The First Chapter of the Volga Story Closes
CHRISTOPH’S DAYS WERE GETTING shorter. He still did many things – things he had always done – only fewer than before. He looked after his stock, worked in the garden and in his orchard, but gave up the heavy plowing, seeding and harvesting of crops, when the acreage was allotted his sons.
In the late afternoon he often sat outside his house on a bench with a few of his friends, smoking pipes filled with Nicholas’ tobacco, sometimes even sipping a beer. Karin had stopped weaving. Moving the loom had become too hard for her. However, some time ago she began teaching her art to her granddaughters and other young women who showed a promise to excel.
The old couple had seen great changes in Norka these last years. Martin and Christoph’s dream to see a flour mill in Norka had become a reality. His heart had pounded excitedly in his breast, causing him to pull deep draughts of air into his lungs when, for the first time, the huge millstones produced fine flour. Not only could the settlers now mill their own superior white flour, but they also did not pay usurious prices anymore for the service. Best of all, they could keep the bran, a by-product, as feed for their livestock, whereas before the mill kept it.
NORKA
Oh, how the mill enriched their lives! No one had to rush the grain to market, before the rain set in or during the first frost, before the landscape turned into a frozen nightmare. Instead of selling their grain for the price the Saratov mills dictated, they could choose buyers and price for their high value flour. This enabled them to wait for the highest offer.
Christoph glowed with pride when he considered Paul’s management of pricing and selling his flour. His clever boy drove to different places, checked on buyers and prices, selling only to the highest bidder.
Paul represented the best of the Volga German farmer. With a family of nine he had to use every advantage to earn a good income. Always at the beginning of November, right after the first strong frost, Christoph and Karin visited Paul, Hannelore and the grandchildren. For then the yearly slaughter commenced.
The farmers knew how to turn this daunting, hard work into a gathering, a feast. The best sausage makers, skinners and butchers were invited to the event. Upon close examination one saw that the sausage makers were artists. Nobody knew their secrets, neither the mixing of the right spices nor the amounts used. Secret recipes passed from father to son, and although the air wafted pungently with the aroma of laurel, peppercorn, sweet thyme, and loveage, only the masters could recreate taste and flavor year after year. Their art – a feast for the eyes, excitement to the olfactory and culinary senses – is deepest satisfaction to stomachs. Of course, they were rewarded for their tasty labors with sausage and meat.
Paul, to keep his family fed for the year, had to slaughter yearly three to four beef cows, five pigs, four lambs, twenty geese and ducks. The ubiquitous chickens were killed as needed throughout the year.
The skill to kill humanely had been elevated to high status. Oxen and cattle were stunned before their throats were slashed. Pigs required even greater observance of rite, as they often sensed their approaching demise and struggled to live. Alas, their end was pre-determined.
After the killing the animals were carefully bled. Blood drained into large pots. It had always been the older children’s privilege, an honor bestowed upon the trustworthy, to stir the cauldrons until the sausage maker could season and cook the blood with its proper additives. Tastes ran different in each household and, based on preference the blood was enhanced. Some families added boiled barley to their blood sausage, some strips of seasoned pork fat, others liked chunks of meat among the blood.
Surprisingly, wondrous aromas escaped the cauldrons: blends of marjoram, laurel leaf, basil, and oregano. There were enticing cauldrons hanging over fires where entire cleaned pigs’ heads, feet, legs, tails, soft belly parts and odd scrapes of meat bubbled in their seasoned broths. Boiled until the meat fell from the bones, the brew was cooled, then poured through colanders, separating the broth from the solids.
Once cool enough to handle, it fell to the older children to pick with nimble fingers the meat from the bones. Christoph watched with amusement: things had not changed over time. Just as he had once done – they did now. Some of best morsels from the pot went straight into the children’s bellies.
“You won’t need supper tonight,” he smiled at the boys and girls and they, like generations of youngsters before, having been found out, smiled back with rascally glee. At the end of the children’s job, the large meat parts were chopped to bite size, the seasoning of the broth was adjusted and broth, ingredients, and meat were once more combined, and without further ado ladled into the Sülzenform, the mold for jellied meat.
All those walking by during this enticing event licked their lips in anticipation. By the morrow the Sülz would be set, stiff and thick, rich with goodness, and they would eat it with fried potatoes, onions and a little vinegar.
At another table, a stone slab, sanded and scoured until it was impervious to blood’s penetration, a neighbor and master butcher prepared a side of beef for hanging. The hide had been stripped, the tail and legs removed long before he began his task. With surgical precision he removed fat, he trimmed and cleaned, his well-honed knife slashing, swishing and scraping. At times he used a mallet, pounding and cleaving with an axe through the bones.
A few days later, after the meat had hung out, the process of cutting portions of steaks, chops, ribs and flank pieces began. In the house women were baking bread, peeling potatoes for boiling, peeling apples for the Kuchen. Karin still peeled as fast as the best of them. While their sharp knives stripped long circular peels from fruit and vegetable, they talked to their hearts’ content. They were preparing a feast that some had been anticipating all year long. One never ate so well, more than one’s fill, as at slaughter time.
Throughout the village many homes were similarly occupied, while others had already finished and were smoking and brining their meats.
“How many more times will I see this happy scene of winter preparation?” Christoph wondered. “I am glad I do not know,” he answered himself.