The Press., 1909-02-24
|OLD TIME TURKEY FAT
A Once Popular Feast In the
 Pennsylvania Mountains.
GONE WITH THE WooDsMEN.

The People, Traditions and Assoca-
 tions That Made It Possible Are No More, and 1t Joins In Oblivion the Apple Cut and Quilting Bee. Tt isn't because there is no more material in the Blue mountain region l of Pennsylvania 10 provide a turkey eat that we have had the last of those famous festivities" said a former dweller of the district described, flor there are still wild turkeys a-plenty.
 ''The turkey eat has gone out with the passing of the people whose homes, traditions and manner of life made it possible and with the occupation that was once theirs. "In the days when the turkey eat was the great winter festivity in the mountain districts between the Schuyl- kill and the Juniata watersheds the sparse population was chiefly of rude and rugged woodmen and their fami- ] lies, many of them descendants of pure Pennsylvania Dutch stock. Scores of them depended almost entirely on their skill with gun and trap for their food supply.
 'The cabins of these mountaineers were built of logs, the chinks between which were filled in with clay. A huge stone chimney rose at one end of the cabin outside, covering that en- tire end, while on the inside 1t opened on a broad fireplace across that end of the room.
 ''The cabin was banked all around with earth, against which hem1ock and pine boughs were heaped. Sometimes rows of cord wood were piled up al- most to the caves, the better to keep out the cold, which is always intense during winter on those wind swept hills.
 '"There was rarely a cabin with more than one room. The walls were dark and smoky, and from rafter or beam hung plentifully strips of jerked veni- son and chunks of smoked bear meat along with hams and bacon from the family pigs fattened in the woods and almost as wild as the bear and the deer But the choicest and best be- loved thing of the cabins larder was the fat and we'll frozen wild turkey.
 "While the woodsman's cabin was al- ways prepared for q turkey eat it never knew when it was coming A turkey eat began with the making up of party in a neighboring village or settlement. Taking along a fiddler | they would appear at this. that or the other woodsman's cabin of q winter .e evening, and the woodsman and his family did the rest.
 Instantly the birch wood pail of ci der came forth. While the cabins guests drank cider the host prepared and spitted the turkey over the nick Ory coals in the fireplace to roast for the feast. When it was ready for the table it was placed before the guests on big tin platter. Each one carved for himself, the plates being squares of birch bark.
 "The turkey eat was not complete, though, without a liberal supply of 'paan haas and head cheese, and with it went the sweetest of rye bread and butter. Paan haas is a strictly Penn sylvania Dutch creation.
 Ut is made from the rich juices left after boiling the ingredients for head cheese. these being thickened to a stiff paste with buckwheat four. This paste is pressed in forms until cold and is served in slices. It is a dull blue in color very rich and very good.
 "After the feast the turkey eat was rounded out by night of jollity super induced by the fiddle and maintained by it in its music for the old fashioned cotillon figures and reels, which were danced until the gray of morning.
 "But most of those old time woods men have passed away, and on those who are still dwellers in the mountains the game laws have forced a situation that leaves them with their ancient oc cupation gone, and the hunt being no longer a source of maintenance it's tra ditions have departed with it. Tn newer generation of these people is of other tastes and associations, so while the wild turkey is yet in proximity in that Blue mountain region to supply the material for the festive turkey eat the traditions and associations that made it possible are no more, and 1t is gone, like the apple cut, the quilting bee, the pig killing frolic and others of the old time. rural pastfmes that are now but a memory" "-New York Sun.