Dandelion with Hot Bacon Dressing

Every April my mother sent us girls out along the fence rows with a paring knife and a pan to cut dandelion before it flowered, while the leaves are young and not too bitter. This dressing goes back further than anybody's card. Mother just knew it. I wrote it down the year she died, standing at her stove, so it wouldn't be lost.

In measuring cups:

• 4 cups young dandelion greens, washed and dried
• 4 slices bacon, cut in small pieces
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• Salt and pepper, and 2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced

How:

1. Fry the bacon crisp and take it out of the pan. Leave the fat.
2. Stir the flour into the hot fat.
3. Beat the egg, sugar, vinegar and water together and pour it into the pan. Stir over low heat until it thickens, a minute or two.
4. Pour it hot over the greens, toss, and put the bacon and sliced eggs on top. Eat it right away, with boiled potatoes.

Pick your dandelion away from the road and out of any yard that's been sprayed.

Dried Corn

We dry sweet corn every August, the way Albert's mother did, and it's what goes on our Thanksgiving table every year, baked in milk. It tastes like nothing else, sweet and a little toasty. You can buy it dried in the store around here, but it isn't the same as your own.

In measuring cups:

• To dry: fresh sweet corn, as much as you have
• To bake: 1 cup dried corn, ground coarse in the food grinder (or the blender)
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

How:

1. To dry: boil the ears 5 minutes, cool them, and cut the corn off the cob. Spread it thin in shallow pans and put it in the oven at its lowest setting with the door propped open a crack. Stir it every half hour or so. It takes most of a day. It's done when it's hard and rattles in the pan. Cool it and keep it in tight jars.
2. To bake: scald the milk, pour it over the ground corn, and let it soak at least an hour.
3. Stir in the eggs, sugar, salt and butter. Pour into a buttered casserole.
4. Bake in a moderate oven (350) about 45 minutes, until it's set in the middle like a custard.

Egg Noodles

This is what to do with the yolks from the angel food cake, and it's how my mother taught me to stretch a chicken to feed fourteen. On baking days the noodle dough would be drying over the backs of every chair in the kitchen.

In measuring cups:

• 3 egg yolks and 1 whole egg
• About 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 to 4 tablespoons water

How:

1. Beat the yolks and egg with the salt and 2 tablespoons water. Work in the flour with your hands until you have a stiff dough, adding a little more water if it won't come together. Knead it smooth.
2. Divide it in half and roll each half out on a floured board as thin as you can. Thin as paper, Mother said.
3. Let the sheets dry on a clean towel until they're leathery but not brittle, 30 minutes to an hour.
4. Roll each sheet up loose like a jelly roll and cut across in strips, thin or wide as you like. Shake them out.
5. Cook in boiling chicken broth 8 to 10 minutes. Or dry them all the way and keep them in a jar.

Elderberry Pie

Aunt Catherine, my father's sister, made the best elderberry pie in the township. Elderberries grow wild along every fence row and creek bank up here and ripen in late August, in big flat heads of tiny dark purple berries. You pick the whole head and strip the berries off at the kitchen table with a fork, which purples your fingers for a week.

In measuring cups:

• Pastry for a two-crust 9-inch pie
• 3 1/2 cups elderberries, stemmed
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
• 1 tablespoon butter

How:

1. Heat the oven to 400.
2. Mix the berries, sugar, flour and vinegar and pour into the bottom crust. Dot with the butter.
3. Put on the top crust, crimp the edges and cut a few slits.
4. Bake 10 minutes at 400, then turn it down to 350 and bake 30 to 35 minutes more, until the juice bubbles up through the slits. Let it cool before you cut it or it will run all over.

Use only the ripe, dark purple berries. Leave out every bit of stem, leaf and green berry, and don't eat them raw by the handful; they'll make you sick. Cooked in a pie they're fine, and they're wonderful.

Fastnachts

Fastnacht Day is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, and in our part of Pennsylvania you eat fastnachts that day, to use up the lard and sugar before Lent. The last one out of bed in the morning is called the Fastnacht and gets teased about it all day. (In our house that was Albert, every year.)

Lizzie Macy, who lived on the next farm when I was a girl, made them by the dishpan and handed them over the fence to all us children. When I married, she wrote this card out for me as a wedding present. This year I made eight dozen on Tuesday, February 11. Next year's Fastnacht Day is Tuesday, February 24. Mark it.

In measuring cups:

• 1 cup plain mashed potatoes
• 1 cup lukewarm potato water (what you boiled the potatoes in)
• 1 package dry yeast
• 1/2 cup sugar
• About 6 cups flour, 2 cups the night before and the rest in the morning
• 1/2 cup lard (or shortening), melted and cooled
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Lard or oil for frying, and sugar for rolling

How:

1. The night before, stir the yeast into the potato water. Mix in the mashed potatoes, sugar and 2 cups of flour. Cover and leave it in a warm place overnight.
2. In the morning, beat in the lard, eggs and salt, then enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead it smooth on a floured board.
3. Let it rise in a greased bowl until double, an hour or two.
4. Roll it out 1/2 inch thick and cut it in squares about 3 inches across. Cut a slit in the middle of each one with a knife. Let them rise on floured towels until puffy, about 45 minutes.
5. Fry a few at a time in lard heated to 375, a minute or two on each side, until golden brown. Drain on brown paper.
6. Roll them in sugar while they're warm, or split them and spread them with molasses, which is how Lizzie ate hers. Makes about 4 dozen.

Funnel Cakes

Our church runs a funnel cake stand at the county fair every August, and I've been frying at it for eleven years. People come back to that stand year after year. One man drives from Ohio. The trick is all in the pour: you have to swirl and not stop, like writing your name in cursive.

In measuring cups:

• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• Oil for frying, about an inch deep in a heavy skillet
• Powdered sugar

How:

1. Beat the eggs and milk together. Sift the dry things together and beat them in until smooth. It should pour like heavy cream. If it's too thick, add a little more milk.
2. Heat the oil to 375.
3. Hold your finger over the bottom of a funnel (about a 3/8-inch opening) and fill it with batter. Hold it over the hot oil, take your finger away, and swirl the batter out in a spiral from the middle, then crisscross back over it.
4. Fry about a minute, until golden underneath, then turn it with two forks and fry the other side.
5. Drain and shake powdered sugar over the top. Eat it hot, standing up, with sugar on your shirt.

Fried Mush

This was breakfast all winter when I was a girl and it's still Albert's favorite. You make the mush the night before and fry it in the morning. Some folks eat it with syrup, some with apple butter, some with tomato gravy. Albert eats it with all three at once and I've stopped trying.

In measuring cups:

• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup cold water
• 3 cups boiling water with 1 teaspoon salt
• Flour for dredging, and butter or bacon fat for frying

How:

1. Stir the cornmeal into the cold water first, so it won't lump. Then stir it slowly into the boiling salted water.
2. Cook over low heat, stirring often, about half an hour, until it's very thick. Cover it; it pops.
3. Pour it into a greased bread pan, cool it, and set it in the refrigerator overnight.
4. In the morning turn it out and slice it 1/2 inch thick. Dip the slices in flour and fry them slowly in butter or bacon fat until they're crisp and brown on both sides.