Dinner—as we called the meal served at noon—was the biggest meal of the day. Just like breakfast, it changed with the seasons, and of course dinner was considerably different during the school year when my brothers and I were at school and Ma and Pa ate on their own. Much of our summer dinner menu (and our suppers as well) came from the vegetable garden.
Herman, sons Donald and Darrel, and the farm dog, Fanny, outside the pump house, 1954
The garden season began with rhubarb and asparagus, and later included leaf lettuce, radishes, peas, strawberries, new potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, sweet corn, wild berries, early cabbage, late potatoes, pumpkin, and squash.
In fall our weekend tasks including helping with the corn harvest, making wood, and an assortment of other tasks as we made ready for winter on the farm—all of which left us very hungry for Ma’s weekend dinners.
Baked Pork Chops with Sauerkraut
8 pork chops
2 pounds sauerkraut, drained
1 large red apple, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat a large skillet and brown the pork chops on both sides. Place the chops in a baking dish.
Mix the sauerkraut, apple, onion, and brown sugar in a bowl. Spread the sauerkraut mixture over the pork chops. Cover with foil. Bake until the pork is no longer pink inside, about 45 minutes.
Milk Sauce for Ham
⅓ cup vinegar
⅓ cup sugar
4 teaspoons dry mustard
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 pint cream or milk
Salt
Paprika
Heat vinegar in the top of a double boiler or in a metal mixing bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir in the sugar and dry mustard. Add beaten egg yolks. Add cream or milk. Cook slowly, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens, about 2 minutes. Salt to taste. Pour over baked ham. Sprinkle paprika on top.
4 pounds white potatoes
1 cup milk
¼ cup butter
1½ teaspoons salt
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese or ¼ cup sour cream (optional)
Peel the potatoes. Boil until soft and drain. Press the potatoes through a ricer or mash with a potato masher.
Heat the milk, butter, and salt together. Gradually whip the milk mixture into the potatoes until smooth and fluffy. The amount of milk will depend on the moisture in the potatoes, so add or use less accordingly. Stir in cheese or sour cream, if desired.
Note: If you are making gravy at the same time you are making mashed potatoes, save some of the potato water from boiling the potatoes to use in the gravy.
Our school offered no hot lunch program, so we carried our lunches to school in empty Karo syrup pails or lard pails. (A few kids had fancy lunch pails.) Ma made our lunches before we left each morning. They usually consisted of a couple of jelly or peanut butter sandwiches, an apple, and a cookie or two or maybe a piece of chocolate cake. In winter, many of us brought along a jar of homemade soup, chili, or even some casserole left over from supper the night before. A pan of water sat on top of the schoolroom woodstove, both to provide humidity and to warm up those jars of food. Our teacher always reminded us to loosen the covers on the jars so they wouldn’t explode and make a mess. I often thought it would be interesting to experience an exploding jar of chili, but it never happened.
I sometimes brought along a jar of chocolate milk—prepared before leaving home by mixing Hershey chocolate syrup with milk. Before going out for recess I would put my jar of soup in the pan on the stove, and then I would push my jar of chocolate milk into a snow bank near the school door. At lunchtime I had warm soup and cold milk. What more could one want?
Some of the poorer kids had little in their lunch pails, perhaps a slice of bread or two smeared with lard. We all ate our lunches together, outside on warm days and in the schoolroom during winter, and we often traded food items—a piece of cake for an apple; a jelly sandwich for a sugar cookie. And we shared some of our lunch with those kids who had next to nothing in their lunch pails.
OATMEAL COOKIES
2½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups butter, at room temperature
1½ cups white sugar
1½ cups brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips or raisins (optional)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
In a large bowl, beat the butter with the white sugar, then beat in the brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla until creamy. Gradually stir in the flour mixture. Stir in oats. Stir in chocolate chips or raisins, if desired. Drop by tablespoonsful onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes.