Thread: 1880s-1890s shave?

Originally Posted by Matheus

It's a ball of soap, Frank, but I have pig lard in my freezer too.
Good to fry chopped onions and garlic on a pan before cooking beans on it, and a small dab also flavors a fried egg sometimes. My everyday carbon kitchen knives also are kept lubricated on it.

Could I also get the recipe for the beans? Sounds delicious, and 1880ish?

Yaayyy for pig fat!
I remember as a child Mom used to keep an empty coffee can on the stove. When she fried bacon in the morning, the drippings went in that pan, which was later used to fry with. Mmmm mmmm that's good eatin'!

Originally Posted by SRNewb

Yaayyy for pig fat!
I remember as a child Mom used to keep an empty coffee can on the stove. When she fried bacon in the morning, the drippings went in that pan, which was later used to fry with. Mmmm mmmm that's good eatin'!

Yes, I was thinking the same thing too. Nothing like fried eggs done in bacon grease. Health nuts would freak at the thought.

Bob

The health nuts stress out so much about all kinds of things that they and everyone else should do to be healthy, they'll probably die of a heart attack when they're 40 because of all the stress trying to stay healthy, LOL.

Nothing like food fried in a cast iron skillet with bacon grease.

Yep, eggs fried in bacon grease is about as good as breakfast gets. It's funny how some things cycle. Butter got a bad rap but we are finding out that margarine is far worse. I just read over the weekend that McDonalds is cutting high-fructose corn syrup from its buns.

Does anyone watch the TV show Portlandia? Season two starts with a song about the dream of the 90s being alive in Portland...the 1890s when people were making their own sausage and shaving with straight razors. It's a funny little segment and when I read updates about this thread it reminds me of the song.

With an Escher or Translucent Arkansas and pasted paddle or strop (CrOx is roughly 30k+) they would be getting a very superior edge. It might take longer and not be as consistent as synthetic hones but it will get there. I've done a few total Arkansas stone progressions to test it out and I got VERY good results, it does take a long time.

Originally Posted by SRNewb

I'm not saying they shaved with bad edges, But I no matter how skilled a person is, one or two arkies aren't going to get them the hyper keen edges we get today from 20k and 30k synthetic stones. And edges considered really sharp on things like a hand plane or hand tools aren't even close to what we expect today from a razor.
Not saying they had bad edges, but they probably did not fuss about it as much as we did. They made it work.

Originally Posted by Frankenstein

Could I also get the recipe for the beans? Sounds delicious, and 1880ish?

Of course!
Pretty simple.
Put 1/2 kg of brown or black beans on water for about 2 hours, or until the grains start to swell up.
Chop a medium-sized onion, 4 or 5 good-sized garlic bulbs and a big red malagueta pepper without seeds. Keep all separated.
Cut a 1/2 pound portuguese smoked sausage (paio) in 1/4 inch thick slices.
In the pan, put a table spoon of lard and let it get hot.Things are tricky now. Keep a liter jar of water ready.
Put the onion on the lard and observe it get translucent. As soon it turns translucent, put the garlic. Keep stirring with a wood spoon. When onion start to get brownish (golden!), add the sausage and pepper - keep stirring for about a minute.
Fish the beans from the bath as dry as possible and start to add it to the mix. Don't add all the beans at same time. Keep things hot, and keep stirring! The idea is to avoid cool down the mix without letting anything burn. This will render a slightly fried moist beans on mixture.
Add water to cover the mix, plus about 1/3 volume.
Let the thing cook until beans are soft. I like mine as muddy as possible, but not solid. Slurry with floating sausage slices is the word.
Serve it with fried egg and pork ribs.
Prepare to hear Milady whining about the smoked and smelly house.
Keep Outback Mike and his recovering hearth away!

Originally Posted by Frankenstein

Deeter, any chance you can get the recipe?

I wish I had it.
I do know it had tallow in it, ie. lard.

Originally Posted by Matheus

Add the pepper with the sausage.

People back in the old days & even today use hog lard to cook with. It's a lot more healthy for ya than most things they try to make us eat these days. I have always loved frying or scrambling eggs in bacon grease. That is why I would cook my bacon first. I even liked to put some chopped red onion in the bacon grease & once i could smell the onions, I would put the eggs in with a little salt & pepper & sometimes some cheese. Heat some tortillas, flour or corn & ya got a tasty meal with bacon, egg, fried onions & oh...................mmmmmmmmmmmm, yummy good!

I also like to make a good pot of beans in a Crock Pot using pinto, black or red beans, sometimes all. I would put some sliced venison sausage in with it & season to taste with salt, pepper, garlic & a couple other spices. I would put it in a bowl over some rice & that's some good eating'.

Back in those days, people also didn't have that much as far as possessions go. They had their basic cooking utensils, beds, furniture along with a pot bellied stove for cooking & heating. Some might have had 2, one for cooking & one in another room for heating, if they had another room. Many were just a one room house. Others had more rooms with doors & if they didn't have doors, they used a blanket or whatever they could use like a fur from an animal.
They had more time on their hands so they sat around whittling or thinking of ideas to make life simpler. They had their basic chores to do like milk the cow, make butter or whatever & the ones who had larger pieces of land did ranching, raising livestock & farming. They didn't have TV's or computers back then so they used their minds in other ways like Henry Ford was busy trying to perfect the automobile & the Wright brothers were building a lighter than air machine that could fly. Straight razors had already been invented as we all know & one company that was already in business in the US was the American Knife Co. in Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut who started in 1849 if I remember right. I have a razor or two from them.