Boudin

I’d like to get back to Depression food.  I don’t know what city folks ate in the 30’s, but I have a good recollection of what my family survived on.  Remember that Dad was earning only 400 dollars a year.  He had a wife, four kids, and he was building a house.

One food item I recall was”boudin” which is a French-Canadian name.  Sometimes we called it blood pudding.  Usually we had it as a sausage that was fried in a skillet.  Having grown up with it, I thought that it tasted fine.  Sometimes we had it sliced from a bread pan, but I don’t remember Mother making it.  I do recall once when Aunt Irene showed up on a November day while  we were butchering a hog.  She carried a large cast iron skillet with some salt sprinkled on the bottom.  She held a dish towel on the pan handle to protect her hand from the heat.

I used to help during the butchering, and that is a story in itself.  We boys, usually Corky and I, would hold the pig down while Dad inserted a long, thin knife into the animal’s carotid artery in its throat.  He would feel its throat to find the pulse, them very slowly and carefully he would sever the artery and slide the blade all the way to the heart.  This actually seemed painless to the animal.  It would just lie there, sometimes grunting slightly.  Soon bright red blood would come spurting from the wound as the heart continued to pump.  Then the animal would seem to fall asleep.

Meanwhile, Irene would catch the blood as it spurted out; then she would hurry to the kitchen with it so she could prepare the boudin.  I’m not sure what all was in it, but it seemed like there were tiny bits of fat  along with some condiments such as nutmeg or cinnamon.  I guess that I should Google a recipe for it although I’m not planning to sticka pig any time soon.  I wonder what it would be like with deer blood?

I’m sure that many city folk will find this whole idea gross.  Yet, remember that we are talking about survival.  We are also talking about self-reliance and absolutely shunning any kind of social assistance.  In those days you also raised and killed your own chickens.  Nowadays, most modern cooks have never plucked a chicken nor drawn the intestines.  Food items from the grocery store are usually ready-to-cook and sometimes precooked.  Let’s not get into fast foods.  I’m not sure if many people have any idea where Big Macs come from.  I can still find blood sausage, boudin, blut polska, or whatever in local food stores although it has been a while since I’ve had any.

Some other kinds of Depression food were: baked beans, rice, home-canned vegetables and meat that we raised and Mother canned in glass jars. sauerkraut and spare ribs, fish from the lake or brook, some venison, wild berries for jelly, a lot of “patates” (Québeçoise for potatoes), sow belly and salt pork, oatmeal, and the list goes on.  I wonder, however, that if there was a really bad depression if modern-day people could adapt and survive on old-style cooking.  Next, maybe I should tell you about how to make head cheese.

Pea Soup and Johnny Cake

It must be time for some more nostalgia.  Looking into the food pantry at home recently, I noticed a long lost package of whole, dried yellow peas.  Uh huh!  I thought.  How long is it since I’ve had any “soupe aux pois à la Québeçoise”?  Understand that this is unlike green, split pea soup.  The recipe that I grew up with during the Depression years required whole, yellow peas.  Today you can still find some in most grocery or whole foods stores.   Back in the thirties we got some in Uncle Sullivan’s granary which was in the barn that had been built by our grandfather, Xavier.

Of course, in those days farmers still used horses, and horses require oats as well as hay.  Both oats and yellow peas are cool weather crops very suitable for both Chazy Lake and Quebec.  It seems that there was a serendipitous relationship in growing them simultaneously in the same plot of earth.   Naturally, the ground was first fertilized with horse and other dung the previous fall.  In the spring a mixture of oats and peas were sowed together, with oats predominating.  The pea stems have tendrils for climbing, and so the pea plants would climb the oat stalks where they would produce pretty white blossoms at the appropriate time.  The two species must have liked one another since peas are legumes and nitrogen develops in their roots, thus enriching the soil.  Old Sullivan King, Séraphin, must have brought this type of cultivation from his Quebec connection.  Peas with salted pork was the main diet of the Voyageurs who paddled from Lachine near Montreal all through the Great Lakes and beyond in search of furs for which they traded with the Indians.

Anyway, getting back to Chazy Lake and Depression food, Mother would send us to the granary with a container.  Hanging next to an opening there was a slotted sieve used to sort the peas from the oats which had been raised and harvested together.   When we were kids we called this recipe “Frenchmen’s Pea Soup”.

To make the recipe Mother would first place the dried peas in a flat cake pan and remove any little pebbles, bugs, or whatever didn’t belong.  Then the peas were allowed to soak overnight in a larger pan.  In the morning the first water was drained away.  Fresh water was added along with a meaty ham hock.  Sometimes she used a slab of spare ribs.  Remember that we raised our own pigs.  The pea soup was allowed to simmer on the wood-burning stove most of the day and was consumed during the evening meal where it was served with corn bread or Johnny cake.

Anyhow, after soaking, I made my version by placing everything in a cast iron kettle and baking it in the oven at 225 deg.  I also added some pork ribs, carrots, and onions.  And don’t forget the Johnny cake.  This meal brought back fond memories.  I guess that I may try using the crockpot next time.  Corn bread, of course, was another Depression food staple.

Bullheads

We called them bullheads. Some other folks called them bullpouts. Francophones around Chazy Lake called them barbottes. I think that black bullhead is the accepted term. They are actually a type of catfish with “whiskers” near their mouth. These are feelers, I suppose, because they usually feed after dusk.

When we were kids we caught hundreds of them over the years. In some places people disdain them by saying they taste bad or look ugly. But, hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Actually the taste is very much like that of a brook trout. The flesh, however, is less firm, not like that of a pike.

In May, during their spawning time, one of the best places to catch them was at the mouth of Seine Bay Brook. In full sunlight, if one looked out into the shallow water, he would not be able to see the bed of the stream because it would actually be black from shore to shore with bullheads all heading upstream. Many folks came from Lyon Mountain and other places to fish for them there.

The tackle people used was basic. Some used telescoping steel rods with a simple reel. Others used cane poles or hand-cut saplings. I would cut myself a pole on the way to the bay. Usually it would be of alder. Boys, at that time, almost always carried a jackknife, and alder was easy to cut. Mostly for line we used a heavy threadlike, black fishline. A large hook with a long shank worked best because it was easier to extract the fish from inside its mouth. Normally we didn’t use lead sinkers although sometimes I would use a steel washer or nut for weight in current. The bait of choice was a big, juicy nightcrawler. Naturally, I knew the best places to dig for them was at the outlet of the cesspool.

Another good place to fish was Mud Pond. At that time there were a few brook trout there, but one didn’t catch many. The very biggest bullhead we caught there weighed about two or three pounds. In the lake they were much smaller. Once I was at the edge of the brook and I noticed hundreds of bullheads on the shore gasping for breath. some were dried out and dead. Obviously there had been a flood. I followed the course of the brook upstream all of the way to Mud Pond, and still there were dying fish everywhere–no trout just black bullheads. When I finally reached the big beaver dam I saw immediately that a section of it had washed out either by a flood or, perhaps, it had been blasted out with dynamite. Whether this was an act of nature or just that of some dam damn fool, I never found out. Soon the beavers went to work, however, and repaired the damage. It took a few years before good fishing returned.

One could catch the bullheads all summer long at dusk and at night time. They could be caught almost anywhere one dunked a worm. My brother Jim and I liked to go up to the bay at Deep Inlet to fish them. I remember one clear, dark, moonless night while we were fishing and looking at stars and constellations that the first Russian Sputnik came tumbling across the sky. It is common to see them now, but, at that time, it was a thrill.

Of course, I have to mention the numerous times I was stuck in the thumb by one of the spines on the fish. There were three spines. One was on each side near the fish’s gills. The other was along the spine on the dorsal fin. The spines were very sharp, and if a person was unlucky enough to get pierced by one, it was very sore for quite some time. Some people say that there is poison on the barb. One or the other of my thumbs was usually sore all summer long. Eventually I learned how to grasp them safely.

These fish had no scales. Instead they were covered by a tough hide that had to be peeled away. My dad taught me an easy way to strip the skin off quite easily. Some other people would use pliers.

Normally we would just fry them unbreaded with salt and pepper. One never worried about bones because they all came out at once sort of like with brook trout but easier.

I suppose that now I should thaw out some frozen salmon that I bought at the store. That will be good, but it’s not the same. I’d rather have the bullheads.