The Shasta courier., 1869-06-19
COU Err.
California CuIinar, Experiences.

/ am survivor of all the different eras
of California amatuer cookery. The hu-
man avalanche precipitated on these shores
in the rush of =" 49' and :. so" was mass
of culinary ignorance. Cooking had always
by us been deemed part of woman's king
dom. We knew that bread was made Of
-four, and for the most part so made by
woman. 1t was as natural that it should
be made by them as that the sun should
shine. OF the knowledge, skill, patience
and experience required to conduct this
and other culinary operations, we realized
nothing. So when the frst-the pork,
bean and fapjack-era commenced, thou
sands of us boiled our pork and beans to-
gether an equal period of time, Iand then
wondered at the mysterious hardness of the
nutritious Vegetable. In the Fall of "50''
a useful scrap of wisdom was disseminated
from Siskiyou to Fresno 1t was that beans
must be soaked over night and boiled at
least two hours before the insertion of the
pork. And many man of mark to-day
never experienced a more cheeful thrill of
combined pride and pleasure, than when
first he successfully accomplished the feat
of turning fapjack.
We soon tired of wheat cakes. Then
commenced the bread era the heavy bread
era, which tried the stomach of California.
That organ sustained daily attack of laden
flour and doubtful pork. The climate was
censured for mortality which then pre-
vailed, due, in great measure, to this
dreadful diet. With the large majority of
our amatuer cooks, bread making provided
but series of disastrous failures. Good
bread-makers, male or female, are born, not
made. In -four we foundered from the
extreme of lightness to that of heaviness
We produced in our loayes every shade of
sourness and every tint of orange, from
excess of salaratus. Or crust, in varying
degrees of hardness and thickness, well
illustrated the qualifications of the earth
Our loaves "did" in spots Much pros
pecting was often necessary to develop pay
bread
In the early portion of 81" just pre-
ceding the pie period, came an epoch of
stewed dried apples. Even now. my stom-
ach soul shudders as l recall the trying
time. After we had apple -sauced ourselves
to safety, with diabolical ingenuity we
served it up to each other, hidden in thick,
heavy ramparts of -four 1t was despe-
rate struggle with duff and dumplings-
Like Ney returning alone to Paris after the
dreadful Russian campaign, can row re-
call no living comrade of the dried apple
era.
But those who first ventured on pies were
men possessed in some degree of taste and
refinement. No coarser nature ever troubled
itself with pie-making. The preparation
and seasoning Of the mnce meat, the roll
ing out and manifulation of the crusts. their
proper adjustment to the plate, the orna-
mantal scollops around the edge, (made
with the thumb) and the regulation of the
ovens heat to secure that rich shade of
brown, required patience and artistic skill.
The early ple-makers Of our State were
men who as soon as possible slept in sheets
instead OF blankets, who were skilled in
washing linen, who went in clean attire ON
Sundays, and who subscribed for magazines
and newspapers. On remote bars and
gulches such men have kept households Of
incredible neatness. their cabins sheltered
under the evergreen oak, with clear rivulets
from the mountain gorges running past the
door, with clothes-iine precisely hung with
shirts and sheets, with gauze covered meat.
safe hoisted high in the branches of tho
overshadowlng trees, protecting those pies
from lntruding and omniverous ground
and .inquisitivc yelow-iackets ;
while about their doorway the hard. clean.
swept led earth resembled a well-woro
brlck-pavement. There is morality in pies
There was canned provisioned era.
fruitful IN sardines and oysters. The
canned oysters of those days were as de-
as canister shot They pene-
trated everywhere. In romote and seldom
visited valleys of the Slerras, have grown
solemn over the supposition that mine were
the first footsteps which had ever indented
the soil. And then | have turned but to
behold the gaping, ripped and jagged
mouth OF one OF those inevitable tin cylin-
ders scattered like dew over the land, and
labelled "Cove Oysters" One of our
prominent officials, giving evidence in
suit relative to the disputed possession of
"a mining claim in remote district, when
asked what, in the absence of house or
shaft, he would consider to be indications
of the former presence of miners, answered
" Empty oyster cans and empty bottles"
-Qertand Monthly.