Beth Durham's Blog, page 30

Sorghum Molasses

It goes without saying that the isolated Cumberland Plateau has been populated by self-reliant and resourceful people. The combined effect of few cash resources and limited transportation required they live on what the land could produce. And I guess mountain-folk like sweets the same as anybody else but sugar cane just wasn’t going to grow in our short summers and thin soil. Honey is always a good sweetener and beekeeping has been popular for generations. But sorghum molasses have always b...

The Power of Smell

In the 1950’s and 1960’s movie producers experimented with incorporating scents into the theater experience. Their project didn’t work too well but they had a great idea. Our sense of smell is a powerful trigger to our memories. I suppose that’s one of the key drivers of the multi-billion dollar scented candle industry. Everyone loves for their home to smell like Grandma’s apple pie or fresh baked cookies.

Well there are scents that will forever remind me of my childhood home. The unmistakable...

Janavee Stepp Sisco

This week my family lost another precious memory-keeper. Aunt Janavee was the last of my Grandpa Stepp’s siblings and somehow despite seeing her so seldom, so long as she lived there was a link to Grandpa and to all of my great-aunts and uncles that surrounded my childhood. Ironically, Daddy and I were talking about her just last week and I had tried to reach out to one of her sons to check on her. I had just been saying I really need to go see her.

If you’ve been visiting the blog for a whil...

Civil War Veterans

War is ugly. Yet from our earliest accounts of history, mankind has “beat[en] plowshares into swords” (Joel 3:10) and faced down enemies. Even today we have men and women marching under the stars and stripes on foreign soil in an attempt to preserve our way of life. They deserve our prayers and a prominent place in our hearts.

Today is the 241st anniversary of the inception of the United States Marine Corps. Tomorrow is the day America has set aside to honor veterans in every branch of servic...

Tater Cakes

Blogs across the web will abound this week with recipes and suggestions for using Thanksgiving leftovers. I doubt I’ll ever burden you with one of my recipes, but I did enjoy a leftover dish this week that always reminds me of home and Grandma.

Tater Cakes, also known as Potato Pancakes, Latkes or Botkin Pie are always a treat when I make them and I remember my Grandma Stepp frying them while I stood by the stove and practically ate them out of the skillet. She always cooked bacon – or side m...

Comfort Foods

CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS
How can such a comforting food make for such a bland picture?

Today’s article might be fittin’ for True Confessions… I woke up with a sinus headache amid overcast skies. It seems the older I get the more my moods are driven by the weather and winter’s shrinking hours of sunshine don’t bode well for me.

My life is so filled with blessings that it makes me downright mad at myself when I have these blue days. A popular topic in many historical fiction novels is the depressio...

Ancestral Properties

This year I received a gift of an Ancestry.com subscription. It has proven one of the most wonderful gifts ever because I’ve spent hours and hours poring over census records, death certificates and wills. I’ve learned lots of dates and names and that’s exciting. But there are little tidbits that really make it worth the time.

In fact, I’m learning so much that I’m really struggling to compose this week’s article in any kind of organized fashion. So let me just tell you about one document and...

A Humble Pone of Cornbread

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I was raised to understand that every meal had to have bread. It was very often cornbread. Certainly my grandparents’ generation ate cornbread because flour was scarce and everybody grew a field of corn. I guess they got used to eating cornbread about everyday and they kept doing it even as they fed children and grandchildren when store-bought flour was easily had.

Well since I don’t follow a horse and plow all day, chop corn or walk to church I’ve had to rethink a number of these food neces...

A Humbe Pone of Cornbread

[image error]

I was raised to understand that every meal had to have bread. It was very often cornbread. Certainly my grandparents’ generation ate cornbread because flour was scarce and everybody grew a field of corn. I guess they got used to eating cornbread about everyday and they kept doing it even as they fed children and grandchildren when store-bought flour was easily had.

Well since I don’t follow a horse and plow all day, chop corn or walk to church I’ve had to rethink a number of these food neces...

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I don’t usually give much thought to whether my children have a Southern accent or use mountain-terminology. I guess they sound pretty much like me and all my people so it’s just normal. But you know that I’m fascinated with the Appalachian vernacular, we’ve talked about there here before.

A blog I enjoy reading (The Blind Pig) regularly shares Southern-English terms. I’m often shocked to read words or phrases there that I thought were just regular English.

So when my daughter recently began...