National Log Cabin Day and National Catfish Day.

Log cabin day started back east in Michigan to celebrate the home of the era way back when.  No glass of screen on the windows, just openings.  Most did have a door however.  So a burglar could just enter through the window rather than open the door, however the shotgun over the fireplace would probably meet him post hast.

My research shows quite a lot of celebrations that surround National Log Cabin day.  Most of the celebrations were held over the weekend with craft shows, articles and plays having log cabins as the theme and of course lots of food that was common in the log cabin days.  Have you ever heard of  “hard tack”?  And did you know it is nothing more than flour and water mixed together, spread out and cut into circles about 3 inches across and then baked until it’s hard enough to use as a hockey puck?  Here you go little Johnny, I know it’s only 7 a.m., but chew on this until supper is done.

What we havin fer supper ma?  We will be having “Pease Porridge” son, now git along.

I’ve often wondered what Pease Porridge was and now I know, so I’ll share it with you.  Start with peas and mash them little suckers up until they are not identifiable as peas anymore.  Now mix in a couple of eggs, some butter and salt and pepper and mix that all up.  In your mind can you see the green mucky looking mess in the bowl?  Now transfer that mess into a dish that can stand to get real hot and also will fit inside your dutch oven.  You are going to heat that bowl up in a dutch oven that has about 1/2 inch of water in it.  Put the lid on the dutch oven and heat that baby up until the water boils and steams.  They say about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Of course the cooks back in the day didn’t have thermometers, but they were pretty dang good at figuring it was just the right amount of heat to get the job done.  After all, little Johnny is just about done with his hard tack biscuit and he will be hollerin fer food.

So when this mix is all cooked it will be like the consistency of rubbery mush.  If there is any left after eating supper, it can be sliced and fried for breakfast the next morning.  As for breakfast you would want to cook up some sort of meat like bacon or sausage to go with the fried green stuff.  I think I’ll just eat the meat and let little Johnny have my fried green stuff.  And it sure makes me NOT wonder about the little saying “Pease Porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old”.  I guess after nine days of nobody wanting to eat it you would toss it out.

Well, so much for log cabin days.  I think National Catfish Day sounds a whole lot more fun than kicking around a hockey puck and trying to gag down some pease porridge.

Enjoy your hot and windy June 25, 2012!

Bears Butt