I was a small boy growing up in what was called Garden Home and later
Westwood Colorado which was all annexed to Denver in later years. I was born
2/17/33.
We did not have electricity and running
water. We burned coal and
wood.
(Don't let anyone tell you coal is clean).
We used coal oil lamps (kerosene) and pumped water from a well in the
backyard.
Milk and butter were kept cool in a metal
bucket which was lowered
into the cool water of the well. And of
course we had an
outhouse like
everyone else.
We had goats and
chickens. So we had goat meat to eat fresh and dry for
later use and goat milk to drink and cook with. I never tasted cows milk
until my first day in school and they gave us each a small glass bottle of
cows milk. To me it tasted awful. To this day I am not a milk drinker and
only use a little for cooking. We had
chickens for eggs and meat. We had a
large garden which was watered with well water pumped by hand into a tank
which fed a hose which was moved from row to row in the garden. Pumping
water for the garden was not my favorite chore as it took
away valuable time that I thought was better spent fishing but now I am glad
I had the
experience.
We had an attic in the house but it could only be accessed from outside the
house with a ladder. I had to climb up on the kitchen roof and then open the
small door into the attic. Then I would hang thin strips of meat over a
clothes line (carne seca in Spanish, jerky in English) where it would dry.
Later when it was needed I again climbed back up the ladder and
retrieved however much meat my mom wanted. Me being small was the only one
in the family who could climb the ladder and get through the small attic
door.
My mom canned a lot of the garden stuff but also dried many things such as
hot chiles both red and green and fruits apricots, apples, peaches etc which
were later made into pies, cobblers or whatever she could dream up.
I do not remember her ever drying tomatoes or sweet frying peppers but that
is one thing I do. Here's how I do it.
I use some nice clean old window screens and simply quarter inch slice ripe
tomatoes or sliced lengthwise sweet frying Nardello peppers and lay them on
there to dry. I do cover them with cheese cloth. I elevate the screen about
4 feet so I can place a fan underneath it to blow up from below. This can be
done with sawhorses
When dry they are about as thin as an onion skin but they puff up again when
you put them in a stew or whatever.
I store them in wide mouth jars and and I use the jar lids and rings but not
tight
enough to seal them. Be sure they are thoroughly dry before you put
them in jars. Drying foods in this manner eliminates the purchase of a
dehydrator and of course this is the way it was done before dehydrators were
invented. If you can set this screen near a south facing window the sun will
help to dry things.
Drying foods is about as simple and foolproof as you can get. If the power
goes out you still have food you can eat that has not spoiled in the freezer
or refrigerator.
My mom had a part of an old monkey wrench (the hammer looking part)and
a chunk of steel about 6 X 6 inches square that she used to shred the dried meat
on. She would add that to a roux and cook it and use it as a gravy over mashed
potatoes or anything else. She was a very creative lady in the kitchen and
everywhere else.
Oh, and we had a rain barrel to catch rain water from the roof for washing
our hair.
But now a person can't collect rainwater legally in Colorado. How dumb is that?
3
