thank her and it's very nice to have the new gloucester chic or people here this let me mention have been cooking for many many here years and my talk tonight is called cooking with herbs it is perhaps the shaker quest for perfection which has mocked the movement more deeply and permanently than any other thing out of their desire for perfection through the simplicity the straightforwardness and forthright just missed which for many have characterized not only shaker life and plot but the work of shake your hands as well one of those works of the hands with which i have been involved for many years is the art of cooking shaker cookery and shaker kitchen practice like so many aspects of shaker life centered down upon doing all things well upon taking fruits and vegetables fish and fall and bringing the very best out of them through the use of what tools one has and through the right use of whatever tell us god through his grace has given one cake or a pie a loaf of bread indeed a  meal well made and well presented as i feel result from putting hands to work and hearts to god in every in every aspect of work done by the shakers over the years has or should have been done with those words of the shake a motto given by mother n we the shakers feel that this is what has made shaker for an extra shaker artifacts so forth and so on pleasing to all who see any use them many people ask what is shaken cooking what makes it different from other cooking cooking is simple wholesome food well prepared what makes it different i feel is the use of herbs organically grown herbs shaker communities particularly those in maine were found it in rural areas and from the beginning shakers grew and used their own food to this day all of our to this day all of our vegetables are grown in our gardens because of the necessity of depending on home grown food but just tipples have always been a large part of every meal we prepare resulting in the whole some country meals the difference is the addition of herbs someone has said and do you often wonder who this someone is someone has said and empress cook contrary to what recent cookbooks on shake a cooking have stated it shakers and i repeat in maine did not have the fancy expensive dishes we read of in those books in order to have to tell you about my cooking it is necessary for me to take you back more than a few years to the time i began working in the shaker kitchen when i first arrived at sabbath daily there were fifty to sixty people living at the village there were ten little girls ranging from five years to fourteen years of age approximately the same number of teens teens older than fourteen a group of gun sisters in their twenty's and thirt others ranging from middle age to blows in their eight plus brother delmar and several little boys as well as these as these i'm sorry is three boys in their early teens this comprised a la the shaker family and the kitchen work was that up in four ships of fo vigils working for two weeks at a time a very wise setup is that has avoided the same people working at the same work which can often produce an adult my first experience in the shake a kitchen began when i was twelve years old prior to this i had been expected along with all the younger girls to help with the dining room work the youngest kitchen girl was referred to as the sink girl and then glamorous the second girl was known as the vegetable girl she prepared to tuples for cooking the third person was known as the baker her task was to make in the bread rolls biscuits pies and cookies that cetera the oldest person was known as the head cook she was in charge overseeing all of the previously mentioned work as well she was in charge as previously mentioned as well as preparing the main course of the meal fish meats and so forth my time of working in the kitchen was for the first several years under the leadership of sister maple or sister ethel both alfred shakers sister ethel was the grandmotherly type of person in fact all of the young people christened her sister grandmother in addition to being one of the head cooks she was also in charge of the antique shop situated across the street it was a very slow business but whenever someone dropped in sister ethel would immediately leave her kitchen duties and go over to take care of the prospective auntie bya she had an assistant sister jeannie cooper off whose duty it was to care for the little antique shop when sister ethel was on kitchen duty sister referer was a good cook her chocolate cake was a real hit with the young people but she was a real hit star but she was a real but she loved people more than she did cooking she loved she was a very social person and made many friends not only during those first few antique shop years but especially during the museum tool as she was the first shaker to work full time as a museum guide i have to thank her for opening up the world of cooking to me it was not unusual several times a week for sister ethel to call me from whatever i might be doing and tell me that she had to hurry over to the museum and take care of customers and would i take over in the kitchen for her to get it all the time when i was nineteen years old i became one of the head cooks sister elizabeth was at this time the head cook and i was her baker sister elizabeth did not enjoy cooking as you probably all know that if you do not enjoy cooking but have to do it the results are not always what one would wish it is a sad fact that human nature puts a great importance on food and when it is not what we expect we complain after a year or two of complaints sister elizabeth asked me to change places with her she would be and she would be happy is the baker if i would be the head cook permission was granted and i became head cook in the shaker pitch and i must say though that a list of made the best lemon pie out there for taste and i have a rather large display of verbs on our kitchen shelves people often remark on it and ask if i use them or if they are there for show my answer is yes there is hardly a meal that i do not use herbs interesting lee it is only been in the last thirty years that home grown herbs have become a part of almost every dish i prepare despite the time on it reputation held by shakers and also cya teas and the vast quantities of herbs grown and soul in the communities very little herbal cooking took place during the years in which i was growing up i don't have a real explanation for this i feel that it was i think that it was perhaps because for so many years the herbal industry depression and were still struggling with the lack of money during those years when i went there to live i would imagine herb was purchased would not have been deemed a necessary item although  record books show the herb business having begun in maine with a crop of seventy nine thousand nine the society did not issue its first printed catalogue of herbs roots barks  eighteen sixty four there were one hundred fifty five distinct varieties of it at this tang this industry like so many others in which the shakers engaged yet stiff competition from the commercial world has other priorities to go over especially the fancy worked the herb business faded from the prominence it had once known from the closing of the medicinal herb industry department in one thousand nine hundred eleven very little herbal activity was carried on as sabbath day of late by the early one nine hundred sixty s our country was going through a resurgence of interest in more natural lifestyles more and more young people were returning to rural areas and an interest in natural organically grown foods was especially strong you all remember that time it was pretty much overwhelm people were beginning to discover the therapeutic aspects of herbs as well as the pleasure they brought to one's called an airy sense we had been looking into various industries to poster our economic standing and in mediate lee we felt that this was the time to revive the herbal industry which we had often talked of doing and which had once been so much a part of every shaker community in the late brother ted had been doing a great deal of research into the possibilities of bringing the herb gardens as well as the drying attics and all that goes with the rebirth of any business back to a chosen land and when i speak of chosen land there it is that our spiritual name is the easiest to grow you cannot kill me and and do not need a large plot of land a window box with mint will easily supply an average family with all that they need including delicious meant to be little by little we added to the or garden we began looking for and finding many herbs growing wild on the property no doubt they were left over from the once thriving  grow me they continue to grow aware for years hay and equipment has gone over the fields it was exciting to find just sister walk in the old granite quarry and other relative rarities in the fields and woods the sale were packed in small glass bottles but in one nine hundred seventy three we changed to tin cans the tins were made to order for us and were ever very nearly the exact replica  used in the eight hundred sixty s at this time we also launched a lot of business in speaking over and using them the shake a stick ed herb stimulate the appetite they give character and pariah tea to ordinary dishes i have found this to be true in my use of herbs they have become a part of almost every dish i prepare probably my favorite parsley for appeal the lovely green eggs much to colorless foods to nervous as one of the mixes we can talk to it at the community and it's also one of the best in sales i find myself reaching for it at almost every meal it is great on scrambled eggs for breakfast it is especially good in it especially good in chowders and this includes seafood child or in point child or i like the nerves does these and white sauce this with american chops suing a few years ago over europe department came up with a new mixture named herbal bouquet which has become a real favorite of mine deen herbs bouquet gardening and is used extensive playing when i was more involved with the herb department twenty years or so ago we would have we would have our pick up truck filled with that wonderful  terrible on is the more expensive for its growing season is shorter than many of the others it does create wonderful dishes one of my favorite meals especially when there is going to be company and i want something that looks special but does not run into extra money yet is simple to prepare i usually settle for chicken terrigal on just the name just up a gourmet type of dish we are fortunate in having a store that often offers small chickens you know those found those found about a pound and a half little birds until very recently they could be purchased for fifty nine cents a pound but even with the price increase it is still a good buy the one drawback is that because of their popularity they usually are limited to no more than two chick tends to a customer of course that would never begin to feed our family although we are now only six we still have staff and guests at the dinner table that's our new meal and in the summertime we generally feed sixteen at a meal we have worked out so that when i see the chickens for sale i buy the two allowed and then sent others down to buy two over and over and i have an idea that the manager has caught on to the fact that when i buy to my to there is a great demand for others he keeps the been pretty well filled up on that day for us he does not say anything how could his mother's went to shake the school so there is a so so there is a soft spot in his heart for the shake this i prefer using the small chickens but have no problem using a three or four pound bird either after washing the chicken drive them well i used paper towels then lightly but there are a lace salt the entire chicken paying special attention to under the wings and around the legs this includes the interior as well as the of the chicken if you are honest salt free diet use the salt substitute it's important to use salt as it creates a start of coating which keeps the juices in after salting do the same procedure with the terror gone do not skimp on it work work on a paper towel so that any of the terror gone that balls off can be put into the pan with the chicken you know although we have all these herbs we have to be very very careful with them because but during the last part of the cooking i leave it uncovered so we can crisp up a bit if you are using a small chicken cut it into quarters it looks attractive this way on a platter and make pan gravy or your favorite gravy recipe be sure to use whatever terror gone is in the pan in the gravy served this dish with steamed or boiled rice with rosemary added to the rice just before serving a green salad completes an inexpensive but delicious and pleasant to look at me speaking of sell its terror gone is excellent in salad bowls but because it is very aromatic use it sparingly with summer upon us and we hope tara gone can become a favorite herb eating meals away from the community is often disappointing it is probably please do while being stored custom to herbs flavoring our food i think that most people feel that french cooking is sponsor period to english cooking and perhaps that is due in some degree to the fact that for many years the puritans who for still much of the seventeenth century dominated england and later new england were against the thought to have aphrodisiac powers some historians have felt that had it not been for the food tubes that were established under carm well this included a ban on the use of herbs that english cooking like not have taken a back seat to the french interestingly at the shape just have never had a problem with using  in using the herbs to flavor fool one must remember to be very careful not to use too much it is so easy to overdo this when you are a beginner we have filed out a good rule to go by is in making a dish b people to use one teaspoon of fresh chopped herb or one fourth teaspoon of the dried up dried herbs usually four times as strong as fresh it is better to wish you had used a little more than to overdo it and ruin the dish with too much and i have to tell you about a turkey i ruined when i became head cook and i was what eighteen nineteen years of age i think it and herbs and stuff that made it but horribly green it just did not work well and i know i was very much well i was scolded and talked to and told not to think too much of myself and my cooking was a bad time and i'm sorry i've ruined a turkey but i learned a lot from it although shakers in maine usually prepared simple foods we were taught to take into consideration the fact that meals should be attractive to the eye is well as appealing to the palette much of the success of the meal depends on how it looks i shall always remember the advice of one of the i worked under in the community kitchen she told me to imagine the following meal white fish bait mashed potatoes calling flour and for dessert present not only a delicious meal but also one pleasant to the it is amazing how just the addition of herbs can make a special meal from what might otherwise have been a mediocre brother and the most noted of whom was elder william dumont today we set a table which would meet the needs of the area and meter or light so heavily do we feature  and she's the most long lasting dietary restriction among believers was that against poor it for a long time and beginning again in the eight hundred thirty s we ate no pork products at all but even th life because of a belief that it caused cancer passed away in his eighty ninth year from cancer of the lung in those days the school school of course had many students from not only the shake a community but all of the students whose parents lived on the farms around here and they would all bring lunch as to school do any of you remember the cooper family well anyway they had two or three children who would come to school and they would bring lunches well i made a little agreement with one of the children that i would bring something over to them if i could have one of their sandwiches so i think this was why didn't why didn't i have but over here i wonder what anyway she brought it over and i gave in and then i gave her a pork sandwiches until a card on what i was doing in the school for many years believe that seventh daily raised price to cattle which supplied us not only with milk but with meat for the table as well during my early twenty's one of my favorite chores list to help sister f l sister grandmother make butter the milk came in from the barn each afternoon just before supper and was immediately strained through a cheese cloth and refrigerated overnight mean the cream would be have risen to the top of the pans in which the milk had been stored if you have not lived on and had milk every day from your towels you have no idea how thick that cream was part of the milk would have some sour cream left in it and it would be used for cereals at breakfast the dairy room was located right across the hall from the dining room and right over there and kitchen area my job was to help sister grandmother keep the chairman's going and be ready to quickly scoop the butter out and shape it into a large ro place the money wouldn't platters kept especially for the butter these were never used for any other purposes and often the butter was sold particularly during the second world war cottage jews was also a large p we have raised the sheep for many years both for the table and pull the wool unfortunately we always name our animals and when i first served roasted lamb one of the first questions was is this jason  it was hopeless just hopeless lamb was never a popular item on our table we eventually trained our friends who visited to ask is it local meaning raised here we still enjoy lamb and i always have it during holy week on monday thursday and occasionally we eat it away from home as well in one nine hundred ninety two we rather accidentally began to raise pigs again i should say that although we didn't eat pork we always raised a few hawgs each year they took care of the garbage and probably delma would take the finished hawks to market and sell them lightweight but we stopped raising pigs and from then on we have not been without pigs for the past few years we have an arrangement where we loan to about sheep to the neighbors for pumpkin land in return they give us three piglets to raise this generally gives us six hundred and fifty pounds of meat each year we began to raise our own cattle again in one nine hundred ninety six we have had issues over the treatment of animals by agribusiness as well as having problems with what they were fed we had friends who were local dairy farmers and we were able to pick up steers very inexpensively we would get them at a few days old and then raise them for two years we always had two each year each year apart in age so that we would be able to put one in the freezer every year we take good care of them love them and know that they have had a good life we also do name them for some reason we settled on calling them all after the minor profits so we had micah nay a mess and then we adopted smiley named friend whenever the business and we really didn't know what to do the brothers always attend open farm day and that year they went to one highland capital they made inquiries about purchasing the cuff but the wouldn't sell him wouldn't sell them off only a bread in the end we bought maggie and in december two thousand and one she gave birth to del mar who was the first tough one here in fifty years it was a very very night the cattle situated out the door in the fields and course all of us how have our rooms up stairs here and all through the night especially those sleeping when this side you could hear this dreadful noise moaning groaning no one knew what it was but it was that poor sheep heaven her baby couldn't imagine to get up the next morning and went out and there was a brand new little one very sweet today we have a heard of nine lands like most of our early american ancestors shakers in the eighteenth in early nineteenth centuries consumed large accounts of alcohol the account books for those early years show considerable quantities of gin french brandy and especially rum being purchased of the world this was of course in addition to what amounts of cider put down in each family of believe us when the temperance movement became particularly strong during the late eighties chiefly under methodist leading the shakers entered into the spirit or perhaps i should say the non spirit  times and in eliminated the use of alcohol for any purpose other than those medically related it was a year of very very healing people complete prohibition lasted for less than twenty years or shortly after the civil war act we find the south union kentucky shape because they moved far and wide for their excellent bourbon the poland hill shake is doing a thriving business in the production of their northern muscatine wine and the shakers that alfred main producing a wide variety of fruit wines elford for sale then  now the earliest shaker dictum in regard to alcohol came to the fore believe first must not drink so as to become disguised how nice to be reminded that in this as well as in every brother ronald and brother we're out where other brothers would come over here we will take questions from the audience seven hundred acres in poland as well it's diverse we have a thousand acres in tree farm we have an apple orchard nineteen thousand trees on approximately twenty five acres of land we have that we don't take care of cattle she and pigs like sister already said and plenty three feral cats that we have vegetable garden in her garden and the industries are base still pretty much on the farm and also of course the herb department we have a publishing business and we make various and sundry goods for sale in our store and see goods and printed items as well and we together and form this organization that you know support the community as much as they possibly can over the years it's grown we have absolutely i am nice now they are all across the country some international and  and historical society is allowed to be part of the house which is a wonderful thing for the historical society will enjoy being here and there are good things to eat lots of things for people to do in the winter it's right up stairs over this building in the meeting house and in the summer we move across to the beautiful little meeting house changed quite satisfied in whole paul or aspect question yes yes indeed in just a few months we have two new members and there are many a few other people who are shown an interest by writing about it so i'm see it grow and i just feel that is going to  absolutely actually a sister here is already a very good cook had done a lot of cooking as you know is work in the world so she's become very very useful and hand and i it was just it was there and i know a lot of people enjoyed it and they got something out of it i think that's really good at least it's being taken care of but a many of those things were purchased by giving the shakers  animal butchered especially no matter where we would be of course they would bring some of the pots down to the kitchen the tongue and our heart so no matter what we were doing where we were grandmother airflow would give on the call man call she wanted all of the girls to come up into the kitchen immediately we all came up she had the tongue laying out she said now girls there is a tongue that never tired of hearing about  good grandmother cook it up will enjoy  girls don't be whole baby hate it i just want you to know that i can take the truck here any day go to a lawyer stand fill it up with girls your age and bring them back and we wouldn't have any more useful you who had so badly