Posted by Ed Kiser on June 11, 2005 at 18:23:39 from 152.163.100.6 user Kisered.
In Reply to: New to S & W posted by peteb on June 11, 2005 at 15:24:19:
By the way, welcome to the world of All Things Ransome. It is never too late to get on board and voyage the delightful journey with these amazing young people. Better late than never...
Here is a repeat of a TARBOARD offering of quite some time ago, when the conversation was about the MILK question. I repeat it here, for your dining and boxing pleasure...
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There is a running theme throughout the five lake stories, and that is the
need for a daily contact with the "natives", as they are the source of a
necessary item of camping, that being "milk". They don't seem to drink the
stuff, but they do use it on their cereal. Their primary use for it is in
their tea, as to go without milk in their tea would be somewhat
uncivilized, even though there were the rare moments that for some reason,
having run out of milk, they had to suffer the indignity of drinking their
tea without the milk.
In SA, they had to go daily (a short row) to Mrs. Dixon's for the milk.
In SD, somebody had to leg it down to Swainson's for the milk.
In PP, somebody had to go down the valley to Mrs. Tyson's for milk.
In PM, at first the D's got their daily ration directly from someone
smuggling it out of Beckfoot, until they made a more direct source out of
Jacky to bring it to them.
In WH, they were primarily working out of the Jackson's at Holly Howe, with
the D's based at the Dixon's, so milk was available from both places.
Wherever it came from, the milk was freshly obtained from the cows, so it
had to be still quite warm.
There was one time they had a problem with their milk, and that was in PM,
when they were about to pour what was left of yesterday's milk on their
cereal, when Jacky stopped them, saying, "Smell ut." One sniff showed that
the milk as aged to a point of its usage being undesirable. It was Jacky
that pointed out a place near the beck under a stone, in a hole with some
cool water in it, as being great for sticking the milk can down in there to
keep it cool.
In SD, Susan remarked about the Peter Duck's cave as being a relatively
cool place that would be good for the keeping of their milk.
Of course in WH, the keeping of the milk cool was not exactly a problem, as
it was in the dead of Winter with the lake frozen over, so my concern does
not exist in WH.
My concern is, how did people (not just our campers) keep their milk from
turning, especially in the Summer time when the weather was warm?
We have been having a conversation regarding the absence of electricity at
Beckfoot. It is not likely that anybody in the area had electricity, so
that really rules out any refrigeration, an idea that probably did not come
around until some years later in this area.
Before using refrigeration, some people may have used the concept of an
"ice box", that is, an insulated container that held a large block of ice
in it, so that as the ice melted, it absorbed the heat from the other
contents of the ice box. An iceman would come around daily and deliver a
large chunk of ice for their ice box. This process does assume that the
iceman had access to some sort of refrigeration to make the ice, which may
not have been available at that time in that region.
Yet, there is no mention of any such ice box, or an iceman, or any method
for cooling of food products that would otherwise spoil without being kept
cool. Or at least, I do not remember reading any such cooling method being
used. So, how do they keep their food from spoiling?
I can understand that certain cuts of meet can be packed in salt and thus
cured, then after the salt has drawn out the meat juices, then these large
slabs can be hung up from the rafters, rapping them in sacking to keep the
flies off. Such cured meats do not need to be kept cool. At least, when I
was a child growing up on a farm in North Carolina back in the 30's, that
is how the meat was processed at slaughtering time. Sometimes, I remember
the bacon would get, with age, a certain zing flavor, that indicated that
it was time to get that eaten before the zing became too strong. Mom had
to soak those slabs in water the day before we ate it in order to soak out
at least some of the excess salt.
I remember my grandfather, back in the 30's, back before electricty reached
his farm, had a sort of dumbwaiter on the back porch. It worked like a
hoist, with a set of shelves, on which was put the butter and milk that
needed to be kept cool. This set of shelves was then lowered into a dry
well, which was about 40 feet deep. The temperature that low in the ground
was quite cool, and served to protect the foods lowered into it. This is
the same concept about using the cave of Peter Duck to keep the milk cool.
But back to our beloved Ransome characters, just how do they keep their
food stuffs from spoiling? I just don't see how the "natives" kept their
food supplies from spoiling either, so it was not a problem just because
they were camping out; as those elders left back on shore had the same
problem to solve also.
So, how did they keep their food cool?
Or was it just a matter of, "Drink your milk before it clots..."
Ed Kiser