Nature's Bounty © by Ruth Zachary
Mock Mincemeat
A full moon in October. A killing
frost certain to freeze the remaining tomatoes! Our job to salvage the rest?
How many fried green tomatoes can one family eat?
But
waste not, want not.... So....wearing
your patched apron, you chopped most of the day with your tin can cutter, and
with my help, sliced a peck of green tomatoes with equal amount of apples, four
pounds of raisins, one quart canned cherries, one cup of vinegar, a tablespoon
of salt, six pounds of sugar, one pound of butter, three tablespoons of
cinnamon, one tablespoon of cloves, and one of allspice.
The whole batch was mixed well in
the galvanized laundry tub to marinate overnight in the unheated kitchen,
blending flavors. The following morning the concoction was simmered in two
large enamel kettles for one and a half hours, and then poured into sterilized
quart-sized mayonnaise jars.
We had one pie that night, and two
at Thanksgiving, and by Christmas several jars became gifts offered to relatives.
By spring, mock mincemeat was no longer a family favorite.
Using good ingredients to salvage an
excess of one that is not so good, is a mistake, in spite of Daddy’s lesson he
often told as a tongue-twister, “Betty Botter bought some bitter butter and it
made her batter bitter...so she mixed a bit of better butter in her bitter
batter, and made her bitter batter better.”
After having been away from my blogs
because of computers dying like a falling line of vertical dominoes, I am
working to get equipment that will allow working both with art images and
writing, and I want to share both on my blogs in the near future. The time has
been put to good use, however. I have finished two books with my poetry in
them, and am working on two more books, to come out at a future time. The
first book was The Woman Who Named
Herself, published by Xlibris. It is available on Amazon, or through Orders@Xlibris.com. Autographed books may also be obtained
from me at rzacharyart@gmail.com $20 plus shipping and tax.
The images and writing on this blog are the copyright © of Ruth Zachary.
