I’ve never been really deep down hungry for any extended period. I can’t remember a time when I was growing up, that I didn’t have enough food to eat. Mom always had a meal on the table. Some food was store bought. Saturday evenings, the family went up town (Wardensville) to Uncle Miller Frye’s store in the Odd Fellow’s Hall where Lost River Brewing Company is now. If Pap had other errands in town, he’d give Mom money for groceries while he ran them. If groceries totaled more than she had, she’d wait until he returned, then ask for more money. Usually she got it, but occasionally, following discussion, she’d put some items back on the shelf. Pap’s big treat for the family was usually ice cream. A paper carton wrapped pint of Neapolitan, three flavors, cut length wise into four slices so that each of us got a bit of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Wonderful ending to Saturday evening on the town. Store bought food included the staples. Salt, flower, coffee, sugar, spices and bread. Pap liked gummy white store bread rather than homemade or wheat, Mom always got him a cellophane wrapped loaf. Fruit, grapefruit and/or oranges when they were in season were special treats. Occasionally salt fish were forked up out of Uncle Miller’s keg, but usually fish was fresh brought back from rare trips to Winchester where Pap stopped at A&P or Safeway on his way out of town. Most everything else came from our farm. Sitting at our dining room table for holiday meals, Thanksgiving and Christmas, there’d usually be particular mention that everything on the table except for condiments and coffee came from our farm. Vegetables from our garden. Oh how I hated hot days hand weeding, but oh how I loved the results. Salad fixings were only for fresh eating, but beans, peas, and corn, winter staples, were canned or frozen. Tomatoes were my favorite summer fruit. Mom canned whole tomatoes, juice and catsup better than anything in Uncle Miller’s store. Dairy products came from Sadie, or Daisy, or Marybelle by way of Pap’s morning and evening milkings plus Mom’s processing. Fresh whole warm milk went through the strainer. Half gallon Mason jars held fresh for drinking and cooking in the refrigerator. Butter, ice cream, cottage cheese and “top milk” (cream) ladled from tops of those refrigerated jars, filled their niches in our diet. Cold fruity hand cranked ice cream was a real treat that tasted better after Pap invested in an electric freezer. We usually killed, scalded, plucked, singed and cleaned three or four old hens and young roosters at a time. Old hens past their egg laying prime made roasters and young roosters got fried. Some times ducks, geese and turkeys fell to Pap’s (or my) axe too. Hogs were top of our meat food chain. Many made full life journey from an old sow’s tummy to my tummy without leaving our farm. My favorite cuts were home cured ham, shoulder, sidemeat (bacon), ponmush (scrapple) and puddin. You can have all my share of souse. Cracklins were high on my list until I ate way too many one butchering day, got sick and swore off. We never butchered beef at home. Pap had our animals hauled to a butcher who did it all up for our freezer. I had to leave home to get hamburgers, because Pap wanted all extra cuts of beef cut for stew, rather than ground. Though we raised a lot of sheep, we seldom butchered one unless Grandpa (Mom’s father) was visiting. He loved mutton and lamb He was also a master butcher. Most of his visits from Ohio were hung a young sheep down in the wagon shed and he worked it up. I’ve never been really hungry and I’ve never been afraid of going hungry. I ate some of every thing Mom put on the table and if I put on my plate, I ate all of it. Clean plates are partly to blame for my excessive waistline. To this day, I’m the easiest to feed person I’ve ever met.
