Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen Read Free Page B

nineteenth-century recipes with this twenty-first-century hominy perspective. When I looked at the period recipes after reading the
Union Agriculturist
, they made much more sense. The full name of the newspaper is the
Union Agriculturist and Western Prairie Farmer
, and it was one of a number of early monthly newspapers written for and by farmers. The
Union Agriculturist
began its first issue, published in January 1841, with a plea for information from the people who were working the western land, breaking the prairies, and who had the firsthand information for success. “Upon you we must rely for the matter that is to make this paper interesting and valuable.”
    And they got lots of answers on a great many subjects: breeds of cattle suited to the West, how to make a beet pie, best way to preserve butter, how to cure gapes in chickens were some of the pieces published from readers in 1841 and ’42.Making hominy was a “Household Department” topic of interest in 1842. Three correspondents sent in their hominy-making thoughts to the paper. In March
Union Agriculturist
printed Putnam County (possibly Indiana) residentHenry Andrews’s letter. In April, the paper published one from A. B. Gordon of Cold Bend, Warren County, which could have been in any number of midwestern states, and in June, the last piece was from a “Kentucky Farmer.” Their letters thoroughly explained the early-nineteenth-century process and product while singing its praises as a delicious food.
    Making hominy is a country task and opportunity. Though the ingredients would have been available to city residents, the mechanical apparatus to break the kernels was constructed and used in the farmyard. Hominy making was an all-day operation, and, as I discovered, one that is well worth the effort.
    AbrahamLincoln would not have had my hominy problem. Pioneerchildren grew up in thekitchen, as the large fireplace that heated their one-roomcabins served also as the cook stove. Not only did they, by necessity, work in the fields and garden to raise the crops and manage the chickens, pigs, cows, and horses, but they were also constant observers of kitchen tasks, even if they were not involved in the preparation of the food. On a pioneer farm, labor was constant. Every morning and evening someone needed to milk the cow. Milk was set aside so it could separate, and then someone skimmed off the cream that rose to the top and churned it intobutter. Eggs needed to be gathered before they could start turning into chickens under the sitting hens. Fresh garden vegetables needed to be picked before they rotted on the vines or stalks. And in a one-room cabin, cooking took place in the space that was living room and bedroom as well as kitchen.
    Every frontier child knew where his food came from and probably how to cook it. Lincoln, like many others, would have had to help even more. When his mother, Nancy, died from milk sickness, he was nine and a half, and his sister, Sarah, was eleven and a half. The homemaking fell to these two children. Even though Dennis Hanks minimized Abraham’s indoor activities when he reminisced that all he and Abe did to cheer hardworking Sarah was to bring her a turtle as apet, I strongly suspect Lincoln would have done more than wander in from the woods and fields. In the reality of rural life, he would have helped at the very least with common malechores: chopping wood, carrying water from the stream, and making hominy.
    In the Lincolns’ farmyard, the first step in making hominy would have been to make lye, essential to removing the hulls from the kernels. So let’s look at the letters in the
Union Agriculturist
for the best ways to proceed. First the dried corn kernels must be soaked for fifteen to twenty minutes. Henry Andrews suggested using just boiling water, but the others insisted on a lye solution made by dumping a couple of shovels full ofwood-fire ash into hot water and waiting for the ash to