It was no trouble at all to make occasions. Indeed, the greatest of them, weddings, really made themselves. A wedding made imperative an infare that is to say, if the high contracting parties had parental approval. Maybe I had better explain that infare meant the bride’s going home to her new house, or at least her new family. This etymologically the root is the Saxon faran, to go, whence come wayfaring, faring forth and so on. All this I am setting forth not in pedantry, but because so many folk had stared blankly upon hearing the word which was to me as familiar as word could be. In application it had a wide latitude. Commonly the groom or his family gave the infare, but often enough some generous and well-to-do friend, or kinsman, pre-empted the privilege. Wherever held, it was an occasion of keen and jealous rivalry those in charge being doubly bent on making the faring in more splendid than the wedding feast. Naturally that put the wedding folk on their mettle. Another factor inciting to extra effort was the bundles. All guests were expected to take home with them generous bundles of wedding cake in all its varieties. I recall once hearing a famous cake baker sigh relief as she frosted the hundredth snow ball, and said: “Now we are sure to have enough left for the bundles they are such a help.”

But baking cakes, and cooking in general, though important, were not the main things. Setting the table, so it should outshine all other wedding tables gave most concern. To this end all the resources of the family, and its friends for a radius of ten miles, were available glass, silver, china, linen, even cook pots and ovens at need. Also and further it was a slight of the keenest, if you were known as a fine cake maker, not to be asked to help. A past mistress of paper cutting was likewise in request. Cut papers and evergreens were the great reliances in decoration. They made a brave showing by candlelight. Oil lamps were few, kerosene undiscovered, and either lard oil, or whale oil, all too often smelled to heaven, to say nothing of smoking upon the least provocation. So a lamp, if there were one, sat in state within the parlor. The long table got its light from candelabra which as often as not were homemade. The base was three graduated blocks of wood, nailed to form a sort of pyramid, with a hole bored in the middle to receive a stout round upright, two inches across. It stood a foot high, and held up cross-arms three feet across, with a tin candlesocket upon each end. Another socket was set where the arms crossed thus each candelabra was of five-candle power. Set a-row down the middle of the table, with single candles in tall brass sticks interspersed, they gave a fine soft illumination. Often they were supplemented with candelabra of bronze or brass, tricked out with tinkly pendant prisms. Such household gauds were commonly concentrated at the spot where the bride and her maids would stand. They were more elegant, of course, than the made candle-holders but not to my thinking a whit the handsomer after the paper-cutters had done their work.

Their work was turning white paper into fringe and lace. Fringed strips wound all over and about, hid the foundation wood. Paper tulips, deftly fashioned, held the tin rings in ambush with clusters of lacy leaves pendant below. Sometimes a paper rose tipped each arm-end sometimes also, there were pendant sprays of pea-shaped blossoms. How they were made, with nothing beyond scissors, pen-knives for crimping, and the palm of the hand for mold, I confess I do not understand but I know they were marvels. The marvels required a special knack, of course also much time and patience. Wherefore those who had it, exercised it in scraps of leisure as paper came to hand, laying away the results against the next wedding even though none were imminent. Leaves and the round lace-edged pieces to go under cakes, it was easy thus to keep. Flowers, roses, tulips and so on, had a trick of losing shape besides, although so showy, they were really much easier to make.

It took nice contrivance to make table-room but double thicknesses of damask falling to the floor either side hid all roughness in the foundation. Shape depended much upon the size of the supper-room if it were but an inclosed piazza, straight length was imperative. But in a big square or parallelogram, one could easily achieve a capital H or else a letter Z. Z was rather a favorite in that it required less heavy decoration, yet gave almost as much space. A heart-cake for either tip, a stack at each acute angle, with the bride’s cake midway the stem, flanked either hand by bowls of syllabub and boiled custard, made a fine showing. A letter H demanded four heart-cakes one for each end, also four stacks, and crowded the bride and her party along the joining bar.

Heart-cakes were imperative to any wedding of degree. Local tinsmiths made the moulds for them they were deeply cleft, and not strictly classic of outline. But, well and truly baked, frosted a glistening white, then latticed and fringed with more frosting, dribbled on delicately from the point of a tube, they were surely good to look at. If the bride’s cake were white all through, the heart-pans were usually filled with gold-cake batter thus white and yolk of eggs had equal honor. More commonly though, the most part of wedding cake was pound cake in the beginning the richer the better. Baked in deep round-bottomed, handleless coffee cups, and iced, it made the helpful snow balls. Baked in square pans, rather shallow, cut into bars, crisped, frosted and piled cob-house fashion, it made pens. Sliced crosswise and interlaid with jelly it became jelly cake. To supplement it, there were marble cake, spice cake, plum cake, ever so many more cakes but they were only supplements.

Stacks were either round or square, baked in pans of graduated size, set one on the other after cooling thoroughly, then frosted and re-frosted till they had a polar suggestion. If round there was commonly a hole running down the middle, into this was fitted a wide mouthed but small glass bottle, to hold the stems of the evergreen plume topping the stack. Here or there in the plume, shone a paper rose or starflower in the wreath of evergreen laid about the base, were tulips, lilies, and bigger roses, all made of paper. Occasionally trailing myrtle, well washed and dried, was put about the components of the stacks just before they were set in place. If the heart-cakes had missed being latticed, they likewise were myrtle-wreathed. The bride’s cake was left dead-white, but it always stood on something footed, and had a wreath of evergreen and paper flowers, laid upon a lace-cut paper about the foot.

Baking it was an art. So many things had to go in it the darning needle, thimble, picayune, ring, and button. The makers would have scorned utterly the modern subterfuge of baking plain, and thrusting in the portents of fate before frosting. They mixed the batter a trifle stiff, washed and scoured everything, shut eyes, dropped them, and stirred them well about. Thus nobody had the least idea where they finally landed so the cutting was bound to be strictly fair. It made much fun the bride herself cut the first slice hoping it might hold the picayune, and thus symbolize good fortune. The ring presaged the next bride or groom, the darning needle single blessedness to the end, the thimble, many to sew for, or feed, the button, fickleness or disappointment. After the bridal party had done cutting, other young folk tempted fate. Bride’s cake was not for eating instead, fragments of it, duly wrapped and put under the pillow, were thought to make whatever the sleeper dreamed come true. Especially if the dream included a sweetheart, actual or potential. The dreams were supposed to be truly related next day at the infare but I question if they always were. Perhaps the magic worked and in this wise the person dreamed of took on so new a significance, the difference was quickly felt. But this is a cook book with reminiscent attachments, not a treatise on psychology.

The table held only the kickshaws cakes, candy, nuts, syllabub and custard. Wide handsome plates piled high with tempting sliced cake sat up and down the length of it, with glass dishes of gay candies in between. In cold weather wine jelly often took the place of syllabub. There were neither napkins nor service plates all such things came from the side table, the plates laden with turkey, ham, fried chicken, or broiled, and some sort of jelly or relish. One ate standing, with her escort doing yeoman service as waiter, until her appetite was fully appeased. Hot biscuit, hot egg bread, and light bread salt rising, freshly sliced were passed about by deft black servitors. The side tables were under charge of family friends, each specially skilled in helping and serving. Carving, of course, had been done before hand. Occasionally, very occasionally, where a wedding throng ran well into the hundreds, there was barbecue in addition to other meat. In that case it was cut up outside, and sent in upon huge platters. But it was more a feature of infares, held commonly by daylight, than of wedding suppers.

Wedding salad is set forth in its proper chapter, but not the turkey hash that was to some minds the best of all the good eating. It was served for breakfast there was always a crowd of kinfolk and faraway friends to stay all night sleeping on pallets all over the floors, even those of parlor or ballroom, after they were deserted. The hash was made from all the left-over turkey where a dozen birds have been roasted the leavings will be plenty. To it was added the whole array of giblets, cooked the day before, and cut small while still warm. They made heaps of rich gravy to add to that in the turkey pots no real wedding ever contented itself with cooking solely on a range. Pots, big ones, set beside a log fire out of doors, with a little water in the bottom, and coals underneath and on the lids, turned out turkeys beautifully browned, tender and flavorous, to say nothing of the gravy. It set off the hash as nothing else could but such setting off was not badly needed. Hash with hot biscuit, strong clear coffee, hot egg bread, and thin-sliced ham, made a breakfast one could depend on, even with a long drive cross-country in prospect.

Harking back to the supper table syllabub, as nearly as I recall, was made of thick cream lightly reinforced with stiffly beaten white of egg one egg-white to each pint sweetened, well flavored with sherry or Madeira wine, then whipped very stiff, and piled in a big bowl, also in goblets to set about the bowl, just as snow balls were set a-row about the stacks and the bride’s cake. Flecks of crimson jelly were dropped on the white cream occasionally, there were crumbled cake, and cut up fruit underneath. Thus it approximated the trifle of the cook books. It had just one drawback you could not eat it slowly it went almost to nothing at the agitation of the spoon.

Far otherwise boiled custard which was much higher in favor, being easier made, and quite as showy. For it you beat very light the yolks of twelve eggs with four cups white sugar, added them to a gallon of milk, and a quart of cream, in a brass kettle over the fire, stirred the mixture steadily, watching it close to remove it just as it was on the point of boiling, let it cool, then flavored it well, with either whiskey, brandy, or sweet wine. Meantime the egg-whites beaten with a little salt until they stuck to the dish, had been cooked by pouring quickly over them full-boiling water from a tea kettle. They hardly lost a bubble in the process the water well drained away, the whites were ready to go on top of the custard in either bowls or goblets, and get themselves ornamented with crimson jelly, or flecks of cherry preserves. Like syllabub, boiled custard necessitated spoons hence the borrowing of small silver was in most cases imperative. Plutocrats had not then been invented but tradition tells of one high gentleman, who was self-sufficient. The fact stood him in good stead later when he was darkly accused, she who had baked cakes for all his merry-makings said stoutly: “The Colonel do sech as that! Lord in heaven! Why, don’t you know, in all the years I’ve knowed him, he never had to borrow a single silver spoon and I’ve seen five hundred folks there for supper. I wouldn’t believe them tales ef Angel Gabriel come down and told ’em to me.”

Is anybody left, I wonder, who can cut oranges into lilies? Thus cut they surely looked pretty. The peel was divided evenly in six, the sections loosened, but not pulled free at the base. Instead the ends were curved backward after the manner of lily petals. The fruit, separated into eighths, hardly showed the divisions. These lilies sat flat upon the cloth, either in lines, as about square stacks, or around bigger things, or straight up and down the table center. They were not always in season at their best around Christmas, but available until the end of winter.

Cheesecakes, baked in patty pans frosted with cocoanut frosting, also helped out the wedding richness. Indeed, guests gathered to eat the fat and the sweet, no less to drink it. Now, in a wider outlook, I wonder a little if there was significance in the fact that these wedding tables were so void of color showing only green and white, with the tiniest sparks of red?

Party suppers had no such limitations often the table was gay with autumn leaves, the center piece a riot of small ragged red chrysanthemums, or raggeder pink or yellow ones, with candles glaring from gorgeous pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns down the middle, or from the walls either side. There were frosted cakes loaves trimmed gaily with red and white candies, or maybe the frosting itself was tinted. In place of syllabub or boiled custard, there were bowls of ambrosia oranges in sections, freed of skin and seed, and smothered in grated fresh cocoanut and sugar. Often the bowl-tops were ornamented with leaves cut deftly from the skin of deep red apples, and alternating, other leaves shaped from orange peel. Christmas party suppers had touches of holly and cedar, but there was no attempt to match the elaborate wedding tables. Hog’s foot jelly, red with the reddest wine, came in handily for them since almost every plantation had a special small hog-killing, after the middle of December, so there might be fresh backbones, spare ribs, sausage and souse to help make Christmas cheer. Ham, spiced and sliced wafer thin, was staple for such suppers chicken and turkey appeared oftenest as salad, hot coffee, hot breads in variety, crisp celery, and plenteous pickle, came before the sweets. Punch, not very heady, hardly more than a fortified pink lemonade, came with the sweets many times. Grandfather’s punch was held sacred to very late suppers, hot and hearty, set for gentlemen who had played whist or euchre until cock-crow.

These are but indications. Fare varied even as did households and occasions. But everywhere there was kinship of the underlying spirit which was the concrete expression of hospitality in good cheer. There was little luxury rather we lived amid a spare abundance, eating up what had no market I recall clearly times when you could hardly give away fresh eggs, or frying-size chickens, other times when eggs fetched five cents for two dozen provided the seller would “take it in trade.” Chickens then, broiling size, were forty to fifty cents the dozen with often an extra one thrown in for good measure. For then chicken cholera had not been invented at least not down in the Tennessee blue grass country. Neither had hog cholera nor railroads. All three fell upon us a very little before the era of the Civil War. Steamboats ran almost half the year, but the flat boat traffic had been taken away by the peopling prairies, which could raise so much more corn, derivatively so many more hogs, to the man’s work. Money came through wheat and tobacco not lavishly, yet enough for our needs. All this is set forth in hope of explaining in some measure, the cookery I have tried to write down faithfully with so much of everything in hand, stinting would have been sinful.

There was barbecue, and again there were barbecues. The viand is said to get its name from the French phrase a barbe d’ écu, from tail to head, signifying that the carcass was cooked whole. The derivation may be an early example of making the punishment fit the crime. As to that I do not know. What I do know is that lambs, pigs, and kids, when barbecued, are split in half along the backbone. The animals, butchered at sundown, and cooled of animal heat, after washing down well, are laid upon clean, split sticks of green wood over a trench two feet deep, and a little wider, and as long as need be, in which green wood has previously been burned to coals. There the meat stays twelve hours from midnight to noon next day, usually. It is basted steadily with salt water, applied with a clean mop, and turned over once only. Live coals are added as needed from the log fire kept burning a little way off. All this sounds simple, dead-easy. Try it it is really an art. The plantation barbecuer was a person of consequence moreover, few plantations could show a master of the art. Such an one could give himself lordly airs the loan of him was an act of special friendship profitable always to the personage lent. Then as now there were free barbecuers, mostly white but somehow their handiwork lacked a little of perfection. For one thing, they never found out the exact secret of “dipney,” the sauce that savored the meat when it was crisply tender, brown all over, but free from the least scorching.

Daddy made it thus: Two pounds sweet lard, melted in a brass kettle, with one pound beaten, not ground, black pepper, a pint of small fiery red peppers, nubbed and stewed soft in water to barely cover, a spoonful of herbs in powder he would never tell what they were, and a quart and pint of the strongest apple vinegar, with a little salt. These were simmered together for half an hour, as the barbecue was getting done. Then a fresh, clean mop was dabbed lightly in the mixture, and as lightly smeared over the upper sides of the carcasses. Not a drop was permitted to fall on the coals it would have sent up smoke, and films of light ashes. Then, tables being set, the meat was laid, hissing hot, within clean, tight wooden trays, deeply gashed upon the side that had been next the fire, and deluged with the sauce, which the mop-man smeared fully over it.

Hot! After eating it one wanted to lie down at the spring-side and let the water of it flow down the mouth. But of a flavor, a savor, a tastiness, nothing else earthly approaches. Not food for the gods, perhaps, but certainly meat for men. Women loved it no less witness the way they begged for a quarter of lamb or shoat or kid to take home. The proper accompaniments to barbecue are sliced cucumbers in strong vinegar, sliced tomatoes, a great plenty of salt-rising light bread and a greater plenty of cool ripe watermelons, by way of dessert.

So much for barbecue edible. Barbecue, the occasion, has yet to be set forth. Its First Cause was commonly political the old south loved oratory even better than the new. Newspapers were none so plenty withal of scant circulation. Besides, reading them was work also tedious and tasteless. So the great and the would-be great, rode up and down, and roundabout, mixing with the sovereigns, and enlightening the world. Each party felt honor bound to gather the sovereigns so they might listen in comfort. Besides they wanted amusement a real big barbecue was a sort of social exchange, drawing together half of three counties, and letting you hear and tell, things new, strange, and startling. Furthermore, it was no trouble to get carcasses fifty to a hundred was not uncommon. Men, women, children, everybody, indeed, came. The women brought bread and tablecloths, and commonly much beside. There was a speaker’s stand, flag draped my infant eyes first saw the Stars and Stripes floating above portraits alleged of Filmore and Buchanan, in the campaign of ’56. That meant the barbecue was a joint affair Whigs and Democrats getting it up, and both eagerly ready to whoop it up for their own speakers. Naturally in that latitude, Fremont was not even named. No court costume with a tail three yards long, could to-day make me feel one-half so fine as the white jaconet, and green sash then sported.

It was said there were a thousand at the barbecue. The cheering, at its loudest, was heard two miles away. To me it seemed as though all the folk in the world had gathered in that shady grove I remember wondering if there could possibly be so many watermelons, some would be left for the children. Four big wagon loads lay bobbing in the coolth of the spring branch. It was a very cold spring with mint growing beside it, as is common with springs thereabout. Early settlers planted it thus hard by the water they built their houses high, and water got warm in carrying it up hill. Lacking ice houses, to have cool juleps, they had to be mixed right at the well-head. Sugar, spoons, goblets, and the jug, were easily carried down there.

Juleps were not mixed openly that day but the speakers had pitchers full of something that seemed to refresh their eloquence, no less than themselves. They hammered each other lustily, cheered to the echo by uproarious partisans, from nine in the morning until six in the afternoon. Luckily for them, there were four of them, thus they could “spell” each other and the audience. I did not mind them not in the least. How should I when right in front of me sat a lady with the most gorgeous flowers upon her white chip bonnet, and one beside me, who insisted upon my wearing, until time to go home, her watch and chain?

The watermelons held out we took two big ones home to Mother, also a lot of splendid Indian peaches, and a fore-quarter of lamb. Mother rarely went out, being an invalid so folk vied with each other in sending her things. I mention it, only by way of showing there were things to be sent, even after feeding the multitude. The black people went away full fed, and full handed nobody who carried a basket had much relish for taking home again any part of its contents.

Our countryside’s cooking came to its full flower for the bran-dances which came into being, I think, because the pioneers liked to shake limber heels, but had not floors big enough for the shaking. So in green shade, at some springside they built an arbor of green boughs, leveled the earth underneath, pounded it hard and smooth, then covered it an inch deep with clean wheat bran, put up seats roundabout it, also a fiddlers’ stand, got the fiddlers, printed invitations which went far and wide to women young and old, saw to a sufficiency of barbecue, depended on the Lord and the ladies for other things and prepared to dance, dance from nine in the morning until two next morning. Men were not specifically invited anybody in good standing with a clean shirt, dancing shoes, a good horse and a pedigree, was heartily welcome. The solid men, whose names appeared as managers, paid scot for everything they left the actual arrangements to the lads. But they came in shoals to the bran-dances, and were audacious enough often to take away from some youth fathoms deep in love, his favorite partner. Sometimes, too, a lot of them pre-empted all the prettiest girls, and danced a special set with them. Thus were they delivered into the hands of the oppressed the lads made treaty with the fiddlers and prompter to play fast and furious to call figures that kept the oldsters wheeling and whirling. It was an endurance contest but victory did not always perch with the youths. Plenty of pursy gentlemen were still light enough on their feet, clear enough in their wind, to dance through Money Musk double, Chicken in the Bread Tray, and the Arkansaw Traveller, no matter what the time.

All dances were square quadrilles and cotillions. The Basket Cotillion was indeed, looked upon as rather daring. You see, at the last, the ring of men linked by hand-hold outside a ring of their partners, lifted locked arms over their partners’ heads, and thus interwoven, the circle balanced before breaking up. Other times, other dances ours is now the day of the trot and the tango. But they lack the life, the verve of the old dances, the old tunes. To this day when I hear them, my feet patter in spite of me. You could not dance to them steadily, with soft airs blowing all about, leaves flittering in sunshine, and water rippling near, without getting an appetite commensurate to the feasts in wait for you.

One basket from a plantation sufficed for bran-dances ending at sundown those running on past midnight demanded two. It would never do to offer snippets and fragments for supper. Barbecue, if there were barbecue was merely a concomitant of the feeding, not the whole thing. Part of it was left untouched to help out with supper. So were part of the melons, and much of the fruit. Apples, pears and peaches were plenty in good years the near plantations sent them by wagon loads as they also sent ice cream by freezerfuls, and boilers to make coffee. These were dispensed more than generously but nobody would have helped himself to them uninvited, any more readily than he would have helped himself to money in the pocket. All that was in the baskets was spread on the general tables, but no man thought of eating thereof, until all women and children had been served. Old men came next the women generally forcing upon them the best of everything.

Such a best! Broiled chicken, fried chicken, in quantity, whole hams simply entreating to be sliced, barbecue, pickle in great variety, drained and sliced for eating, beaten biscuit, soda biscuit, egg bread, salt-rising bread, or rolls raised with hop-yeast only a few attempted them every manner of pie, tart, and tartlet that did not drip and mess things, all the cakes in the calendar of good housewifery with, now and then, new ones specially invented. Even more than a wedding, a bran-dance showed and proved your quality as a cake-maker. Cakes were looked at in broad daylight, eaten not with cloyed finicky appetites, but with true zest. Woe and double woe to you if a loaf of pride showed at cutting a “sad” streak, not quite done. Joy untold if you were a raw young housekeeper, to have your cake acclaimed by eaters and critics.

Mammy, and other Mammies, moved proudly about, each a sort of oracle to the friends of her household. They kept sharp eyes on things returnable plates, platters, knives, spoons, and tablecloths in any doubtful case, arising from the fact of similarity in pattern, they were the court of last resort. Spoons and so on are unmistakable but one sprigged saucer is very like other saucers sprigged the same. It was the Mammies rather than the masters and mistresses, who ordered carriage drivers and horse boys imperiously about. But nobody minded the imperiousness it was no day for quarrelling or unwisdom. And it would surely have been unwise to fret those who were the Keepers of the Baskets, at the very last.

After dinner one went to the dressing-room, a wide roofless space enclosed with green boughs massed on end, and furnished plentifully with water in buckets, towels, basins, pin cushions, combs and brushes, face powder, even needles and thread. Thence one emerged after half an hour quite fresh to dance on and on, till the fiddlers played a fast finale, and went to their supper. Then came an interval of talk and laughing, of making new friends or stabbing delicately old enemies. Also and further much primping in the dressing-room. Dancing steadily through a temperature of 98 in the shade plays hob with some sorts of prettiness. But as dew fell and lighted lanterns went up about the arbor and throughout the grove, supper was very welcome. There was hot coffee for everybody, likewise milk, likewise lemonade, with buttered biscuit, chicken, ham, and barbecue. Chicken-loaf was particularly good for such uses. To make it, several plump, tender, full-grown pullets were simmered in water to barely cover them, with a few pepper corns, half a dozen cloves, and a blade of mace, until very, very tender. Then the meat was picked from the bones, cut up while still hot, packed down in something deep, seasoning it to taste with salt, as it was packed, and dusting in more pepper if needed, then the liquor which had been kept at a brisk boil was poured over, and left to cool. No bother about skimming off fat we liked our loaf rich as well as high-flavored. It came out a fine mottled solid that could be sliced thin, and eaten delicately between the halves of a buttered biscuit. Sandwiches were known but only in books. Which was well they would have dried out so badly, for this was before the era of wax paper. Since everything was packed in the baskets whole, there was much work for mothers and Mammies at the unpacking and table-setting.

Tarts, especially if filled with cheesecake or jelly custard, held high place among the sweets. Especially with the men, young and old. One, a manager, who had been here, there, everywhere, since eight o’clock in the morning, asked Mammy at suppertime to: “Please save him one more dozen of them little pies.” In truth the little pies made no more than a mouthful for noble appetites. Pies, full-grown, did not go begging and were seldom cut in less than quarters. Frosted cake which the lads denominated “white-washed,” was commonly saved over for the supper baskets. It kept moist, whereas without the frosting a long summer day might make it hard.

After the supper elderly men drove home unless they had daughters among the dancers without other chaperons. Generally, some aunt or cousin stood ready with such good offices. The chaperons themselves danced now and then youths specially anxious for favor with their charges, all but forced them upon the floor. Set it to their credit, they footed it almost as lightly as the youngest. Occasionally you might see, mother and daughter, even a granddaughter of tender years, wheeling and balancing in the same set. And so the fiddles played, the stars shone, the waters babbled, until the lanterns flared and sputtered out, and the banjo-picker held up fingers raw and bleeding. Then with a last final swing and flourish, everybody scattered for homeward ways, glad of the day’s pleasure and tired enough to be glad also it was ended.

The most special of occasions was a dining. Not upon any high day or holiday, such as Christmas, New Year, Jackson’s Day the eighth of January Easter nor Whit-Monday, but as Mammy said: “A dinin’ des, dry so.” Commonly pride of housewifery incited to it therefore it must be a triumph. The hour was two o’clock, but guests came around eleven or twelve and spent the day. They sat down to tables that well might have groaned, even howled, such was the weight they carried. Twelve was a favorite guest-number few tables could be stretched to hold more than twelve plates. There were but two courses dinner and dessert unless in very cold weather, some person who would nowadays be said to be fond of putting on frills, set before her guests, plates of steaming soup. It had to smell very good, else it was no more than tasted folk did not care to dull the edge of appetite needlessly, with so much before them. For the table was fully set a stuffed ham at one end, a chicken or partridge pie at the other, side dishes of smothered rabbit, or broiled chicken, at least four kinds of sweet pickle, as many of jelly and sour pickle, a castor full of catsups, tomato and walnut, plain vinegar, pepper vinegar, red and black pepper, and made mustard, all the vegetables in season I have seen corn pudding, candied sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, mashed and baked, black-eyed peas, baked peaches, apples baked in sugar and cloves, cabbage boiled with bacon, okra, stewed tomatoes, sliced raw tomatoes, cucumbers cut up with young onions, beets boiled and buttered, and string beans, otherwise snaps, all at one spread.

Only epicures dressed their lettuce at table. One cranky old family friend had it served to him in a water bucket, set beside him on the floor. He shook it free of water, cut it, without bruising, to wide ribbons, covered them thickly with hard-boiled egg-yolk mashed fine, then poured upon it clear ham gravy, and strong vinegar, added salt and pepper, black and red then ate his fill. But, of course, he did not do that at dinings. For then, if lettuce appeared, it was cut up, dressed with vinegar, salt, sugar, and pepper, but guiltless of oil, garnished with rings of hard-boiled egg and very generally, and justly, neglected. Still the hostess had the satisfaction of feeling she had offered it that she had indeed offered more than could have been reasonably expected.

There was water to drink, also cider in season, also milk, sweet and sour, and the very best of the homemade wine. Decanters of it sat up and down the table you could fill up and come again at pleasure. The one drawback was it was hard to eat properly, when you were so interrupted by helpings to something else. If there was a fault in our old-time cooking, it was its lack of selection. I think those who gave dinings felt uneasy if there was unoccupied room for one more dish.

Dessert was likewise an embarrassment of riches. Cakes in variety, two sorts of pie, with ice cream or sherbet, or fresh fruit, did not seem too much to those dear Ladies Bountiful. There was no after-dinner coffee. In cold weather coffee in big cups, with cream and sugar, often went with the main dinner. Hot apple toddies preceded it at such times. In hot weather the precursor was mint julep, ice cold. Yet we were not a company of dyspeptics nor drunkards by the free and full use of earth’s abounding mercies we learned not to abuse them.

Birthday Barbecue: (Dorothy Dix.) As refined gold can be gilded, barbecue, common, or garden variety, can take on extra touches. As thus: Kill and dress quickly a fine yearling wether, in prime condition but not over-fat, sluice out with cool water, wipe dry inside and out with a soft, damp cloth, then while still hot, fill the carcass cram-full of fresh mint, the tenderer and more lush the better, close it, wrap tight in a clean cloth wrung very dry from cold salt water, then pop all into a clean, bright tin lard stand, with a tight-fitting top, put on top securely, and sink the stand head over ears in cold water a spring if possible. Do this around dusk and leave in water until very early morning. Build fire in trench of hard wood logs before two o’clock. Let it burn to coals have a log fire some little way off to supply fresh coals at need. Lay a breadth of galvanized chicken-wire large mesh over the trench. Take out carcass split it half down back bone, lay it flesh side down, on the wire grid, taking care coals are so evenly spread there is no scorching. After an hour begin basting with “the sop.” It is made thus. Best butter melted, one pound, black pepper ground, quarter pound, red pepper pods, freed of stalk and cut fine to almost a paste, half a pint, strong vinegar, scant pint, brandy, peach if possible though apple or grape will answer, half a pint. Cook all together over very slow heat or in boiling water, for fifteen minutes. The sop must not scorch, but the seasoning must be cooked through it. Apply with a big soft swab made of clean old linen, but not old enough to fray and string. Baste meat constantly. Put over around four in the morning, the barbecue should be done, and well done, by a little after noon. There should be enough sop left to serve as gravy on portions after it is helped. The meat, turned once, has a fine crisped surface, and is flavored all through with the mint, and seasoning.