cleared the woods away
enough to set up housekeeping,
we used to drive out evenings
in every kind of weather. I
guess we wanted to see whether
the view stood up as well under
a driving rain or a gray and
threatening sky as it did when
the sun dropped into the river
through a bank of hlazing
clouds. It did and it still does!
On a certain clear, crisp even-
ing in early December, we saw
our hills and bit of valley under
their first light fall of snow and
it was beautiful. We left the
car at the hilltop and walked
oral SuppersArou
flew k 11 TIVit MADD X
NOW is the season for informal but substantial' porch Or :bark
yard suppers. They tan be pleasant 'affaire and need not take
tots much preparation time. Base them On crispy fried.chtckeit for
hest results.
Remember, if you are serving the chicken cold and want' to cook
It the day before qr early in the day, be certain to refrigerae it
well, For safety's sake, that is vitally important. Also, when to ing
chicken to the beach or to 'a picnic spot, refrigerate ft thoroughly
Brat Arrange to keep it cold and eat it within 4 houe.
Butter -Crisp Chicken
One 2-3 pouted frying chicken, salt, pepper, 1 cup Baur, 1 'tea-
spoon paprika, s/g pound butter, shortening, thyme, if desired, thin
onion rings, if desired.
Have chicken drawn and cut into serving pieces. Rinse IA cold•
water and drain. Put salt, /pepper, flour and paprika in paper bag.
Shake 3 to 4 pieces of chicken in the bag at a time to coat titer
oughly. Heat enough butter and shortening to a heavy skillet ,to
make a layer of fat % inch deep, With kitchen tongs place chicken
in hot fat, Brown on both sides. Place chickeh, one layer deep, in
shallow baking pan.
For added flavor sprinkle with thyme and onion. Pour melted
butter over chicken pieces. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees;F.)
until tender, about 25 to 30 minutes. Haste with melted butter
after 15 minutes of baking.
* * *
Here's another suggestion .for a poreh supper .menu:
Biscuit Beef Roll
(4 generous servings).
Two tablespoons fat, I cup finely diced onion, 1 small clove
garlic, minced; pound chopped beef, 1 teaspoon kitchen bouquet,
0 -ounce can tomato paste, 3e cup finely diced green pepper, 1 tea-
spoon salt, 2 teaspoons sugar, s/a teaspoon pepper, % teaspoon chili
powder, teaspoon powdered oregano, 1 cup biscuit mix, about
% cup milk.
Melt fat in frying pan over low heat. Acid onion and garlic and
cook about 1 minute. Add chopped beef pulled into small bits and
d Frie
hickey
Fried ehickeie fresh vegetables and good
porch supper.
sprinkle in kitchen bouquet. Cook, stirring frequently, until meat
is slightly browned. Add tomato paste, green pepper, salt, sugar,
pepper, chili powder and oregano. Mix well and let cook over low
heat about 10 minutes.
Then remove from heat and cool slightly. Meanwhile combine
biscuit mix and milk to make small ball of dough. Roll out on
lightly floured board to make a rectangle about 8 x 12 inches,
Spread meat and tomato mixture on dough almost to edges. Roll
up Iike jelly roll: Place on greased shallow baking pan. Bake in
moderately hot oven (375 degrees F.) ufitil roll is lightly browned
and done, about 25 minutes.
bread matce a substentil
Remove to serving platter. Cut in 1 -inch ,slices to serve and
accompany with whipped potatoes and a freshly cooked vegetable,
down to the ancient persimmon
tree which was to overhang our
house, although we didn't know
it then. Suddenly, in the gather-
ing dusk. Mama pointed to an
indistinct small form, scurrying
through the snow, for the safety
of the woods.
"Rabbit," she said, excitedly,
since even then We felt a pro-
priety interest in our wildlife.
"Rabbit nothing," I said, with
the superior air of an average
husband or a woodsman sure of
his quarry. "That's a POS-
SOM--and Mama, if you haven't
set your heart on some such
soupy name as Drip -honey Acres,
let's call the place Possom Trot,''
—From "Possom Trot Farm," by
Leonard Hall,
Quinces seem to have fallen
in popularity of recent years—
which seems a pity to those of
us lucky enough to recall the
Quince Honey and other good-
ies of a bygone day.
' So here are some recipes
snaking delightful use of the low-
ly quince—also one for a blue-
berry cake which I'm sure you'll
:find will call for encores a-
plenty.
QUINCE HONEY
6 quinces
Sugar
Pare the quinces and drop
them in cold water. Cover the
skins with boiling water and boil
rapidly for 30 minutes. Drain.
Grate the quinces and add to
liquor drained from skins. Cook
mixture for 20 minutes. Skim
and add an equal amount of su-
gar. Simmer for 10 minutes, then
pour into hot sterilized jars and
seal. Makes about three pints.
* * *
BAKED QUINCES
I quart peeled, quartered
quinces
1 cup liquor in which quinces
are cooked
f cup sugar
Cover quince quarters with
water and cook until tender.
Drain, place in a baking dish,
add sugar and liquid, and bake
until the syrup is thick and the
fruit a rich red. Serve cold, with
plain or whipped cream. Four
servings.
QUINCE GINGEN.
6 pounds ripe quinces
2 cups water
4 pounds sugar
4 lemons, cut in paper -train
slices
1 ounce ginger root, green or
dried
Pare and core the quinces and
cut in thin slices or in small
pieces. Boil water and sugar to-
gether for five minutes, thhen add
quinces, ginger root, and lemons.
Simmer for about two hours or
until the fruit is transparent and
a deep ruby red. Seal at once in
hot sterilized jars. Makes five
to six pints.
QUINCE PRESERVES
5 pounds quinces
4 pounds sugar
1 lemon, quartered
3 cups water
Peel, core, and quarter the
quinces, removing any hard or
bruised spots Cover the peelings
with water, add the lemon, and
boil slowly for about 30 minutes,
covered. Remove from heat and
strain. Combine suger and water
and boil slowly until sugar is
dissolved. Add the water in
which. the peelings were boiled
to the syrup, also the quartered
quince s. Boil slowly until
quinces are tender. Place the
fruit in hot sterilized jars, add
syrup and seal. Makes five to
six pints.
F *
BLUEBERRY CAKE
1 cup sugar
Bookie With a Book—A bookie reads his book, but it's a work
on philosophy. Colin Leslie Fox, 32 -year-old licensed bookmaker
from England, reads by kerosene light abroard Ms 23 -foot yawl
which took him on a 7000 -mile Atlantic voyage. Anchored in
New York's East River, he now pians on selling his sailboat
and buying a car to our America,
"STOPPED TOO EA Y"
"it is now more than ten years since some very definite con-
clusions were reached by the Committee on Artificial Respiration
of the Health League of Canada as to the possibilities and limita-
tions of artificial respiration,, especially in cases of drowning,"
writes Dr. Gordon Bates, general director of the Health League.
"It is surprising that the lessons learned at that time seem too
frequently to have been forgotten and that, time after time, one
reads newspaper reports of artificial respiration having been
stopped too early."
Dr. Bates summarizes some of the chief points which should
be generally known as follows:
(1) There is hope of reviving persons apparently drowned
even though the duration of immersion has been up to
half an hour. Persons have been revived after up to this
period under water.
(2) The fact that most of the usual signs of life are often
entirely absent in an apparently drowned person is not
a final indication of death. Persons have been revived
by artificial respiration after hours of apparent death
from various causes. Until some indication of life appar-
ent to everyone appeared, there was no pulse, no heart
sound audible by stethoscopd examination, no reflex of
any kind. .
(3) Artificial respiration should be commenced immediately
in all cases under water for less than half an hour and
should be continued without an instant intermission until
all hope is lost. .. r
(4) The rule laid down by the Health League of Canada's
committee was that it siould'be continued for a minimum
of four hours or until ;rigor mortis has set in, and there
should be no exception` to this rule.
(5) Additional rules have to do with keeping the patient
warm by all means possible and seeing to it that the air
passages are clear.
"This last suggestion is very important," the Health League
director emphasizes. "In many cases it has been found that a
laryngeal spasm exists. This:condition, while it effectively prevents
water from getting into the lungs, also prevents the entry of air.
At the moment, no more effective means of opening the larynx
is known other than seeing that the tongue is pulled out during
artificial respiration."
butter size of an egg
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
little salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
About three-quarters cup
of blueberries.
First take a little of the flour
measured for the cake and mix
it with the blueberries. Cream
sugar, butter, and egg together
Add milk. Add flour, baking
powder, and salt, sifted together,
then the vanilla. Last, add the
floured berries. Mix well, and
bake in moderate oven. Cut in
squares, and eat hot with plenty
of. butter,
*
OLD-FASHIONED CATSUP
1 gallon (1/2, peck) ripe
tomatoes
4 pods hot red peppers
2 tablespoons salt
12 tablespoon ground allspice
3 tablespoons grained black
pepper
3 tablespoons grained black
pepper
1 pint vinegar
Cook tomatoes and pods of hot
red peppers together until ten-
der, Put through a coarse sieve.
Stir in all remaining ingredients.
Simmer from 3-4 hours, watching
carefully that it does not stick.
Bottle and cork while hot. This
catsup improves with age, al-
though it turns dark brown.
Casey Jones Was
Real
Casey Jones was a good engineer,
Tol' his firemen to have no fear,
"All I want's a li'I' water an' coal,
Peep out de cab and see de
drivers rol'. ,
Who knows when and if Paul
Bunyan ever lived? (All we
know is he dredged Puget
Sound.)
Mike Fink may have been a
keelboatrnan on the O••hi-o a
hundred years ago, but we can
never know.
Big John Henry was either the
Black River Giant—a roustabout
—who lived only in legend or a
real champion "steel driver" on
the C&O whose "ten -pound
maul" helped put through the
Big Bend Tunnel in the early
1870's.
But "Cayce" (Casey) Jones was
a real engineer. He did drive the
Illinois Central's Cannon Ball
Express from Memphis, Tennes-
see, to Canton, Mississippi. ("A
car roller, and in my estimation
the prince of them all," said one
of his conductors.) He did mount
"to the cabin with his orders in
his hand," and then, when "Old
number, four stared us right in
the face," shout to his fireman,
"Boy, you'd better jump," before
taking "his farewell trip to the
promised land" .with one hand on
the throttle and the other on the
whistle cord.
They've put up a granite monu-
ment to the engineer from Cayce,
Kentucky, at Vaughan, Missis-
sippi, the hamlet where his "six -
eight wheeler" plowed into the
rear box ears of a freight that
hadn't cleared the siding, That
was near midnight of April 29,
1900. His Negro fireman, Sim
Webb, who jumped at his order,
was on hand at the dedication
last month. So was his widow,
bright-eyed Mrs. John Luther
Jones. And they rang the bell
from old No. 6$8 (which has
long been calling good people to
worship at the Black Jack Me-
thodist Church). And they blew
the whistle Casey could "moan
like a lonesome turtle dove."
Hurry up, engine, and hurry isp,
train,
1lfissie gwine ride over the road
again,
Swift as lightnin' and smooth as
glass,
Darker, take yo' hat off when the
train goes past...
Wh000-oo-oo-o, wh000-oo-oo-n,
Whop, whoo-000-o-o-o-o,
Consider The Lilies
From the dawn of civilization,
lilies appear to have been asso-
ciated with man. They were an
easily available source of food
and a conspicuous one by virtue
of brilliantly colored flowers.
Apparently, as soon as man set-
tled down long enough to garden,
he cherished lilies. . . . At the
same time, even in these early
civilizations, lilies must have had
an aesthetic appeal, for remark-
ably clear pictures of them ap-
pear on Cretan pottery made
some two thousand years before
Christ. An early Egyptian relief,
now preserved in Paris, shows
women gathering lilies, others
pressing them to obtain the es-
sential oil...
From Greece, the Madonna lily
traveled to Rome.... The women
Of Rome used the sap, eressed
from the same lilies, as a skin -
cleansing preparation, and they
or Roman soldiers carried bulbs
on expeditions of conquest
throughout Europe, In this way,
at the beginning of the Christian
era, the Madonna lily came to
the countries that are now Ger-
many, Holland and England. It
was then also that this lily be-
came a symbol of purity and im-
portant in religion. Lilies are
often mentioned in the Bible, al-
though the "lilies 01 the field"
may actually have been iris... .
Leonardo da Vinci drew a de-
tailed pencil sketch of the Ma-
donna lily, a flower stock identi-
cal with the old-fashioned type
still grown in gardens. Later, in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries, lilies were a favorite
subject of famous flower paint-
ers.
With the passing of the Middle
Ages, lilies were valued in gar-
dens of the Northern Hemisphere,
As new worlds were discovered,
they too contributed lilies, plants
eagerly sought by amateur gar-
deners. Thus soon after the dis-
covery of Canada by Jacques
Cartier, L. canadense was
brought to Paris and London.
When trade with Japan and
China became possible, lilies
were among the first plants im-
ported from those countries.
With the discovery and develop-
ment of the West Coast of North
America, the fine lilies growing
there were soon ,collected, named
and distributed to growers in
other parts of the world.
Lilium candidum, the Madonna
lily, and several European species
were grown in English gardens
as early as 1600. We find L. can-
adense described in John Par-
kinson's The Garden of Pleasant
Flowers, which appeared in 1629,
Other lilies grown at that time
were L. bulbiferum and L. chal-
cedonicum, the Red Martagon of
Constantinople. Two hundred
years later, in 1832 to be exact,
L. speciosum rubrum arrived
from Japan, and after another
thirty years, L. auratum, the
famous gold -banded lily, Lilium
henryi, which exerted such a
great influence in our modern
garden lilies, did not arrive until
1889, and L. regale was not dis-
covered until 1903.—From "The
New Book of Lilies," by Jan de
Graaff.
@0
1
orse Se
by BOB FLUS
.Tiniskaming, Aug. 8, 1953.
In this rugged country studded
with shaft heads and piles of
tailing, people are rugged too.
For them it is not North and
South, for them it still is "new"
Ontario as compared to the
"old" down around Oshawa and
Toronto.
You can meet many a pioneer
who came in here fifty and
more years ago when there were
no roads or railways and they
had to portage all theiir belong-
ings.
In those times to carry a hun-
dred pound bag of seed potatoes
through twenty miles of bush
to a neightbour was considered
"just a friendly gesture".
Even Money
They are tough, they are
friendly, they are hospitable,
and- above all they are outspo-
ken. If asked for their opinion,
there is no reluctance, no hesi-
tancy; you will get it whether
you like it or not.
Any subject is welcome for
discussion, be it economic, religi-
ous or political, presently, of
course, the political having the
upper hand.
Everybody is watching with
interest the battle being waged
by "Ann" Shipley, rumbustious
reevess of Teck and Liberal
candidate, against "Doc" Ames,
the amiable standard bearer of
the CCF.
At present it is even money
on the two; by the time this re-
port appears, we will know who
won.
Ye Bad Olde Times.
In this Northland with its long
hard winters, a man has to be
on the move, he has to be pro-
gressive and aggressive to sur-
vive. He has to have a good
memory and remember a mis-
take, not to repeat it.
That is why the Conservatives
have nothing to hope for in a
district where the people have
not forgotten the times when the
young folks were riding the rods
and the older men were working
on the roads, getting paid with
cheques marked 'relief,' a t the
rate of 98 cents per clay.
Gold, Gold, Gold,
It is gold that makes them
eat and the bit of land that they
work on the side. Down there
in 'old' Ontario we always hear
of the 'depressed' state of the
gold mining industry is in,
Coming up here a man ex-
pects to find ghost towns and
derelict ramshackle buildings.
Nothing of the sort, The plants
and the administrative buildings
look justas rick and prosperous
s
as the headquarters of any bank
or insurance company in Toronto
or Montreal.
And they are 'paying good
dividends. Broulan-Reef, the
company struck by the miners
for a 10 cent increase on their
hourly rate of $1.02, last year
paid out -$650,000 on a capitali-
zation of less than $900,000.
Last Season.
There are some good farms in
the South end of the district.
It is mixed farming with the ac-
cent on milk, which is highly
valued at $5.20 per hundred-
weight.
Some good Holsteins and Ayr -
shires are roaming the country,
with hardly any Jerseys or
Guernseys in sight, although
there is open quota for high test
milk.
The season is much later than
in 'old' Ontario, of course. The
spring grain is still green and a
lot of hay has to be brought in
yet. Much of it is being put up
in the old fashion on stakes
which makes for wonderful hay.
This column welcomes sug-
gestions, wise or foolish, and all
criticism, whether constructive
or destructive and will try to
answer any question. Address
your letters to Bob Ellis, Box 1,
123 - 18th Street, New Toronto.
Ont.
Banned Pants — Targets of an
anti -immodesty campaign by
West Berlin teachers, these
German schoolgirls were sent
home to change their pedal -
pushers and shorts for skirts,
Loud protests were raised by bi-
eyele riders when tight -fitting
slacks, pedal -pushers and shorts
were banned from classrooms,