Pretty Good Muffins

We are giving our guy a holiday every Friday and I'm gonna cook.  It was lots of fun.  I made meat loaf and some pretty good muffins.  Cooked up some tomatoes for juice too.  Fixed a cold supper - potatoe salad and stuff.  - Annette, July 1941

I haven't made one of Annette's recipes in a while, so when I came across this entry, I figured it was time to bake again!  I love how much she enjoys cooking.  On her cook's day off, she jumped at the adventure of cooking in a new place!  

I am intrigued by her meat loaf - what kind of meat, where did they get it, how did they grind it up - but she didn't leave any clues.  I have a recipe for Canning Tomatoes, so maybe in the future, I'll try something similar for the juice.  She did, however, sketch a recipe for Bran Muffins with a Honey Nut variation.  Her bran muffins called for wheat flour and sweet milk, so I'll use that for this recipe as well.  I looked up 'quick oven,' and learned that the term comes from wood-burning stoves without temperature gauges.  The conversion for a 'fast' or 'quick' oven ranges from 375-400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Now, I just need to locate some oat bran.  Stay tuned!

Honey + Nut Bran Muffins

1/2 cup honey

1 cup flour

1/2 teasp soda

1/2 teasp salt

2 cups bran

1 tablesp melted butter

1 1/2 cups milk

3/4 cup walnuts

Bake in quick oven 30 minutes

Recreating "The Queen's" Dinner

I had such a blast with this project!  For those of you just joining us, I recreated one of Frances' meals from 1892 (original post below).  There were several components to this menu, so I've compiled the photos into collages.  Hope you are hungry!

Let's start with the butter.  Maybe Frances had store-bought butter, but I figured I would make my own, just in case.  It is delicious, and I kind of want to make it all the time.  

Next up - biscuits.  My go-to biscuit recipe is from Southern Living, and uses grated frozen butter.  I used store-bought butter for this one, but did use the buttermilk from my homemade butter.  White Lily Flour proved to be a huge success.  The biscuits were light, flaky, and delicious!

I really wasn't sure what to do with Irish potatoes.  I'm guessing that distinction means that they were hard to come by.  The Irish Potato Famine was from 1845-49, so maybe this was still pretty special.  I scrubbed the potatoes, peeled and chopped them, then popped them in a pot and boiled them with salt.

Now the star - fried pork!  I found some beautiful bone-in pork chops and went to town!  Dredged them in a mix of flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.  Somehow, I can't seem to make anything that DOESN'T include cayenne pepper.  I heated up some vegetable oil and butter in a cast iron skillet, and fried the chops, 4 minutes on each side.  A cool side note - I inherited this cast iron skillet from my Grandmother - also named Frances, after her Grandmother (whose diary we are reading).  Now, I'm not what side of the family passed this skillet to her, but wouldn't it be amazing if this was the same skillet that Frances used in the 1890s??  I think so!!

The finished plate!  I settled on whole milk for the 'sweet milk,' so I poured a tall glass and sat down to a really tasty meal!  I worried that the potatoes would be bland, but they were actually quite good.  The pork was crispy, and the warm biscuits with butter were pure happiness.

As we ate dinner, my fiancé commented that this meal is pretty close to meals we have had here in Atlanta.  There is a huge 'Southern American' trend happening in restaurants right now, and this meal stacks up with the best of them.  We started talking about the MANY changes in the world since the 1890s, and yet, we can still enjoy the same food.  But there is something bigger, too.

Frances didn't just write what she had for dinner - she wrote about enjoying the meal with her family.  Dinner together can be the quiet moment of the day where you get to sit down and talk to the people you love.  Not everyone has the luxury of a made-from-scratch meal every night, but when we do, it is usually a special occasion.  It's not just about the food - it's about the people.

I Want Him To Say Mother

I bathed both the little ones before breakfast.  Then push sister in the buggy in the dining room so that Willie could keep the flies off.  Brother big man sits at the table + must have his "gass" of water.  He will call me "Miss Fannie" + I want him to say Mother.  - Frances, June 1892

Frances certainly had her hands full with caring for her children and maintaining the household.  Here, she describes part of her daily routine.  However, Frances wasn't truly on her own.  She had a cook to help with preparing the meals, and a nurse, Willie, to help with the children.    

How many times have you wished for extra help during a hectic day?  In our modern times, some people are fortunate enough to have that kind of assistance.  In Frances' time, her 'helpers' were former slaves. 

After the abolition of slavery, so many white families kept their cooks, nurses, maids, etc.  I wonder about Willie's story.  Was she paid for her work?  Had she been with the family long?  She was obviously integral to the family's daily life.  From this post, it sounds like Frances' son spends more time with Willie than his own mother - even calling her "Miss Fannie" as Willie likely did.

It always makes me uncomfortable to delve into this aspect of my family's past.  It also makes me uncomfortable that, as a country, we are still struggling with equal rights for all.  Maybe discomfort is a place to start.  Maybe it opens the door to conversations.  Maybe it shines a light on the darkness.