Dishes & Beverages of the Old South

Dip-candles I never saw in common use—but Mammy showed me how they were made back at Ole Marster's, in the days when candle-molds were not to be had. Dipped or molded, the candles were of varying substance. Tallow was the main reliance—mutton tallow as well as that from our beeves. It was tried out fresh, and hardened with alum in the process. The alum was dissolved in a little water, and put with the raw fat as it went over the fire. By and by the water all cooked away, leaving the alum well incorporated through the clear fat. Lacking it, a little clear lye went in—Mammy thought and said, the lye ate up the oil in the tallow, making it firmer and whiter. But lye and alum could not go in at the same time, since being alkaline and acid, they would destroy each other.

Great pains were taken not to scorch the tallow—that meant smelly and ill-colored candles. After straining it clear of cracklings, it was caked in something deep, then turned out and laid on the highest shelf in the lumber house to await molding time. Cakes of beeswax were kept in the Jackson press, so children, white and black, could not take bites for chewing. It ranked next to native sweet gum for such uses—but Mammy felt it had much better be saved to mix with the tallow at melting time. It made the candles much firmer, also bettered their light, and moreover changed the tallow hue to an agreeable very pale yellow. Bee hives, like much else, were to a degree primitive—the wax came from comb crushed in the straining of honey. It was boiled in water to take away the remnant sweetness, then allowed to cool on top the water, taken off, and remelted over clean water, so manipulated as to free it from foreign substances, then molded into cakes. One cake was always set apart for the neighborhood cobbler, who melted it with tallow and rosin to make shoemaker's wax. Another moiety was turned into grafting wax—by help of it one orchard tree bore twelve manners of fruit. And still another, a small, pretty cake from a scalloped patty pan, found place in the family work basket—in sewing by hand with flax thread, unless you waxed it, it lost strength, and quickly pulled to pieces.

We bought our flax thread in skeins, but Mammy loved to tell of spinning it back in the days when she was young, and the best spinner on the old plantation. She still spun shoe-thread for her friend the cobbler, who, however, furnished her the raw flax, which he had grown, rotted and hechtelled, in his bit of bottom land. There were still spinning and weaving in plenty at our house—Mother had made, yearly, jeans, linsey, carpets and so on—but the plantation was not wholly clothed with homespun, as had been the case in her father's house.

Return we to our candle-making. It was work for the very coldest weather—even though we had two sets of molds, needs must the candles harden quickly if the making was to speed well. Molds could be filled at the kitchen hearth, then set outside to cool. For dipping the tallow-pot had to be set over an outside fire, and neighbored by a ladder, laid flat on trestles with smooth boards laid underneath. Mammy spun the candle wicks—from long-staple cotton, drawing it out thick, and twisting it barely enough to hold together. It must not be too coarse, as it had to be doubled over reeds at top, either for molding or dipping.

The molds were of candle-shape, joined in batteries of six or twelve, with a pert handle at one side, and tiny holes at the tips, through which the wick-ends were thrust, by help of a long broom-straw. Well in place they were drawn taut, the reeds so placed as to hold the wicks centrally, then tallow melted with beeswax, in due proportion, was poured around till the molds were brim full—after which they were plunged instantly into a tub of cold water standing outside. This to prevent oozings from the tip—hot grease is the most insidious of all substances. Only in zero weather would the first oozings harden enough to plug the orifice quickly. When the candles had hardened properly, the mold was either held over the fire, or thrust in hot water half a minute, then the candles withdrawn by help of the reeds. They were cooled a bit, to save the softened outside, then nubbed of surplus wick, and laid in a dish outside. Careless or witless molders, by laying candles still soft upon the pile, often made themselves double work.

Tallow for dipping, was kept barely fluid, by setting it over embers a little way off the fire. The pot had to be deep, so the wicks could be sunk in it to full length. They were thus sunk by stickfuls, lifted up quickly, and hung between the ladder rungs to drip. Half the tallow on them dripped away—indeed, after the first dipping they looked little more than clotted ghosts of themselves in their last estate. In very cold weather three drippings sufficed—otherwise there must be four or five. Since the dip was the result of cooled accretions, it was always top-heavy—much bigger at the nose than the base. A quick and skilled worker, though, could dip a hundred candles in the time required to mold two dozen. They burned out so quickly that was a crowning mercy—half a dozen was the average of a long winter evening. Further they ran down, in great masses—hence the importance of saving up drippings. Even molded candles made them plentiful enough to be worth re-molding. This unless discolored with the brass of candlesticks—in that case their last end was soap grease.

Rush lights were dips—this I state on information and belief, since I never saw one. Also on information and belief, it is here set forth, that folk in the back countries where wicking was not easily had, used instead of wicks, splinters of fat pine, known as light wood. In proof, take Candle Wood Mountain, whose name is said to have come from furnishing such fat pine, and of a special excellence. The pine splinters must, I think, have given a better light than real wicks—my father, in Tennessee, never ceased sighing for the lightwood, which had made such cheery illumination back in his boyhood, in a Carolina home.

Every sort of waste fat became at the last, soap grease. Bones even were thrown into kettles of lye, which ate out all their richness, leaving them crumbly, and fit for burying about the grapevines. Hence the appositeness of the darkey saying, to express special contempt of a suitor: "My Lawd! I wouldn't hab dat nigger, not eben for soap grease." Which has always seemed to me, in a way, a classic of condemnation.

Soap making came twice a year—the main event in March, to get free of things left over from hog killing, the supplement in September or October, to use up summer savings. Each was preceded by dripping lye. This necessitated wood ashes, of course—ashes from green wood. Oak or hickory was best. They were kept dry until they went into hoppers, where they were rotted by gentle wetting for a space of several days. Then water was dripped through, coming out a dark brown caustic liquid, clean-smelling, but ill to handle—it would eat a finger-tip carelessly thrust in it to the raw.

But even thus it was not strong enough for proper soapmaking, so it was boiled, boiled, until it would eat a feather, merely drawn quickly through it. Grease was added then, a little at a time, and stirred well through, changing the black-brown lye into a light-brown, bubbly mass. Whatever the lye would not eat of the grease's components, was skimmed out with the big perforated ladle. Even beyond candle-molding, soap-making was an art. Mammy never would touch it, until "the right time of the moon." Also and further, she used a sassafras stick for stirring, put it in the first time with her right hand, and always stirred the kettle the same way. If a left-handed person came near the kettle she was mightily vexed—being sure her soap would go wrong. She kept on the fire beside it a smaller kettle of clear lye, to be added at need, without checking the boiling.

Boiling down lye took one day, boiling in grease another. The third morning, after the fire was well alight, she tested the soap, by making a bit into lather. If the lather were clean and clear, without a film of grease on top, she knew it remained only to cook the soap down thick enough for the barrel, or to make into balls by the addition of salt. But if the film appeared—then indeed there was trouble. First aid to it was more lye, of feather-eating strength—next a fresh sassafras stirring stick, last and most important, walking backwards as she put the stick in the kettle, though she would never admit she did this on purpose. Like the most of her race she was invincibly shy about acknowledging her beliefs in charms and conjuring.

Soap which failed to thicken properly lacked grease. To put in enough, yet not too much, was a matter of nice judgment. Tallow did not mix well with hog fat. Therefore it had commonly its smaller special pot, whose results were molded for hand-soap, being hard and rather light-colored.

Since our washerwomen much preferred soft soap, most of the spring making went straight into the barrel. The barrel had to be very tight—soap has nearly as great a faculty of creeping through seams as even hot lard. One kettleful, however, would have salt stirred through it, then be allowed to cool, and be cut out in long bars, which were laid high and dry to age. Old soap was much better for washing fine prints, lawns, ginghams and so on—in fact whatever needed cleansing without fading.

Sundry other fine soap makers emptied their salted soap, just as it was on the point of hardening, into shallow pans, cloth-lined, and shaped it with bare hands into balls the size of two fists. This they did with the whole batch, holding hard soap so much easier kept, and saying it was no trouble whatever to soften a ball in a little hot water upon wash days. But Mammy would have none of such practices—said give her good soft soap and sand rock, she could scour anything. Sand rock was a variety of limestone, which burning made crumbly, but did not turn to lime. Mammy picked it up wherever she found it, beat it fine and used it on everything—shelves, floors, hollow-ware, milk pans, piggins, cedar water buckets—it made their brass hoops shine like gold. While she scoured she told us tales of the pewter era—when she had gone, a barefoot child, with her mother, to the Rush Branch, to come home with a sheaf of rushes, whereby the pewter was made to shine. It hurts even yet, recalling the last end of that pewter. As glass and crockery grew plenty, the boys—my uncles, there were five of them—melted it down for rifle bullets, when by chance they ran out of lead. Yet—who am I, to reproach them—did not I myself, melt down for a purpose less legitimate a fine Brittania ware teapot, whose only fault was a tiny leak? Now I should prize it beyond silver and gold.

Harking back to candle-making—we had no candle-berries in our wilds, and only a few wax-berries as ornaments of our gardens. But from what I know by observation and experience, the candle-berries or bayberries, can be melted in hot water, the same as honey-comb, and the wax strained away from the seedy residue, then allowed to cool, on top the water, and clarified by a further melting and cooling over water. Mixed with paraffine it can be molded into real bayberry candles, ever so much more odorous than those of commerce. It is well to remember in buying paraffine that there are three qualities of it, differing mainly in the degree of heat at which they melt. Choose that which is hardest to melt for candle-making. One might indeed, experiment with bayberry wax, and the drippings of plain paraffine candles, before undertaking candle-making to any considerable extent.

A last word. If any incline to challenge things here set forth, will they please remember that as one star differs from another in glory, so does one family, one region, differ from all others in its manners of eating, drinking, and cooking. I have written true things, but make no claim that they apply all over. Indeed there may be those to whom they will seem a transversing of wisdom and experience. To all such I say, try them intelligently, with pains and patience, and of the results, hold fast to that you find good.

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