Oklaiioma Writers1 Project
~- 35
of like honilny.

	We would take corn ami beat it like in a wooden mortar wid. a wooden pestle, We would husk it by fanning it and. we would den put it on to cook in a big pot. While it was cooking wetd. pick out a lot of hickory-nuts, tie tem up in a cloth and. beat 1em a little and drop teni in and cook for a long

time. We called dis dish hickory-nut grot. Then we made pashofa we beat de corn and cook for a little while and d.en we acid fre2h pork and cook «until de meat was done. Toms.btidha was green corn and fresh meat cooked together and. seasoned wid tongue or pepper-grass.

	We cooked on de fire place wid. de pots hanging over de fire on racks and den we baked bread and cakes in a oven—skillet. We di&ntt use soda and. baking powder. Wetci put salt in de meal and scald it wid. boiling water ar~l ~nake j t into pone s and. bake t t • ‘ ô. roll de ash cakes in we t cabbage leaves and. put ~ em in de ho t ashes and. bake ~ em. We cooked po tatoes ‚ and. roasting ears dat way also. We sweetened our cakes wid. molasses, Bnd dey was plenty sweet too.

	Dey was lots of possum~ and. coons and equirrels and we nearly always had. some one of these to eat. We‘d parboil de possum or coon and. put it in a pan and. bake him wid. potatoes ‘round. him. We used. de broth to baste him and. for gravy. Hit sure was fine eating dem days.

	I never had. much work to do. I helped around. de house when I wanted. to and I run errands for Misg Betsy. I liked to do things for her. When ~ot a little bigger my brother and I toted. cool water to de field for de hands.

	Did.ntt none of Master ~ niggers work when dey was sick. He a].lus saw dat dey had. medicine and. a doctor iffen dey needed one. ~Bout de only sickness we had was chills and fever. ‘n de old days we made lots of our own medicine arid I still does it yet. We used. polecat grease for croup and.