Big Creek, Roscoe, Saturdays at Granny's, Bertha's Company Hash Recipe

Ancestors plowing field.

Big Creek, where I grew up, is a community in south Alabama. Not a town or a city. Just a little community made up of farming families whose ancestors have lived there since the 1700's. Big Creek Methodist Church where my father is buried has the grave of a Revolutionary War soldier, whose family is tied to mine by the marriage of distant relatives.

I have traced my family tree back to my Great, Great, Great Grandfather Eli English. The entire family lived within a few miles of Big Creek. They were farmers and woodsmen, loggers and pulpers. Eli English was born in 1848 in Ga. He was a farmer and later became a preacher in a church named Bethel Baptist close to Graceville, Florida, about 7 miles from Big Creek.

Yes the creek is Big. It is small in places but big in others. It is fed by a bay called Cooper Bay, where my Dad always said "the biggest coons in the country live in Cooper Bay!"  He loved coon hunting. I asked him why and he said he just liked hearing the dogs bark and tree the coons. He loved his dogs and he loved being in the woods. I never remember not having at least two hound dogs, usually more than two.

When I was about four years old Daddy brought a baby raccoon home. It was a baby that his dogs  made an orphan. He didn't tell me that.  He just fed the little fuzzy thing with a bottle and gave it vegetables and fish to eat. His name was Roscoe. Roscoe grew up to be a big guy.  He was about as big as my dog Louie, who weighs about 12 lbs.

Soon Roscoe learned how to get out of his pen. His pen was on the other side of the pump house just outside the kitchen window. The dog's pens were on the other side of the pump house by the barn. Of course we always knew when Roscoe was out because the dogs would go crazy!

Raccoons are very smart and use their front paws the same as we use our hands. They look like they have leather gloves on to me. We fed Roscoe grapes and corn on the cob and he washed them first and then ate, holding them in his hands. He was cute and fun to watch. I was never allowed to hold Roscoe but I could touch him while Daddy held him.

One day in the spring, I think, we were going to Granny's house for supper and when we came home we found that Roscoe opened the back door and wrecked the kitchen. It was totally destroyed. All of the dishes were out of the cabinet and broken in the middle of the floor. Flour, sugar, potatoes, everywhere! And to make it even worse there was a bucket of syrup and a churn of butter spilled too. Wow what a mess that was. I remember Momma sitting down in the middle of the floor and crying. Daddy put me to bed and when I woke up the next morning it was all clean.

Roscoe was locked in his cage after that. And despite Momma saying he had to go and arguing with my Dad that he should turn him loose he stayed for a while longer. Then one day he bit Daddy's thumb really bad. After momma bandaged his hand Daddy loaded Roscoe in the dog box he always carried in the back of his truck and took him to the bay and set him free. Daddy said he learned then that no matter what you do a wild animal will always be a wild animal. Roscoe wasn't able to feel remorse or gratitude or know right from wrong. He couldn't become a domestic pet.

The syrup that Roscoe spilled came from Daddy Buck's in Graceville. Really good cane syrup. Wish I had some right now! We ate syrup for breakfast mixed with peanut butter. Momma made her biscuits. I don't know if store bought biscuits even existed then. They didn't for us anyway! The homemade butter was just the very best! Daddy took a little butter and smashed it with his fork and poured some syrup over it, and stired it all together and broke off pieces of the biscuit and "sopped" it up! I loved it and still do. I just haven't ever been able to make those good biscuits the same as Momma.

Picture of Me and Daddy :)

Momma didn't measure anything. She took flour, she stored in a big round plastic container inside a big silver pail and made an indention or well in the flour and she poured in some buttermilk. Then flipped the flour from the sides of the well into the buttermilk. She used her hands and flipped the dough in the well until it was the right consistency. Then she pinched off a little and rolled it in her hands to make a circle and placed them in a greased cast iron skillet. When the skillet was full she put a dab of cooking oil on top. She is really good at doing this. But doesn't make them anymore. I asked her why and she said that the frozen ones are just as good and alot easier! They are easier Momma, but not better!

Me, Momma and Greg

My Grandpa, Hubert Holland lost his thumb when he worked in the saw mill and he told us that he bit it off sopping syrup! He took me to see syrup being made one day. I'm not sure if we were in Gracville or Cottonwood. I was little, but old enough to remember going with him. I remember the mules pulling the arms of the grinder, and the strong smell coming from these big black cast iron pots that were outside over a fire. We took home a big five gallon pail of syrup and Grandpa filled up smaller pails for us to take home. Those pails were used for a lot of things. In an earlier blog I told you about Granny storing her Lane Cake with cut apples around it. She used one of these pails for that, and she stored flour and sugar in them also.

I spent as much time as I could with Grandpa and Granny. On Saturdays we ate breakfast and then Granny went out in the back yard to do laundry.  She had an old wringer washing machine. I loved to watch her set this thing up. She always said "Now Katie you sit right there and don't move. Granny don't want you to get your fingers caught in this old machine. Noooo why it would just pinch your little fingers right off!" She always called me Katie. And if she was looking for me she would call out "Yoo Hoo Katie Lou where are you?" I was usually in her room in the floor looking at something or plundering through her closet, trying on her shoes, or putting on her "ear bobs", as she called her earrings. Later in the afternoon Grandpa would take me to the store at Wilson Mill for a treat. I usually had an orange soda and a Moon pie or a Baby Ruth candy bar, Grandpa liked those. Then I would take a nap on a pallet in the living room with an old black oscillating fan blowing. The noise and the movement of the curtains put me to sleep every time.

On Sunday mornings after breakfast Granny read the Sunday Comics to me, "the funnies" as she called them. I liked Blondie and Dagwood and Charlie Brown and Alley Oop and Orphan Annie. Alley Oop was about a guy who lived in the jungle and there were always pairs of eyes looking out of the dark at him. That was really creepy to me. I have always had a reoccuring dream that I am walking and all of a sudden there is darkness and eyes popping out looking at me.

Ok that's enough of that I hope I didn't bore you with those memories.

This is a picture of Granny and Grandpa on their 50th wedding anniversary. Granny was so happy that day! She said "Wooo Katie, I can't believe we made it 50 years! I wouldn't trade my life for any other."

The following recipe was in Granny's box and it was written by her sister in law, Bertha Holland.
The recipe calls for two cups of tomatoes. She canned all of her tomatoes or put them in the freezer. Today you can purchase canned tomatoes. Use for this recipe, a #2 can, which is the large can of whole peeled tomatoes. The steak sauce she used was probably A1 steak sauce.