trough near the top, was a slot to hold the “ meal-
stick,” and along this stick little Sally slid the sieve
to and fro. to and fro, to sift the meal. She next
sifted a quantity of flour into the wheat tray —a

OLD-TIME COOKERY.

105

I say, because the broom was often dipped in a pail
of water to wash away the ashes.

Pots of beans and an Indian pudding were set in
while the oven was yet too hot for bread. The rye-

 

THE SALT MORTAR.

heavy home-made wooden receptacle holding but
little less than the trough. After breakfast Madame
rolled her sleeves to her shoulders, tied on a clean
linen apron, and with a pan of milk and water and a
bowl of fresh yeast, began to compound the brown
bread. I regret to say that it is my belief that she
called this bread “ryninjun” when it was done.
It was no light task to mix five or six large loaves,
since it must be made stiff enough to bake without
pans on the bottom of the oven. When thoroughly
mixed she heaped it in one end of the trough and
set it near the fire to rise. Then she mixed the
wheaten dough and set the tray over the trough.
The oven was heated by building a fire of finely
split wood in it. This fire was kept up an hour or
two; but old ladies used to say they “could tell
when an oven was hot by the looks.” When it
was at white heat, the coals were spread over the
oven to heat the bottom; and when this stone floor
reached the right degree, the coals and ashes were
scraped out, and a birch broom, from which the
string had-been cut to let the splinters stand in all
directions, was used to sweep or mop it clean—mop,

and-Indian and the wheat dough having become
light, they were gently formed into loaves, well
sprinkled with dry meal, and slid into the oven from
the blade of a long-handled wooden shovel —the
brown bread first, and when the oven was a little
cooler, the wheat bread. The heat was measured by
the hand; if the cook could hold her hand in the
oven while she counted twenty, she put in her brown
bread; when she could count forty the white bread
followed.

There was then room for two or three pies in the
mouth of the oven. Fruit pies could seldom be made;
berries, to be sure, soon sprang up in the clearings, .
and wild grapes grew near some of the streams;
but the Whitney family and their neighbors had
to wait years for apples and the other tree-fruits.
Think how large a place fruit, raw and cooked,
occupies in all our meals and culinary calculations,
and you will wonder how our foremothers managed
to live without it! When wild cherries were ripe
Madame Whitney used sometimes to make pies of
them, of both bird cherries and the bush cherry called
chokecherries. These cherry pies required long bak-