Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/398

 66 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

sorrel (Oxalis and Rumex) are sometimes pressed into service in pie-making in some of the Canadian provinces. In parts of the West, farmers' wives gather the green fruit of the wild frost-grape for pies, though I think this is more 'to make a change,' as they say, since the grapes blossom and mature so late that in most places there must be other fruits before the grapes are large enough to cook.

" Speaking of these wild grapes, I wonder if country housewives still pre- serve them according to a fashion I well knew a generation and more ago. It was always called ' laying down.' You would hear one neighbor say to another, ' I 've been laying down my grapes.' One or two frosts were con- sidered necessary to ripen the fragrant clusters hanging from the wild vines that gracefully clambered over our Virginia rail fences, or festooned tall tree trunks on the edge of the woods. A stone jar or milk crock was filled with fine bunches of the wild fruit, which was then almost covered with molasses and put away in some cool closet or down cellar. After some weeks, or even months, both fruit and liquid had a sweet-sour, spicy tang that was very pleasant. The grapes, with a little of the rich juice, were served as a sweet pickle, or in some families the grapes were removed from the stems, and, covered with the juice, used to make pies.

"Another dessert I remember in Ohio was vinegar-pie. A pie-pan was lined with crust as for custard-pie. This was filled with a mixture of cold water, richly sweetened, slightly thickened with flour, to which was added sufficient vinegar to give a strongly acid flavor. A pinch of cinnamon was sprinkled over the liquid after it was poured into the crust, then slender strips of pie dough were fastened across to make a tart. If baked in a properly heated oven, the liquid, as it cooked, thickened into a sticky paste.

" The cream-pies of my day, still surviving in the part of Ohio where I was reared, were very different from the cream-cakes of the bakeries. The pie-pan was lined with crust, then it was filled with rich cream that had been well sweetened. Into this was sifted very slowly from a dredging-box a little flour, — perhaps a dessert-spoonful to one pie. About a dessert-spoon- ful of butter was cut up into small bits and scattered over the cream. A pinch of cinnamon was added. This made an indigestibly rich but delicious dessert. Another queer northern Ohio dish is known as cheese-pie. A cup of the curd obtained from sour milk by draining off its whey is beaten with two eggs, a little sweet milk and ' sugar to taste.' Then flavor with cinnamon and bake in a crust in a deep pie-plate."

��NOTES AND QUERIES.

Cure for an Aching Tooth. — About twenty years ago, when spend- ing the winter in Virginia, I suffered torments from an aching tooth. No trustworthy dentist being accessible, I determined to await the action of simple remedies which had often afforded relief, but which this time com- pletely failed. While enduring the pain as best I could, I was visited by one of the old colored servants, who had come, as she said, expressly to cure my ailment. When I asked how she expected to accomplish the

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