Back in the Day: Spare parts were main dishes

The image of my father seated at the kitchen table with a large bowl of oatmeal, doused with evaporated milk, covered with lots of sugar and topped with sliced bananas always comes to mind when I think of my father.

As a product of Ritter/Walterboro, South Carolina, my father ate some interesting and strange foods. I had only one; placing string beans or green peas on top of rice and covered it mayonnaise. Come with me today as I highlight foods that you may recall or actually ate, back in the day.

How well do you remember some of the foods eaten back in the day? Some of you ate and perhaps still eat pickled pig feet. Maybe you even sampled pig tails and pig ears. In some quarters, eating these parts of the pig was very popular.

Some people ate “Mountain Oysters.” For those unfamiliar with this delicacy, mountain oysters are the testicles of the bull. We can also mention such foods as Potted Meat, Spam and Corned Beef to this list. Now, I know that some of you are frowning at the mention of these items, but they enabled our ancestors to survive.

We have advanced from the cotton fields of North and South Carolina to the sprawling lawns of suburban communities and may no longer eat pork products. Pork products such as chops, hot dogs and bacon were not substituted with turkey chicken or beef products, back then. Many reading this column ate pork hot dogs and bacon when you were youngsters back in the 50s and 60s.

I cannot ignore chitterlings, a New Year’s favorite pork item that some refer to as “Wrinkled steaks.” While I loved my mother’s cooking, I made it a point to be out of our home when chitterlings were being cooked. I could not stand the smell and could not understand how anyone could put something in their mouth that smelled as awful as chitterlings. But they did, back in the day.

While I love chicken, in particular the breast, I cannot imagine that there is anything tasteful about chicken necks, chicken livers, chicken gizzards, chicken backs and chicken feet. More people than you can imagine made a meal sucking on chicken necks and chicken feet in the past or enjoying sauteed chicken livers served over rice.

Back in the early 60s, while standing in formation during basic training in the United States Army, I saw a sergeant climb a tree, grab a squirrel, kill it and walked around holding it by the tail. This brother, clearly from the back woods of Kentucky, talked excitedly about his meal for that evening. Most of us were petrified, as we had never heard of someone eating squirrel. If squirrel was not something that was found on your dinner table, then what about ground hog, turtle, snake or alligator? Eating such things may seem odd but I know of people who found these selections to be tasteful, back in the day.

Has anyone reading this column eaten muskrat? My dear wife returns to her roots of Smyrna, Delaware and enjoys eating muskrat on occasion. I understand that before eating it, cleaning muskrat is quite a chore. Most people eat it fried. However, for any of you that may want to give a stab at eating muskrat, here is a recipe that you may want to try. Soak it overnight in salted water (1 tablespoon salt to 1 quart of water), drain, disjoint and cut into desired pieces. Place it in a deep pan and add 1 quart of water, salt, pepper and onion. Cook about one hour. Melt fat in skillet and fry meat to brown on one side. Turn and immediately pour ketchup and Worcestershire Sauce over the meat. Almost cover with water (about 1 cup) and let simmer until gravy is thick enough to serve (about 30 minutes). I dare you; try it.

If eating muskrat is a bit too much then perhaps possum will meet your fancy. You can have possum soup, Creole possum, wild possum kabob, possum stew, stuffed possum or possum roll. As a child, I can remember going into my basement on several occasions, and discovering a possum hanging from the ceiling, waiting to be prepared for cooking. After catching the possum, it should be dressed out as you would a pig by dipping it into boiling water after scrapping it clean. This is not an easy task and is one that takes about an hour to do. After the possum is cleaned, cut it into quarters. Parboil it for thirty minutes or until tender but not falling apart. Then season with salt and pepper. Place it in a non-stick baking dish, skin side up. Peel and place raw sweet potatoes around the possum. Some people use onions as well. Bake at 350 degrees until the sweet potatoes are soft. It usually takes around an hour and one medium size possum will serve four. You can have roast possum, possum patties, stuffed possum or barbecued possum.

There have been many accounts of how our ancestors survived by doing creative things with the animal parts that slave owners were going to discard and rodents that roamed the fields. How some of these parts could be eaten is beyond my imagination. Regardless of how unappealing these choices seem, we should be forever grateful as our forefathers, people like my father, demonstrated their creativity by utilizing them for meals in order to survive, back in the day.