94 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 19, 1924 
Hope Farm Notes 
“Angel Food” 
Part II 
As first preparation for fish balls my 
unde went down cellar just after break¬ 
fast and cut a thick strip off the cod¬ 
fish which hung on the nail over the po¬ 
tato bin. Some of our modern fish ball 
friends tell us to use the prepared shred¬ 
ded fish, but our folks lived long before 
these modern innovations took the real 
taste out of life. In these happy days 
the family codfish had a history and a 
pedigree. Take the one that hung on the 
nail in our cellar for example. A few 
months before he had been swimming 
fat and smooth, over the grand banks off 
Newfoundland. In an evil hour he bit 
at a hook and soon found himself flap¬ 
ping on the deck of a fishing schooner - 
just out of Plymouth. He put up a good 
fight, but he had no chance out of the 
water, and the knife ended him. His 
liver went to feed the hungry crew and 
he was salted down with his brothers. 
After a few weeks the schooner crept 
into Plymouth harbor loaded down _ so 
that her keel swept the flats at high 
tide. They pitched this fish with others 
into a dory and carried him to land, 
where all were spread out to the sun 
on the fish flakes which formerly extend¬ 
ed around the curve of the harbor. The 
sun and the wind did their work, and 
after a week or so a peddler brought this 
fish back among the rocks and sand lulls 
and our folks exchanged eggs and apples 
for him, and hung him up for Winter 
food. When you use shredded fish you 
have a dry, * salty material with less 
character than sawdust or planer snav- 
ings. An entire li.sh, right off the flakes 
at Plymouth, has fatness and character. 
It carries the music of the wind, the tang 
of the salt air, the peculiar taste of the 
sea, the flavor of the sandy flats, and 
the seaweed where the childhood of that 
fish was spent—something of the frag¬ 
rant mystery which forever hangs over 
the ocean. It hangs on its nail something 
like a poem in salt, it hasn’t lost its char¬ 
acter and identity in the shredding ma¬ 
chine. All these things—the mystery of 
the ocean, the flavor of the seaweed and 
the music of the wind are needed if we 
would turn codfish into angel food— 
for I must admit that there is nothing 
particularly angelic about the appearance 
of the average codfish. 
He * * * ♦ 
My aunt could hardly he called a 
poetic soul, yet she must have had some¬ 
thing of this in mind as she handled that 
strip of fish. First she put it in water 
to soak. It must stay there just the right 
length of time, so as to soak out part ot 
the salt and yet leave much of the flavor. 
And while" the fish was soaking she pre¬ 
pared the potatoes. I wonder what lias 
become of the old Davis Seedling potato. 
It was a red variety, round and chunky, 
a rood yielder, and the finest quality I 
ever saw. Very likely some of its seed¬ 
ling descendants are still carrying on its 
fine qualities brought down to date by 
skillful breeding, but they never cook 
into a fine fragrant flour as the original 
Davis Seedling did. My aunt took halt 
a dozen good-sized potatoes and peeled 
them carefully. I pass by the garbage 
pails in some of these New xork City 
yards and see potato peelings half an inch 
thick. You would think they hewed the 
potatoes like a railroad • tie—with a 
■broad-ax. You would think my aunt s 
peelings were cut with a safety razor. 
They were not thick enough for the hens 
to quarrel over. This was not because 
the potash and lime-forming food lies 
mostly close under the skin all waste 
was sinful in those days. We have trav¬ 
eled far from the integrity of saving. 
These potatoes were, cut into small cubes, 
and three or four cupfuls were put into 
a small kettle with boiling water poured 
over them. By this time the fish was 
well soaked and taken out of its bath. 
Now came the most important part of 
th° performance, for that fish must be 
picked apart so as to leave it fine and 
flaky. As I sat there beside the stove 
with mouth watering whim my fingers 
worked mechanically at those corn husks 
it seemed to me that my aunt felt that 
she was performing some sort of religious 
rite as her great bony, swollen fingers 
picked that fish apart. For somehow the 
mvsterv and music which the ocean and 
the salt wind had put into that fish 
must be ' preserved and passed _ on 
through the chemistry of cooking into 
the finished fish balls. I have seen that, 
same unconscious evidence of the deepest 
religion on the faces of dozens of cooks 
as they prepared the food wb.ek their 
families preferred or made a feast for 
their loved ones. For I believe that a 
woman may put just as pure and true 
religion into prunes and fish balls as the 
preacher puts in his sermon or the artist 
puts in his picture. And these religious 
fish balls are often more satisfactory than 
the sermons. One reason for much of the 
discontent and unhappiness in the world 
is that too many women do not put. relig¬ 
ion into the prunes and fish balls of 
everyday life.* * # * * 
: There was, however, very little religion 
about the scolding my aunt gave me be¬ 
cause I forgot to keep the stove well sup¬ 
plied with wood. That was my job. but 1 
forgot it as I watched that codfish take 
on the wings of angel food. You must 
have a hot fire to make good fish balls. 
While the potatoes were cooking my aunt 
bethought herself of the promised Indian 
pudding. A good housewife must have 
several things going at once in order to 
economize heat. So she went to the big 
wooden bucket in the pantry and brought 
out a pan of cornmeal. Some of you 
folks may think you have real cornmeal 
in these days, but it’s doubtful if you ever 
saw such golden powder as that pan con¬ 
tained. Hard flint corn, yellow as gold, 
little ears that had run a race with Jack 
Frost and beaten him by less than. a 
week. It had been ground in an old grist 
mill on an old-fashioned stone run by 
water power, and a good share of the 
bran ground in with it. That was the 
stuff, with baked beans and salt fish on 
the side, that made New England the 
brain and workshop of America. My 
aunt measured out about seven table¬ 
spoonfuls of this golden meal and added 
two of butter. She did not need to meas¬ 
ure accurately. Instinct and long habit 
told her how much her fingers could hold. 
The molasses jug stood under the kitchen 
table, and out of this she poured a tea¬ 
cupful of thick, black sweetness into the 
meal. Salt and a little ginger went in, 
and then the fragrant mass was put on 
the back of the stove to wait for the milk. 
By this time the picked fish was soft and 
the potatoes had boiled down, and the 
angel food was ready for mixing, in a yel¬ 
low dish. These old-time cooks always 
claimed that a yellow dish was necessary. 
To those helpless people who must meas¬ 
ure everything, the rule is to mix one cup 
of picked-up fish to three cups of hot, 
boiled potato. To get the right flavor 
the potato must be fresh boiled. My aunt 
had no cast-iron rules. She just scooped 
out what she thought she needed, dumped 
it into the yellow dish and attacked it 
savagely with a big iron spoon and a 
wooden pestle. It was stir and thump, 
stir and thump, until the fish and the po¬ 
tato were perfectly mixed, and then 
came the crowning act. My aunt ap¬ 
proached a little box in the pantry as a 
miser would approach his hidden store of 
gold. Once I saw a noted Italian actor 
play Shylock. In one scene he sat before 
a box of gold coins. He rubbed his hands 
over them, lowered his head and let them 
trickle down over his neck and face; he 
bathed in them as if the very feel of the 
gold affected him. It was truly gold wor¬ 
ship, and the expression on his face was 
not pleasant to see. Well, at the time I 
saw that on the stage, somehow I thought 
of those bony hands reaching into that 
box and taking out two big brown eggs. 
1 can tell you that an egg was an egg in 
those days. After October our . Light 
Brahmas usually concluded that it was 
not ladylike for a hen to lay in Winter. 
They did little but eat corn and sit on the 
roost until March. Our Winters were 
generally eggless and only some startling 
event like a family gathering or a sur¬ 
gical operation could pull 1 an egg out of 
that box. Up to that time I had not fully 
recognized my importance in the world, 
but it came over me like a wave when I 
saw my aunt coming back with a brown 
egg in each hand! Using our eggs in fish 
balls was like putting your richest gift 
on the altar, and I appreciated it. Our 
modern experts insist that all eggs are 
alike; some little chattering Leghorn, 
they say, can lay an egg just as rich as 
one of those brown beauties from a Brah¬ 
ma or a Cochin. Such fellows would 
have had no standing in our kitchen as 
the dark-colored yolks rolled out of those 
eggs. What did we care for chemists? 
It was easy to see that when a hen took 
two weeks to manufacture one egg of 
course she put more into it than the hen 
that laid one every day ! 
* * * * * 
After making this great sacrifice of 
two valuable eggs it was not surprising 
that my aunt broke forth in song. From 
the days when the first hunter came back 
with game on his shoulder to the woman 
beside the campfire to the modern ban¬ 
quet in the king’s palace, the cook has 
felt inclined to express her pride of 
achievement in the preparation of angel 
food in song. It seems to represent a 
chant of mingled pride and victory. And 
so as' my aunt brohe those great eggs she 
sang, most appropriately, a popular 
hymn: 
“The dearest idol I have known, 
Where’er that idol be, 
Help me tear it from its throne 
And worship only Thee!” 
And that affected me like a sermon. It 
came to me that the immediate idol for 
me was—fish balls! It was my chance to 
bring down a few idols at one shot, by re¬ 
fusing to eat my share and sending it to 
those little boys at the poorhouse! I 
presume we all have such moments, and 
they generally end as mine did, by con¬ 
cluding that 'we will let the idols stand 
this time and pull them down at the next 
occasion. I was even willing to volunteer 
my great literary performance of reciting 
“The Sermon on the Mount,” for in those 
days I had that fully in mind. I am not 
the first human being who showed a wil¬ 
lingness to substitute words for actual 
deeds in making a sacrifice. 
* * * 4= * 
Beating eggs for cake or fish balls was 
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