A holiday roast

She worked on a farm, one of the big ones, with the rich farmer family.

The family was quite whealty,fertile land, many animals.
Mostly cows and sows, the animals with whom big money could be made and who needed good feed.

The farm was located on the flat land near the river Donau where the climate was mild and expensive crops could be grown.

One might think that the rich people had more to give, but the richer the farmer, the poorer their heart was.
They had an own building for the farm workers, so as not to dirty their home with the lowly folk.

There was gruel in the morning, a grain soup during mid meal and a gruel before bed, also much potatoes.
The workers on the smaller farms often ate better than on the big farm.

The food for them was cooked in the same pot as the grain mush for the pigs...because it was the same.

But the pigs got also the table scraps from the farmer family and the whey from the cheese making.

The farm workers had to do with the gruel, potatoes and sometimes bread.

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Holiday season came up and the righteous farmers family did their duty as good christians, going to church, giving money and special 'holy'buns to the farm workers and the precious farm animals to wish good health on them.

For the children it was time to say good bye to one of their four legged friends whom they saw as a small newborn, growing up until he was 6 months old.

The best time to slaughter them, when the meat was tender and juicy.

It was no use that the children cried for their friend, the older ones knew it was useless and kept silence, the oldest even had learned to enjoy the slaughter and assisted his father.

To show his children that animals must have a purpose and this ones was to be a special roast, the best meat ever and that some animals were made to be eaten, some were meant to give milk or lay eggs, he forced them to look on.

Children had to learn to loose that useless sentiment, animals were made to be eaten, god said so.


Their childhood friend came trusting with them, snuffing their hands for some goodies they always smuggled from the table, he tried to dot on them and dry their tears because they cried and he seemed puzzled when they didn´t want to play.


But then their father threw a rope around his neck and tightened it, slamming a bat on his head until he broke down, kneeling on his cheast so the weak struggles were useless.

Than the blood ran free and the eldest son  tied the hindlegs to hoist the animal up, letting the blood run onto a bedding of  oats and wheat hulls to be soaked up and feed to the hogs, because dogs wouldn´t eat their own kind, and animal matter in the dogs food would make their meat taste bad.

The roast their made was a young dog, a meat much sought after.
A delicacy that was reserved for the holidays.


Some dogs had the purpose to breed, the puppies either used for their meat, the fur used for clothing.
Some dogs used as watchdogs, some as sheep dogs.

The children could play with the pups, but pets, why pets? Feeding a useless dog just for the purpose of petting it?

Either it worked, was usefull or would be eaten.

Dog meat is a delicacy and until a short time ago, dogs were eaten,why not?

If god hadn´t wanted them to be eaten, why did he make them out of meat, delicious meat.

The farmers family could have eaten a calf or a suckling, but they always ate dog because it was the best in their opinion.

Meat was for humans, dogs just like other farm animals were mostly feed on grains.
The breeding ones got a better feed with some leftovers, milk, sometimes eggs and bread but no meat.
Because meat was eaten by the humans and dog meat would obtain a bad taste if the animals were feed with meat.

Dog meat was darker, a bit like beef or deer, tasting more like wild boar.

The dogs that were meant for meat, had the best life next to the hunting dogs of the royals.

The dogs that had to watch the house didn´t get table scraps, it all went to the hogs, hogs had a purpose and made the farmer richer.

The watch dogs didn´t make the farmer richer, this was their reasoning for feeding them the minimum of grain gruel and the water from precleaning the dishes after the scraps were scrubbed into the hog pot.

Watch dogs were the pittiest bunch of them, scruffy, deranged because of their mistreatment,often chained.

The meat dogs had warm straw beds in the barn, good food and they were allowed to run free most of the time and had a good, happy life...until it ended with their premature death, long before they would have naturally died.

Smoked dog ham especially was a delicacy and still is in switzerland, the original Berner ham was made from Bernese mountain dogs.

The meat dogs didn´t even have to work, the dogs needed to keep the herds safe had a hard life, but enough food to keep them strong and healthy to protect the lifestock.

They got the same gruel as the hogs.


Dog was treated similiar to game in the kitchen, marinated in buttermilk or red wine depending on the taste of the family.
Chestnuts went well with dog, the sweet taste of the chestnuts and the dog meat harmonized with each other.

After such a meal the dogs all made a wide bow around the people, they could smell the odour of dog meat emitting from them.

Every animal has a purpose, a man made one, especially if they are considered a delicacy.


Most people nowadays might shy away because of the stigma that lays on dog meat, but in reality there is no reason why one tradition is considered good and when you use tradition as a reason for something different, tradition is considered bad.

People always have eaten dog, even the 'civilized' folks  have been known to eat dogs until a short time ago.

Even in the 70's of the last century you could be invited to a roast where dogs donated the main dish, not just in germany.

Radical treatments...

...maybe you never heard about the wartime stories from your grandparents(or even before that) how the people got parasites, just like we hear it nowadays from third world countries.





There wasn´t always clean water, or food..people got infected and sometimes it was lifethreatening.

100 years ago depending on where you were or your social standing, you couldn´t go to a doctor and get a remedy and quacks went around, selling coloured whiskey as a cure-all.



There are a couple of stories that stick out..



Orphans were sent to farms, adopted more or less, often just as cheap workers.

During the irish famine many irish children went to america, with or without their parents and ended up as orphans and slaveworkers.





Some were lucky and ended up on farms where they had still work to do, but were more or less family, accepted.



One such radical medicinal treatment was told by my gran, who in turn got it from her cousin in america..and the cousin was told that by her gran..or mother? I am not sure...



But it boils down to a female member of the family, around 15 years of age went to work on a farm.



The 'mother' there was a fierce woman that gave the devil a run for his money, if she blew up you were in for an earfull, but she also was a kind woman when there was the need for it, no matter to whom. She would pamper the gruffest cowboy and the unruliest child.



And she had some rules that were not really understood, but followed.



Everyone, from grown farm worker(including cowboys) to child, had to eat a teaspoon full of her garlic remedy.

A horrible oily paste of mostly garlic and some green herbs that had started to ferment in the oil.



They  took their daily spoon of medicine before the morning meal.



Just that there was a new runt from the orphanage who did take it, but spit it out when he went out of the room.



The summer was bad, the well turned muddy and the water was filtered through cloth to make it useable..I am not sure but I guess they used horse hair or sheep woll as filter material in the cloth.

There was enough water to keep the fields green, but the river was also muddy and the ground trampeled by the animals that went there for water.



At the end of the summer the runt went ill, getting weaker and pale. The doctor wasn´t really a help and just could tell that the boy might die sooner or later as he also developed the runs...cholera, a wasting disease, he couldn´t say for sure. Just that there most likely was no help.



What followed was deemed gruesome  by some.

It seemed the 'Misses' had found some pale, whit wriggly things in the bed of the boy and he was in for a treat.

If he liked it or not, the girl was sent out in the kitchen and it was time to mash garlic, onions and some herbs from the garden, tuning everything with mortar and pestil into a paste.

Cream was added and  force feed to the boy, shoved into the back of the throat so he had to swallow. It surely was bad and the boy got some more thinned out cream to get the burning out of his mouth and sooth his stomach so it would stay down.


..but the worst followed suit ..the same mixture was thinned out and applied with an enema bag in the morning and kept there.



Oh it had to burn like hell and they had to get in one of the farm workers to hold the boy down.
In the end it seemed it was just too uncomfortable to move, so all struggles were ceased.

What followed  after half an hour when the boy was released and the nightpot used, the garlic mixture flushing from the stomach also, was a big pile of worms..more like a clump of dying white parasites.


So now you might ask what has happened to the boy?

Through the dirty river water in which the kid bathed to cool off, he might have ingested worm larvaes, maybe also from the raw milk or by sneaking some of the raw belly fat of the slaughtered pigs that wasn´t yet cooked to get the lard from it. Woms are also spread through the milk, which is why nursing cats and dogs are dewormed.

Many kids,especially during war time did die because of the worms which would steal part of the nutrients but also weakening the immune system and leeching blood....as if the situation wasn´t bad enough already.

This crude treatment saved the boys life, the herbs killing the worms and inducing  greater movement in the intestines so the whole content was flushed out..which in itself was surely horrible, cramping, burning...similiar to how gall bladder stones may feel  when getting out.

Because, if the worms had just stayed in a big pile in the intestines, this could have clogged everything up, which would have been a death sentence at the time because no doctor could have operated him  to get the blockage away.

In germany during WW2 that did happen, my gran seeing the neighbours kid die because of a blockage induced by a pile of worms, how the kid got weaker every day and than died with a distended belly, part of the gut had died because of the blockage..not a nice way to go.



One thing was sure, the little runt from the orphanage didn´t refuse the daily medicine after that.
After a day of exhausted sleep and a week of bed rest he was as good as new, pale and still a bit weak, but that solved itself over time now that no parasites leeched the nutrients from his body.

I won´t go into further detail because I guess you can imagine how the cure was applied and so on.

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I don´t know which herbs were in that mix, but I am sure the daily medicine was made with different herbs or at least less ammounts of them. If there was wormfern in them, that would have been toxic for daily usage.

Unfortunally I have no chance of getting the original recipe, the resolut 'Misses'  did not give it away, but as far as I can imagine many households and farms would have similiar recipes, given from the mothers to daughters.


Many recipes may have gotten lost during the World Wars, when people had to flee, built up their existence somewhere else and when modern medicine waltzed along.


Other methods to get rid of internal parasites was also eating used coffee grounds. I guess the coffein and natural components like acids and tannins had a poisoning effect on the parasites and the rough structure of the coffee grounds 'scraped' them out of the gut.

Garlic, parsley as common kitchen herbs also had a poisoning effect on worms, but also raw, finely shaved carrots. The essential oil in the skin of raw carrots is toxic to many internal parasites and salvia, thyme, rosemary all contain essential oils that  parasites can not tolerate well.

I guess that 'cure' also could have killed the boy faster if it was applied too late or  the blockage didn´t get loose..or the body had been already too weakened by the parasites so it couldn´t tolerate the rough cure...but he already was as good as death...so there wasn´t much to loose.

And other cures given by the doctors of those times were rarely better, containing toxic herbs or heavy metalls...in the beginnings of modern medicine people were better of with the 'Misses' who still knew their natural remedies instead of the docs who were more like butchers or used the modern remedies that might be worse than the problem they sought to cure.

Like  mercury ointment against lice..especially common during WW1  ...I think  I rather take a shave and some garlic oil...

Ye olde coffee...

...when people were into recycling before it went hipster.


1 Gallon water
1 and a half cup of coffee grounds
1 teaspoon salt

if available the shell from one or two eggs  or a little chalkstone nugget

This would make 12 cups of coffee and the coffee wasn´t filtered. You just waited and stirred until all grounds had sunk to the bottom, serving the liquid and keeping a bit of the liquid that was too sandy together with the grounds on the bottom of the can/pot

For new coffee you kept the old grounds, adding a third of new ingredients and the gallon of water.

The grounds were partly dumped when the pot got too full, cleaning out the can at sunday, which was fresh coffee day on the farm.

The egg shells were used to neutralise the acids from the coffee so it didn´t get too bitter or puckered your mouth...same reason for the chalkstone nugget... and the salt..well everything is better with a bit of salt.

Chalkstone was more readily available than fresh egg shells for many people...yes, those were the old times.


The kids got coffee too...one reason was because the water was boiled and the coffee grounds worked as a water filter, killing  also  germs and binding toxins with the acids in there.

Water was drank too, sure..but it could happen during heavy rain periods or very dry ones that the well water got contaminated and than it was safer to boil the water..and most times you made coffee with it.

Often there were added less grounds and the coffee was more like coloured water, but it was safe to drink.

And that was a big reason why kids got coffee when they reached 6 years, sometimes even earlier.

Old times, old stories

...I have a bit of a fascination with history, maybe because my grams had some old books, diaries, letters, or just good old stories how live once was.

On this blog I would like to share some stories, recipes or just rants and thoughts, what comes to my mind..not very regularly but..who knows?