Part 4c House and Land

RAISIN'
House and Land
Pantry

Along the North wall, between the stove and sink, there was a home made cabinet about five feet long. The four upper doors were made of 1 X 10's or 1 X 12's. The base cabinet was about 30 inches deep, and was where Lucy would put a helping of freshly cooked turnip greens for me to eat before she chopped them up. Also, that is where I sat on the stool and ate breakfast every morning when I was in High School to eat oatmeal and about 10 pieces of toast with it. The doors from the upper cabinet were used on the pantry base cabinet until we remodeled the house and did away with the pantry.

We didn't have a refrigerator until Daddy bought a used one from Bro. Ezell for $25.00. There was no place in the kitchen for it, so it was put in the dining room, behind the door to the kitchen. It surely was a big deal, having ice for tea, etc. when you wanted it, and didn't have to rely on the few times each summer when the ice man would come by. (So much for the "kitchen triangle" as is used now a day for designing efficient kitchens!)

The pantry had shelves loaded with home canned goods, meal, flour, etc., the bowls of clabbering milk to be churned for butter, and all the biscuit and corn bread making stuff. Mother or Lucy would put all the ingredients to make biscuits together, knead the dough and "choke off" biscuits, pat them out a little, put them in the baking pan, then press them down slightly by using the back of three fingers. Most of the time, Mother made the supper biscuits, and she would make a "snake" for each one of us or a "Billy Boy" if we were real lucky.

In the back of the pantry, there was a window that stayed in place all winter and stayed out all summer. Under the window is where the "slop bucket" was kept. Always handy and open so that cooking and table scraps could be tossed in, then fed to the hogs.

Along the left wall, pots, pans, skillets, milk buckets and strainers, the coffee grinder and pea sheller were hung.

The coffee grinder was used to grind whole bean coffee, after they'd been parched in the oven. The grinder had a glass container on top, about a quart size, and a glass, similar to a drinking glass at the bottom to catch the fresh ground coffee. There was a spring-loaded base that the glass sat on that held it tight up to the bottom of the grinder.

Mother didn't buy coffee beans very often, especially after the war (WW II), when she'd get one-pound bags of CDM, then later cans of CDM or Maxwell House coffee that was already parched and ground for percolators or drip-o-lators. Mother bought Percolator ground. When she made coffee, she would pour up a glass full, set it on the back of the stove, near the reservoir. Then, later in the day, after the coffee in the pot that had been kept hot, got too strong, she'd dump the coffee in the glass back into the pot and reheat it for her and Daddy a cup in the afternoon.