Fetching Milk for Dinner
The girl in this photograph carrying milk is Marion Leedom.
She was born in Elizabethtown, PA, 1903 and died 1981 in South Bend, IN
Mulberries and Root Beer
From Harvey Wike of Texas
In the October issue, Kim asked if Mulberries are eatable. Yes they are, as we kids ate a lot of them on the farm. They are only ripe if they are dark purple. As far as use in a recipe, I couldn’t say. You could eat them in cereal or on ice cream. They are good and sweet.
Also, about William Sturgis making root beer our of sassafras roots. My mother, Emma Wike nee Feaster, use to make sassafras tea. You would dig up the roots, clean them real good and then boil them. The tea was very good. As for the Pull Taffy recipe of Verna Wike nee Hostetter’s, my mother use to make a lot of it and put black walnuts, or pecans, or even peanuts in hers. We use to buy the root beer and birch beer extract at the store and bottle our own on the farm. We had our own bottle caps and the tool to put the caps on the bottles. We made our own catsup and apple cider and bottled it also.
Harvey Wike
Texas
Love Your Site
Elizabeth in New York
Hi ... looking for green tomato recipes I came across your wonderful web page of recipes. I am very interested in two of them as my husband use to make wine and has forgotten how. You have a recipe for potatoe wine and hints at a grape juice wine.... please, can you give me explicit instruction on the making of each of these. I would love to see him get interested in doing something .... since he retired he has become a couch potato. Would love to get his buns off of the couch. Thank you so much...
Answer to Making Wine
Darrell Wiseman from Indiana
The most important part of making wine is to make sure it is allowed to breath while it is fermenting. This is done by making sure the container holding the ingredients is large enough so there is several inches of air between the liquid and the top of the container.
Next, you need to place a small tube into the container, so the end of the tube is exposed to the air. Do NOT let the end of the tube get submerged into the liquid ingredients. Once the tube is in place, you need to seal the top of the container, so no air can get inside it. This us usually done with candle wax.
The next step is to place the other end of the tube into a small jug that is filled with water. This end of the tube needs to be below the water line, so that no outside air can enter the tube. If this is done correctly, once the wine starts to bubble, the pressure and gasses will go through the tube and into the jug of water. It is allowing these gases to escape that keeps the wine from exploding. And the reason you have to keep all the air away from the wine, is to keep it from turning sour, while it is bubbling.
It normally takes at least 30 days for the wine to quit bubbling. That is when it is referred to as having fermented. At that point, you can remove the hose or tube, and place the wine in jugs.
Here is a base recipe that can be used for most fruit wines, such as grape. This is for one gallon of wine.
Measure these ingredients into a 1 gallon large mouth jar, then transfer into a larger container.
1- 48 oz jar of pure grape juice
5-cups sugar
1-1/2 _Teaspoons yeast. Finish filling jug with water.
I hope your husband enjoys making this.
Published in U.S. Legacies Magazine December 2002
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