From June to September every creature, hogs included, commonly had as many
peaches as he cared to eat; and in addition great quantities might be
carried to the stills. The abandoned fields, furthermore, contributed
dewberries, blackberries, wild strawberries and wild plums in summer, and
persimmons in autumn, when the forest also yielded its muscadines, fox
grapes, hickory nuts, walnuts, chestnuts and chinquapins, and along the
Gulf coast pecans.
The resources for edible game were likewise abundant, with squirrels,
opossums and wild turkeys, and even deer and bears in the woods, rabbits,
doves and quail in the fields, woodcock and snipe in the swamps and
marshes, and ducks and geese on the streams. Still further, the creeks and
rivers yielded fish to be taken with hook, net or trap, as well as terrapin
and turtles, and the coastal waters added shrimp, crabs and oysters. In
most localities it required little time for a household, slave or free, to
lay forest, field or stream under tribute.
The planter's own dietary, while mostly home grown, was elaborate. Beef and
mutton were infrequent because the pastures were poor; Irish potatoes were
used only when new, for they did not keep well in the Southern climate;
and wheaten loaves were seldom seen because hot breads were universally
preferred. The standard meats were chicken in its many guises, ham and
bacon. Wheat flour furnished relays of biscuit and waffles, while corn
yielded lye hominy, grits, muffins, batter cakes, spoon bread, hoe cake
and pone. The gardens provided in season lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and
beets, mustard greens and turnip greens, string beans, snap beans and
butter beans, asparagus and artichokes, Irish potatoes, squashes, onions,
carrots, turnips, okra, cabbages and collards. The fields added green corn
for boiling, roasting, stewing and frying, cowpeas and black-eyed peas,
pumpkins and sweet potatoes, which last were roasted, fried or candied
for variation. The people of the rice coast, furthermore, had a special
fondness for their own pearly staple; and in the sugar district _strop de
batterie_ was deservedly popular. The pickles, preserves and jellies were
in variety and quantity limited only by the almost boundless resources and
industry of the housewife and her kitchen corps. Several meats and breads
and relishes would crowd the table simultaneously, and, unless unexpected
guests swelled the company, less would be eaten during the meal than would
be taken away at the end, never to return. If ever tables had a habit of
groaning it was those of the planters. Frugality, indeed, was reckoned a
vice to be shunned, and somewhat justly so since the vegetables and eggs
were perishable, the bread and meat of little cost, and the surplus from
the table found sure disposal in the kitchen or the quarters. Lucky was the
man whose wife was the "big house" cook, for the cook carried a basket, and
the basket was full when she was homeward bound.
The fare of the field hands was, of course, far more simple. Hoecake and
bacon were its basis and often its whole content. But in summer fruit
and vegetables were frequent; there was occasional game and fish at all
seasons; and the first heavy frost of winter brought the festival of
hog-killing time. While the shoulders, sides, hams and lard were saved, all
other parts of the porkers were distributed for prompt consumption. Spare
ribs and backbone, jowl and feet, souse and sausage, liver and chitterlings
greased every mouth on the plantation; and the crackling-bread, made of
corn meal mixed with the crisp tidbits left from the trying of the lard,
carried fullness to repletion. Christmas and the summer lay-by brought
recreation, but the hog-killing brought fat satisfaction.[1]
[Footnote 1: This account of plantation homesteads and dietary is drawn
mainly from the writer's own observations in post-bellum times in which,
despite the shifting of industrial arrangements and the decrease of wealth,
these phases have remained apparent. Confirmation may be had in Philip
Fithian _Journal_ (Princeton, 1900); A. de Puy Van Buren, _Jottings of a
Year's Sojourn in the South_ (Battle Creek, Mich., 1859); Susan D. Smedes,
_Memorials of a Southern Planter_ (Baltimore, 1887); Mary B. Chestnutt, _A
Diary from Dixie_ (New York, 1905); and many other memoirs and traveller's