It is hard to believe that we have entered the third month of 2009. We are again experiencing some single-digit temperatures, which is unusual for this late into the winter.
This kind of cold weather makes one long even more for spring. I do hope it will stay cold, although not too cold, for Saturday. Our plans are to butcher three hogs here at our place. The reason we like for it to stay cool is that the sausage will grind better and the meat will stay cold enough until we have time to get it into jars and processed. Two hogs will be for us and one for Jacob's family. These hogs will weigh between 270 and 300 pounds apiece. We asked brother Albert's family if they would come to help us.
Saturday will be a busy day but how thankful we will be for the meat! We also like to cook some liver pudding and make "Pon Hoss."
Pon Hoss is a dish made from the juice that is left over from the pork bones. The bones are cooked in the big iron kettle and the juice is thickened with flour or cornmeal and some liver pudding and then seasoned with salt and pepper. The juice is then poured into loaf pans to chill. The hardened, chilled result is what we call Pon Hoss. The Pon Hoss is always good sliced and fried for breakfast.
Butchering hogs is a big, greasy job. As a young child I always enjoyed getting together with my cousins on butchering day. Dad would always scald our hogs but we will just skin ours, which makes the work a bit lighter. I always thought it looked so dangerous to watch the men get the hogs in a big tank of hot water for scalding.
This past Friday evening our daughter Elizabeth, 14, was excited to finally meet her pen pal, Julia. They have been writing to one another for two years so they felt like they knew each other and yet it was a treat to finally meet. Another friend who was in on the gathering invited 10 of Elizabeth's other friends and family for the get-together. Everyone showed up except for one. The girls had an enjoyable evening as well as us parents visiting. We were served a delicious supper. We appreciated that Elizabeth's friend and family opened their home to us and made this meeting possible.
My husband Joe isn't working on Mondays for the next month so today is a good day to prepare for this weekend's butchering. Brother-in-law Jacob is coming over today to help Joe get things set up. Someone is also coming today to take our 2-year-old horse, Spirit, to be trained for the buggy. We hope this horse will turn out to be a good, safe, family horse. She is built really big, which helps to pull a buggy with a big family.
I have lots of work waiting to be done so I best be getting to it. They always say work won't run away but sometimes I wish it would. May you all have a nice week and God's blessings to all.
We'll have cornmeal on hand this weekend for the thickening of the Pon Hoss. Cornmeal also makes for a good pie. Try this recipe:
Cornmeal Pie
2 eggs, beaten
1&1/2 c. brown sugar
3 T. butter
4 T. cream
2 T. cornmeal
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, mix all the above ingredients together. Pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake or the top will crack.
Lovina Eicher is Old Order Amish. She hand-writes this column from her home in southern Michigan. Anyone with cultural or cooking questions can send them to: Lovina Eicher, The Amish Cook, P.O. Box 2144, Middletown, OH 45042. Read all of her columns online at www.record-eagle.com/amishcook.
Print this story
E-mail this story
