“Our marster would not sell his slaves. He give dem to his children when they married off do'. I swept yards, churned, fed the chickens. In de ebening I would go with my missus a fishin'. We eat collards, peas, corn bread, milk, and rice. We got biskit and butter twice a week. I thought dat de best things I ever et wuz butter spread on biskit. We had a corn mill and a flour mill on the plantation. There wuz about 24 slaves on de place. Dey had brandy made on de plantation, and de marster gib all his slaves some for dere own uses.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
cakes; if at all damp, the preparation is sure to be heavy. Before mixing it with the other ingredients, it is a good plan to place it for an hour or two before the fire, until it feels warm and dry. 1691. Yeast from home-brewed beer is generally preferred to any other: it is very bitter, and, on that account, should be well washed, and put away until the thick mass settles. If it still continues bitter, the process should be repeated; and, before being used, all the water floating at the top must be poured off. German yeast is now very much used, and should be moistened, and thoroughly mixed with the milk or water with which the bread is to be made. 1692. The following observations are extracted from a valuable work on Bread-making, [Footnote: "The English Bread-Book." By Eliza Acton. London: Longman.] and will be found very useful to our readers:-- 1693.
Sources: The passage is from United States. Work Projects Administration, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from , free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — teal cloth, sheaf stamp.