By The Way - Rembering Uncle Ray

pieces sort of like stick candy and lay that out on a platter or somethin’. When it got cold, you could just take a knife and crack it all, and it’d be sort of like yellow stick candy. It was real good. And they always had boys and girls doing it together. That was all the fun there was in it.”

And of course, no summer would be complete without hand-churned ice cream! Before electricity, ice cream was hand-cranked while ice was continually added around the outside to keep it cold. For anyone that’s made ice cream this way, you know it can be a tedious and grueling process that can wear you out. At ice cream parties, people would share the work and all take turns cranking the churn. Harriet Echols remembered that “we had ice cream parties usually on Saturday night. See, most everybody had four or five cows, and we’d make boiled custards (you know, that’s fixed with milk and eggs and sugar and flavorin’, and it’s delicious; but where you put a lot of eggs in it, it’s so rich you can’t eat much of it.), and we’d get about five ice cream freezers and invite the youngsters in, and we’d get in the parlor and get around the organ or piano and sing and play games. See, we didn’t have anywhere to go. And that’s what we did for our recreation was our parties. And we had our singing’s, and we’d meet during the week and we’d go to prayer meetin’ on Wednesday night and sing and practice songs for the choir and for church on Sunday. And then on Saturday nights, we’d have our ice cream supper. And three or four of the girls would get together and make five or six cakes, and we’d have cake and ice cream.”

This simple ice cream recipe comes from The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery. Try making it at your next outdoor gathering!

Hand-Freezer Ice Cream*

2 quarts milk 2 to 3 cups sugar 2 tablespoons vanilla Crushed ice

Rock salt

Pour milk, sugar, and vanilla into the freezer container; cover, then pack the freezer with ice and salt. Turn the crank slowly at first, faster as the mixture thickens. Crank until it’s almost too hard to turn. Eat right away, as it doesn’t keep well. *An electric ice cream churn may be substituted for a handcrank turn, but alter the recipe to fit the size of the bucket if necessary. A 4-quart churn is recommended.

Variation 1: You may also add 2 beaten eggs to the milk mixture before putting it in the freezer. This will make the mixture more custard-like.

Variation 2: Add 1 cup of any mashed fresh fruit, such as strawberries, peaches, blueberries, blackberries. For chocolate, you may add ½ cup cocoa to the sugar before adding it to the milk. Sorghum Boiling

Making Popcorn Balls

Candy Pulling