Meat Smoking; F. and B.K. Bentley, C. Smith; Dog Trot House; McGaillard, Coffee

Web Video Text Tracks Format (WebVTT)

WEBVTT

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:22.000
Gerri Johnson: Narrative Session in the food preservation and community activity section.This afternoon we're going to talk about meat processing with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bentley and Corrie Smith.

00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:45.000
Meat processing is still a very lively form of food preservation in the south west Georgia area. For those of us who have only seen or tasted commercially prepared sausage or ham or sauce [?], the Bentley's operation, which still exists from a long time family tradition, is a very welcome one.

00:00:45.000 --> 00:01:08.000
Uh I hope that you've had a chance to visit their smokehouse, I hope, perhaps, you were here another day when they were able to make their own sausage and I hope you had a chance to see them render out the crack lands and make some lard, its a very interesting kind of process and we're going to talk about it for a little while today. First of all, when did you get started in the meat business?

00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:22.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Well, uh, this was something that I was raised with, Gerri, all the way from my childhood, but for selling it and preparing it for the public to sell, uh, we've been doing it 30 some odd years.

00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000
Gerri Johnson: Is that right?
Fred Lee Bentley: Yeah.
Gerri Johnson: You opened a store approximately 30 years ago?

00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:40.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Uh, the store was built in 1936. My father built it and opened it and we got married in '43 and we've been doing it ever since.
Gerri Johnson: Is that right?
Fred Lee Bentley: Uh huh.
Gerri Johnson:

00:01:40.000 --> 00:02:00.000
Have you always done the meat processing?
Fred Lee Bentley: Yes we have, uh, for several years when did not do it because a longing then [?] there wasn't much demand for country meat and, uh, people are reverting back to pure meat fixed like it was done a hundred years ago.

00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:12.270
Gerri Johnson: Mhm.
Fred Lee Bentley: And so that's why we've begun to go back into the country curing meat business because we use no additives or preservatives, except the old fashioned way.
Gerri Johnson: Is there a [sound is cut off].

00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:25.000
Gerri Johnson: First of all, um, Corrie how did you get involved in the process?
Corrie Smith: I started working out there at their store and I started helping them.

00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:31.000
Gerri Johnson: Uh huh, and you work in all phases of the meat processing?
Corrie Smith: Yes ma'am

00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:41.000
Gerri Johnson: You do. Um, what. How many hogs do you prepare a week and how much meat do you prepare in your business?

00:02:41.000 --> 00:03:30.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Usually, according to the time of the year, during the winter months the demand for cured meat and sausage is a lot more than in the summer months, but we average 10 to 15 number 1 hogs a week and our number one hog will weigh from 190 to 200 pounds and that is a good size hog to get a nice side of bacon or a nice ham or good pork loin. It's a perfect sized hog to get the best cuts of meat out of and, uh, that's what we like to use because we have to make a lot of sausage. We average making over 500 pounds of sausage a week and, uh, for a country store that is a lot of sausage.

00:03:30.000 --> 00:04:00.000
Gerri Johnson: I'm sure it is, it sounds like it. Do you do the butchering yourself?
Fred Lee Bentley: No ma'am we carry them to a packing house right close by because they have to be state inspected to sell and that's what we want anyway because I feel like that when you have a person that knows what he's doing he knows if this hog is perfect and that's what we want because you can ruin a business right now by selling bad stuff, you know?

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:12.000
And so that's why we want them state inspected, not because we have to but because I do not have the knowledge of a hog to know that he might have some kind of disease that I do not know about.

00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:19.972
Gerri Johnson: But the state can tell you whether there's something wrong with it or not.
Fred Lee Bentley: That's right, he is trained in that field to tell us exactly if there is something wrong.

00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:30.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Would you like her to talk some?
Gerri Johnson: No, I just was wondering if she, she looked like she had something to say, to add to your remarks.
Corrie Smith: [[crosstalk]] No, I was listening.

00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:35.000
Gerri Johnson: So the hog then comes to you fully butchered and in all its, all the parts.

00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:50.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Yes ma'am, we have them broke down because a number one hog is a little bit too heavy for me to handle. So we get them broke down which doesn't cost very much more. And so, uh, we send our hogs up to the packing house on Monday morning,

00:04:50.000 --> 00:05:01.000
and they butcher that hog that day and chill it that night, and then I pick it up the next day and bring it to my store and we put it in the cutting room, and we begin to work on it.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:10.000
The first thing we do is take all of the fat, excess fat, and we cut it up in little blocks and prepare it for cooking the lard.

00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:37.000
That's the first thing that we do. After we get it cut up we put it in our wash pots. We have four big pots with burners under them. And we get that started to cooking and meanwhile, while we do that we're also boning out hams and shoulders for the sausage. We use about 80% lean meat and 20% fat which gives you a nice, perfect, blended sausage.

00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:49.000
Gerri Johnson: --For the sausage.
Fred Lee Bentley: It's not too fat, because, when you buy sausage it's got a lot of fat, and you put it in your frying pan and cook it and it draws up the size of your finger, you do not have a good sausage at all.

00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:56.000
Gerri Johnson: Ah, I see. So, you start on Monday taking your hogs in to be butchered and processed.
Fred Lee Bentley: That's right.

00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:08.000
Gerri Johnson: And then Tuesday is a heavy workday for you, I remember that's the day I visited you, and it was, a Tuesday and you were busy rendering the lard, and you were busy grinding the sausage, making the sausage.
Fred Lee Bentley: That's right.

00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:17.000
Gerri Johnson: Um, who does the, who does the cracklings, who makes the lard in the wash pot?
Fred Lee Bentley: Either one of these two can do it. I let them do the cooking.

00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:21.000
Gerri Johnson: [[laughter]] Okay. How do you go about doing that? Now let's talk about that first the cracklings.

00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:27.359
Corrie Smith: Well, you put them in the pot with the fire under them, and you keep it stirred as the lard cooks out of your meat.

00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:46.000
Corrie Smith: Drain that from your lard--
Unknown speaker: Talk a little bit louder. [silence]

00:06:46.000 --> 00:07:02.000
Gerri Johnson: So you put the pieces of lard in the wash pot--
Corrie Smith: And put the meat in the wash pot and have your fire under it, and you stir it slowly. You don't have to stir it all the time, but every once in a while to be sure that it doesn't stick.

00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:14.000
And when it gets done, your meat and skins will float to the top. They're real crisp and brown. We call that a "crackling", and we strain it to have the pure hog lard.

00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:25.000
Gerri Johnson: And you have those four wash pots, you had four boiling at one time. You had them enclosed in a shed, why do you have to have them inside a shed? I know you don't here, but why do you have to have them in a shed at home?

00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:39.000
Corrie Smith: Well, you don't have to, but it's better. They cook faster and then if it rains or anything, you're out of the weather. It would cook out in the open, but it's faster and better inside, closed in.

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:47.000
Gerri Johnson: But how many degrees do you think it was when we went into that shed? I was taking pictures, and you were stirring the wash pots. How high was the temperature do you think?

00:07:47.000 --> 00:08:00.000
Corrie Smith: Gee, I'm afraid to say, but it was hot! Well over 100 I would think!
Fred Lee Bentley: [[crosstalk]]It was 120!
Gerri Johnson: Yeah, I'm sure it was 120 degrees in there when you were working in the little shed.
Corrie Smith: I would think every bit of that! You don't stay in there too long at the time.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:15.000
Gerri Johnson: When you're done with the cracklings, what do you do with them? How do you cook them?
Corrie Smith: We eat them just as they are, and they use them in crackling bread, that's a favorite of the South. And you can also season with them, especially dry peas and beans.

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:35.000
Gerri Johnson: Mm-hmm, they're a favorite. Uh, so while they're cooking out the cracklings and rendering out the lard, then you're also busy making the sausage. How do you go about making the sausage? First of all, what parts of the meat do you put into the sausage? Corrie, let's let Corrie, see--we'll test her on this and see if she knows.

00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:40.266
Corrie Smith: Okay, the main--you use the hams and the shoulders and sometimes you can use the Boston butts.

00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:55.000
Corrie Smith: Always use the hams and the shoulders, and then you bone them out and then you get 25 pounds and we put it in a, something like a bucket that we can measure it, and that way we don't have to take it to the scales,

00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:15.000
and you get a pack of Leg's Seasoning, and you put that on there and you mix it up real good. You put your sage on there if you want them mild, and then you add the red pepper if you want them hot. And then you grind them, and after you grind them, you mix them up real good, and then you put them in the mill again and you stuff them in the hog lines.

00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:27.000
[crosstalk]
Gerri Johnson: Ok, so, you grind up, you put ham in everything? In the sausage?
Corrie Smith: Ham and shoulder. And some fat.
Gerri Johnson: Ham and shoulder and sometimes Boston butt in the sausage. You grind it up and you grind it twice? Just once?

00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:34.000
Corrie Smith: No, you grind it once, and then if you're going to stuff them, you run it back through again into the casings.

00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:39.000
Gerri Johnson: I see, I see. Now where do you get your seasonings? The seasoning you use in your sausage.

00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:59.000
Fred Lee Bentley: The seasoning we get comes from Birmingham, Alabama, Legs Packing company. It is the best seasoning on the market! I'm not giving a plug, but it's the season I know how to use, it's well blended and then, to it, we add our sage, extra, and red pepper to give our own special blend to it.

00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:19.000
And we make either hot or mild, whichever they prefer. We make some of both so we can, you know, give the public what they want. And by using 80% lean, when you smoke this sausage, it don't dry it up. You have a nice pretty sausage.

00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:36.000
And, uh, a smoke in a sausage is real critical. The smokehouse we use is exactly like this one on the mall except we have the furnace on the outside for safety of fire, and also, I can control the heat on my sausage.

00:10:36.000 --> 00:11:03.000
We first go in the smokehouse and hang our sausage fresh, and then we begin the fire, and we get the heat built up to at least 170 degrees. And I put a fan in that furnace so that I can control the heat because you've got to get them up to 170 degrees and hold that same temperature for no less than two hours.

00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:31.000
If you let your heat drop even 10 degrees, those sausage will not--will not go. You have to throw them away, they will collapse. So that's--that's why it's so critical to hold your heat at that temperature or even a little higher. And that's why we have the furnace on the outside rather than have a fire inside. To get that much heat, you might would burn the whole works down, you see.

00:11:31.000 --> 00:12:06.000
And so we can smoke a sausage in three and a half hours with this process, and you have a fully smoked, delicious tasting sausage. And then early the next morning, we get out and take those sausage out of the smokehouse, and we go back, put them in the store, and naturally, we sell them, and we put them back on refrigeration. You don't have to! There's no way that you can spoil this sausage although it has no additives whatsoever. It's pure, pure meat and pure seasoning.

00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:24.000
[crosstalk]
Gerri Johnson: So if it's been smoked, there's no way that it will--that it will spoil. The smoke will--
Fred Lee Bentley: That's right. It will mold after a certain length of time, but the mold does not hurt it. All you have to do is wash it off, and fry it, just keep right on. And that sausage will be good two years from now. You can eat that same sausage!
Gerri Johnson: Is that right? It'll last that long?

00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:38.000
Fred Lee Bentley: That's right! It'll change taste in about two weeks after you smoke it to another taste, which to me is real, you know, delicious.
Gerri Johnson: Ah, so you like it after it's been aged for about two weeks.
Fred Lee Bentley: That's--that's right.

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:43.000
Gerri Johnson: What are some other things now that you will smoke in your smokehouse besides the sausage?

00:12:43.000 --> 00:13:00.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Well, down home, where we boil, you know, cook a lot of black eyed peas and beans and such as that, we smoke ham hocks. That is a good seasoning for any kind of vegetable, or dry beans, or peas. That's a good seasoning for anything, even rice.

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:12.000
And, uh, we smoke bacon, we smoke shoulders, hams, and pork chops. Now pork chops are real delicious fixed this way.

00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:27.000
We can take a pork loin, and we can just lightly salt that whole pork loin and put it back in the walk-in cooler with about 35 to 40 degrees temperature on it. And in one week, we can smoke this pork loin.

00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:43.966
And then we take it, and as the customer wants it, we slice off whatever they want, and you have the same flavor as your country ham, and the meat is real tender. And you just fry them, don't put anything on them! Just fry them! And they are delicious!

00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:53.000
J.L. Harris: Now how do you cure your hams? I know that's one of your favorite products down there, how do you cure them?

00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:09.000
Fred Lee Bentley: A ham is a sort of a long drawn out process to do it like we do it. But, uh, it is a way that it will keep forever. We take a ham and on about the center of that ham, there is a blade bone that sticks up.

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:24.000
We take out our knife and we run it right down by that blade bone and cut a little incision all the way to the center bone and when you do that you open that hole up a little bit, with your fingers, and pack that hole full of, pure, white table salt.

00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:43.000
Then just lightly spread all over the whole ham, with your hand, just a light layer of salt, don't plaster it. And you lay that ham back in the cooler flat down with the skin side down and the hole up, and you leave it that way one week.

00:14:43.000 --> 00:15:06.000
And after one week you go in and you turn that ham over. And during that week, that hole that we have made in the ham with the salt in it, the salt will completely run that bone from one end to the other, and so then you turn it over, that drains your salty water out and all of the water that might have been in that ham, it just drains out.

00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:30.000
And say on a 12 pound ham, a minimum of 40 days is enough to leave it laying with the hole down. Just don't bother it. You don't even have to look at it. And when you go back to get it to- go in the smokehouse, ready, it will be slimy lookin' and dirty lookin' with you know, but all you have to do is just wash it off with some clean clear warm

00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:46.000
or cold water, it doesn't matter, just wash it pretty and clean, and it'll be pretty again. And then just take it to your smokehouse, and hang it up, and get your fire going and get it up to about 120 or 30 degrees.

00:15:46.000 --> 00:16:06.000
That way, with the ham hanging down, if you have any moisture left in it, it will drain it and pull it out. And then after that, the smoke is strictly for putting the flavor in the ham and the color, and you smoke that ham just as fast or slow as you want to,

00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:23.000
and just, the darker the color the more smoke you have on it. And if you don't like much smoke, don't smoke it 15 days. Just look at the color of it. When it starts turning a little tan, you have a light smoke. And the darker you get it, the more smoke

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:40.000
you've got on it. and you can over smoke it. you'll have it to where it tastes like smoke too much and it's not good. So, like, we're smoking over there with an open pit inside smokehouse, it'll take at least 2 weeks to brown 'em as much as those are browned.

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:53.000
J.L. Harris: Mm, I see it. So, the smoking to the ham really just adds a flavor to it. It doesn't aid in the curing process at all.
Fred Lee Bentley: [[Overlapping]] The flavor and the color. That's right. No.
J.L. Harris: [[overlapping]] It doesn't help to cure it. It's already cured when it goes into the smokehouse.

00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:13.000
Fred Lee Bentley: [[overlapping]] When it went into the smokehouse, it was completely cured, for it would not spoil. Now you have to take care of meat just like you do anything else. Once you get that ham smoked, the best place to put it is in a clear, clean, cool space. You know place. You can cover it with cheesecloth, or

00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:27.000
you can put it in a brown paper bag and tie it up, and hang it from a rafter or something or other. The main thing is keeping insects, flies, away from it. They, you know, they would ruin any kind of food.

00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:36.000
So, this way, two years from now, you can take that ham out of that bag or that netting and it would still be good to eat.

00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:41.000
J.L. Harris: Well how do you prepare a ham like that Ms. Bentley, when you take it out after two years?

00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:54.000
Mrs. Bentley: You can either bake or fry it. We like it fried real good, but then I put brown sugar and mustard and pineapple on it and bake it and we like it that way also.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:09.000
J.L. Harris: Do you ever boil a ham?
Mrs. Bentley: We boil the fresh ones, but I don't think you would want to boil a cured one, I've never tried that. Bakin's fine, and then just slice and fry it. I think those would be the two main ways to prepare it.

00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:17.000
J.L. Harris: So to fry it and then to bake it for the cured, smoked ham.
Mrs. Bentley: [[overlapping]] That's right, either fry or bake it.

00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:28.450
J.L. Harris: Mhm ok, another thing you make that we didn't ask about the last time you were on our narrative stage, is souse. You make that on Tuesdays or do you make that at the end of the week when you have some leftover meat? How do you make that?

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:45.000
B.K. Bentley: Well, we can't do that on Tuesday because it's too much work. If we make-the weeks we make it we go back on Wednesday. That's another all day job. We take the heads and the feet, clean them and cook them in the wash pot.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:19:01.000
Then we take them back to the cutting room and you have to work with it while it's hot. Take all the bones out and then mix your seasonings in it and put it in small trays, that can be. After it sets in the cool and hardens put on in the meat case for sale.

00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:13.000
Gerri Johnson: What do you use souse meat for, souse for? What, what else do you call it first of all? Do you have another name for it?
Corrie Smith: It's also called hog head cheese.
Gerri Johnson: And what do you use it for? How do you use it?

00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:26.000
Corrie Smith: Well you can eat it just as a meat on ya plate. It's real good with sweet potatoes or something like that and they also put it in sandwich just like a luncheon meat.
Gerri Johnson: That's very good.

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:47.000
Fred Lee Bentley: On the hams Gerri I didn't think to tell you but, uh, you can put some ground red pepper on them before you smoke them after you take it out to wash it to go to the smokehouse, if you want it a little hot tasting, even bacon, just spread your little ground red pepper on it. And they call that hot bacon and it gives it a delicious taste too.

00:19:47.000 --> 00:20:12.000
Gerri Johnson: Oh I bet I've never heard of that
Fred Lee Bentley: [[overlapping]] And also on the ham if you want to keep it a long time, you can take meal, borax, black pepper, red pepper, and even pour honey or syrup in it and make a paste out of it, and uh, this honey or syrup, either one would give your ham a sweet taste. In other words you could dress it up like a birthday cake.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:22.000
Gerri Johnson: Sounds like it. But it's so good when it's just natural flavor
Fred Lee Bentley: [[overlapping]] Just the natural flavor to me is best. And the red eye gravy you can get out of it is better than the ham.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:30.000
Gerri Johnson: Is that right [[laughter]] very good. So we didn't talk at all about bacon, about curing your bacon, how do you do that?

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:50.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Bacon is a real simple process, uh you just take your side of fresh pork, don't ever salt hot pork, chill it a day or two, because hot meat will absorb salt too fast and that's where you get your real salty taste and that goes for hams too, don't ever salt a hot piece of meat.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:21:12.000
And, uh, on the bacon, it just takes four days. You just spread a light layer of salt, with your hand, table salt, and if you was gonna do it at home you'd put it lay it on a metal rack and put your pan under it to catch the water, you know that dripped out of it, because it would rust your refrigerator.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:26.000
And just leave that side of bacon laying there for just no more than 4 days. About a 8 or 10 pound piece of meat. And not more than four days or you'll have it, in one day more it'll be so salty that you wouldn't want it.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:41.000
And anytime that you have to soak meat that is salt brine before you cook it, it takes all of your flavor out of it by soaking it, and it also makes it tough. But this bacon, 4 days is the limit to it.

00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:54.000
All you have to do then is just take it out and wash it and hang it two or three days. Just however brown you want it is when to stop smoking it and you've got a piece of meat ready to eat, and it is cured and it is just like ham and it will last forever.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:14.890
Gerri Johnson: Mhmm sounds good. Now the day I visited you um in Pelham you were making sausage as I said, and Corrie here was really working out on the sausage. What is tricky about making sausage? What makes her so good at being able to stuff the sausage, what does she have to watch for when she's

00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Corrie Smith: Get them too tight and they'll burst and if you get them too loose they'll just be too loose.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:36.000
Gerri Johnson: Are the hog casings all the same? They're really the hog intestines that you're using right? And they're all clean, you're using the casings for your sausage?

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:46.000
Uh, are they all the same size? Is it,I mean it seems then it will be pretty easy to stuff the same amount of meat into the casing.

00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:53.000
Corrie Smith: No ma'am, they're not the same size. Some of them are real small and some of them are real big and some are real long and some are real short.

00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:00.000
Mrs. Bentley: It's not easy because I can't do it like they can.
J.L. Harris: [[laughter]] Testimony there.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:14.000
Fred Lee Bentley: There's a skill to stuffing sausage because on a fast piece of machinery like we use that we use the regular sausage meal, and it will go through there so fast, until you got to be on the job catching it as it comes out.

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:24.000
And you just hold that casing up to it to completely fill the casing and not overfill it you know, and it naturally it will bust.

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:39.000
But you want a nice uniform sausage, you can feel with it coming through your hand just what you're doing to that sausage and then when you get it stuffed all the way out, some of the casings that we have will hold 12 or 15 pounds of pure meat

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:59.000
and then you just lay that link down, that whole link, you just let it run out, and then you can take your fingers and squeeze it together and flip it 2 or 3 times then you are linking it and you can make long links or short links however you want, and uh then you got it ready to sell or put in the smokehouse.

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:07.000
Gerri Johnson: Right and that's what you were doing as I recall
Fred Lee Bentley: [[overlapping]] That's right. That's my job is linking the sausage.
Gerri Johnson: [[overlapping]] That's your job I see
Fred Lee Bentley: And the first is hers, she bust them.
J.L. Harris: I see.

00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:16.000
Gerri Johnson: We invite those of you who are sitting out there to participate in our narrative event if you have any questions you would like to ask the Bentleys about meat processing

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:22.000
we'll be happy to give them the chance to respond. Do you have any questions at all? No?

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:38.000
Mrs. Bentley: There's one question I'd like to ask Fred while we're together that people's asked me at the smokehouse and I didn't know what to tell them and that is how much weight did your bacon or hams lose from the time you sawed them to when you cured them.

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:48.000
Fred Lee Bentley: On a 12 pound ham you will lose at least 2 pounds in weight and that loss is from the moisture being drawn out and it's drying out

00:24:48.000 --> 00:25:05.280
and uh, this is what they call a dry curing process. Your meat, you can eat it right out of the smokehouse but the best way is to put it in grease and fry it that way you're putting moisture back in your meat for it will be tender.

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:14.000
Gerri Johnson: Well I'm glad we gave you two a chance to communicate here up on this stage.
B.K. Bentley: That's right, because I didn't know exactly what to tell him for that.

00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Fred Lee Bentley: The same way on your sausage, Gerri, you have about a 20% loss of weight by drawing the water out of 'em and the shrinkage of your grease you know.
Gerri Johnson: I see, ok, yes ma'am?

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:54.000
{SPEAKER name=Audience Member 1"} [[question about if they use sodium nitrate]]
Gerri Johnson: I don't believe they use any, do you use any sodium nitrate in your sausage?
Fred Lee Bentley: No ma'am, we use no preservatives whatsoever. Nothing but pure, white, table salt. No preservatives. When you put preservatives in there, you take out all of your natural flavor. And that natural flavor is what makes your meat good.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:17.000
Gerri Johnson: Mm, yes?
Audience Member 1: How long does the salt preserve the meat then? Is it as long as sodium nitrate?
Fred Lee Bentley: How long will it be preserved? The way we fix it, this way that we have told you, a ham will be good two years from now. It's like anything else, you've got to take care of it, you know, you don't throw it around.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:34.000
You put it in a cool, dry place. The drier the place, the less mold that you'll have on it. But the mold does not hurt it. All you do is wash it off, it's still good to eat. But now if you leave it in a warm place, it will get what you call rancid. And

00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:53.000
it doesn't have as good a taste when it gets rancid, that's what i mean. But it will not spoil. None of it that we smoke will not spoil. Even the hams before we smoke them, when we get them ready for the smokehouse, you don't have to smoke it. It is still preserved. It will keep.

00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:24.000
Gerri Johnson: Yes?
Audience Member 2: If yours is preserved [[unknown]]
Gerri Johnson: She wants to know why the companies have to use sodium nitrate?
Fred Lee Bentley: Because they use a fast curing process. That's exactly it. The companies can cure a ham in 1 to 2 days with the additives they put in it.

00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:49.000
We can not. It takes the length of time that I told you to do it this way. And that's why we do not use additives. Any time you use an additive, especially in sausage, you do not have a country flavored sausage anymore. You can just add one thing, and you have got a town bought sausage.

00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:54.360
Gerri Johnson: Alright, we thank you very much for being with us this afternoon, and we hope you enjoy- Oh, I'm sorry another [[?]]

00:28:08.000 --> 00:27:58.000
[SILENCE]
[SILENCE]
Fred Lee Bentley:

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:09.000
Fred Lee Bentley: Yes sir, that is, just come on down to South Georgia 50 miles north of Tallahassee, Florida. And just ask any police in Pelham, Georgia they know me well.

00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:17.000
Gerri Johnson: Alright, now we thank you for being with us this afternoon and we hope you enjoy the rest of your stay at the festival. Thank you very much.

00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:20.000
[[Claps]]

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:30.000
{Background noise}

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:41.000
Bill Moore: Well a good afternoon to all of you folks who have just seen the sun come out. Oh, there it goes, it's gone again. You're in the only air conditioned tent on the grounds today and uh,

00:28:41.000 --> 00:29:00.000
since we're concerned about energy and energy sources in relation to traditional culture, maybe we can get you to come in, listen to our people who have lived in or have built the traditional Georgia house, the dog trot house which is the kind you see over your left shoulder over there. Which is just about finished.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:16.000
My name is Bill Moore. I live in Minnesota. But I was real lucky last July. The Department of energy in the Smithsonian Institution Folklife Program asked me to go to South Central Georgia and talk to folks who had built or lived in traditional Georgia housing. The dog trot house.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:23.000
And down there I was lucky enough to meet about 20 very interesting people, 3 of them are with me on the stage today.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:37.000
To my left is Ms. Florida Coffey from Ryan, Georgia and to my right immediately is Jack McGaillard from Mitchell County in Pelham, - Pelham actually in Mitchell County, Georgia which is South of Tifton.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:49.000
And a neighbor of his from Pelham is Dadne[[?]] Crosby who serves as a fire chief there and he has a lot to say about the technical aspect of traditional housing and especially this one here.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:05.110
I'm going to ask , I think uh, Miss Coffey to talk first, if I will. Uh Her father built her house that she still lives in today. And I'd like to have her say a few words about her memories of that house- the way it was and the way it is.

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Florida Coffey: [Coffee] Well, this house was built long before I was born. I was born in 1910 and I have lived there all of my life. Daddy had 20 children. 18 lived to get grown, had children of their own.

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:29.000
My oldest sisters and brothers are old enough to be my parent. Although most of them was gone before I came in.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:45.000
Although we had about 13, they'd eat at the table, 3 time a day. Mamma did the cooking. And so we did a lot of the work around the place. Such as cooking, cleaning the house, sweeping the yards

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:56.000
doing several other things. Then we work in the field, And all the jobs in the field. It was 3 children under me when my daddy died. So mamma told us we just obey her.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:10.000
And work with Leo so I even have hung cups on a [[?]] tree. Tag the tins. Put up 145 a day led from one thing to another. Like that to Leo, so we got along very well.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.000
Bill Moore: Is your house about the same size and shape as this or how does it compare?

00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:28.000
Florida Coffey: [Coffee] Well the front part is just about like this but the back part has a kitchen and a room and a then another little shed room and a L shaped shaped porch on the back.

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Bill Moore: The house which we are putting up is sort of a mini version of the real sized dog trot but its the same shape and most uh traditional houses have uh an addition off of the back which resulted in an L shaped building. and the kitchen is as far back as possible and then the bedrooms are usually in between uh

00:31:50.000 --> 00:32:00.000
I'm going to ask Daphne Crosby now who lives in Pelham, Georgia to tell you what he thinks the definition of a dog trot house is. Daphne how did that name come about ? As far as you know.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:12.000
Daphne Crosby: Traditionally, uh, Thank you Mr. Moore. Traditionally uh the name for the dog trot house was handed down from we people who own bulldogs and

00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:26.000
hunting dogs and it was a shortcut from the backyard to the front yard and you'd hear the dogs running through the house all during the night checking

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:36.000
the back and the front of unusual noises and uh basically the name was derived or taken from

00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:42.610
these dogs doing this type of thing and it was named the dog trot from there

00:32:46.000 --> 00:33:07.000
Bill Moore: Traditional housing it's interesting that you come across names of parts of houses and names of tools. For example when I first arrived in Georgia, uh out of an academic setting, I asked people for dog trot houses and most of the folks I talked about, talked with, called this type of house a breeze way house. Or sometimes a pen house, a two pen house and so forth.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:25.000
But, uh, as the days went by we began to agree on or at least get a common language, uh, as we began to talk about this house. Um, I was working this morning with one of the carpenters putting up the siding. We used a little device to measure the distance between one overlapped board and another. And he called that a preacher, for example.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:31.000
So when you go over and look at that house, ask one of the carpenters where the preacher is and he will show it to you. And how, and why its called a preacher.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:49.000
Those are interesting derivations.I am going to ask Ms. Coffey[Coffee]\ again about her house. There all things we should look at in a house, including just the structure itself. For example, how do you use the under part of your house? The area under your house. Its quite, it stands quite high as I remember. About 20 inches off of the ground.

00:33:49.000 --> 00:34:04.000
Florida Coffey: It's about 18 inches off of the ground. And sometimes we store little things like wood or our little tools like hoes and shovels and rakes and things that we work the garden with. And then again the children would run go crawl under the house just to play.

00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:13.000
Bill Moore: That's one of the best places a person can store his wheel barrows and things, is under the house. It's easy to get to. He knows where it is and it is safe from the rain.
Florida Coffey [Coffee]: Yes.

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:19.000
Bill Moore: How about the yard? Remember we always talked about a swept yard.
Florida Coffey [Coffee]: Yeah.
Bill Moore: That's the most interesting aspect of this whole thing.

00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:26.000
{SPEAKER name="Florida Coffey"[Coffee]} Yeah, we sweep, we sweep the yard but we would start off with it. You take a hoe. Hoe up all of the grass, weeds and things. Rake that off and throw it away.

00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:37.000
Then you go in the woods and get you some little bushes they're called gall berries. And you tie maybe six or eight together and that's what you sweep the yard with. And it be so nice and clean and pretty.

00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:41.000
Bill Moore: Jack, uh, McGaillard, did you have a swept yard when you were a boy too?

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:50.000
Jack McGaillard: Yes Bill we did have a swept yard. It was always the children's chore to keep the yard swept. Especially maybe on Saturday morning.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:35:00.000
The girls would do the sweeping and the boys would have to take up the trash and take it out. If you happen to have trees in the yard, have leaves, the yard was always kept clean.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:10.000
If it got down to where it was almost enough of red clay showing, you'd go off in the creek somewhere maybe get ya a load of sand and come back and spread it over the yard and make it look real white.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:19.000
That way we wanted real clean.
Bill Moore: So when you think about your traditional housing of this type in south central Georgia, it is important for you to remember not only the form and shape of the house ,

00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:42.700
but also the setting in which it exists. The rectangular or square, white swept yard. Swept with gall berries from the woods. And kept neat and orderly. Uh, and I hope that's a positive vision for you. Um, we talked about the interior of the house too. And the ways you kept that clean. Did you use a broom straw inside?

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:53.000
Daphne Crosby : UH Excuse me. Down in Georgia we have all grown in the woods wild. And what we have broomstraw and we would go out in the woods

00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:59.000
and wring these broom straw while it was still green. Or right after the [[?? fell]] maybe its partially dry.

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:06.000
Then you take it home and let it dry out a little more maybe and you take a water bath of maybe of 3 inches in diameter

00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:16.000
tie it together which would be about three feet long and that's would the lady, she'd take a knife and clean out all the excess straw stuff out and leave a nice broom

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:21.000
to sweep the house with. There was no handle on the broom, the straw itself made the handle

00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:30.000
Bill More [Moore] : We're talking today about the lifestyle of south-central Georgians in traditional folk architecture like the one you see over your left shoulder dog trot house and

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:36.000
the money for this project was put up largely by the department of energy, who was interested in having Americans find out

00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:45.000
what the resources were in our traditional culture for energy saving housing. Um the house you see over there is about 7000 dollars worth of

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:55.000
lumber. I'm going to ask Daphne Crosby to tell me what kind of lumber that is and maybe some aspects about whether its practical for living. What do you think Daphne

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:58.000
What kind of ... What kind of wood is that first of all?

00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Daphne Crosby : Mr. Moore, this would be uh the first of the problem of reforestation after our native virgin pines were cut off the land that was

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:26.000
traditional to the south, of course, the government program's got there for reforestation, and felt like that we'd needed to grow some more timber, so the

00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:45.000
big paper companies replanted uh these cut-over plots with this type, particular type pine that is used in this house today and it is a long leaf pine which now is grown widely by the paper companies and

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:51.000
by some other farmers and their reforestation program today in Georgia.

00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:54.000
Bill More: Well what, if I were to go down or one of our folks in the audience here went

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:00.000
down to look at, document, research, a dog trot house, a real dog trot house

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:02.960
in south central Georgia, what would it be made of?

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:12.000
Daphne Crosby: It would be made, uh, would you direct that question again Mr. Moore?

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:17.000
{SPEAKER name-"Bill Moore"} Well what would a authentic dogtrot house be made of? Didn't they use the yellow pine then?

00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:28.000
Daphne Crosby: Oh, yes, uh, traditionally the dogtrot house was made out of, the virgin, yellow, pine.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:40.000
This timber grew up and was untouched, and most of the, most of the log or the tree itself was solid, hard, what we called.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:53.000
It was high in pitch content and it was very indestructible so far as the, uh, weather was concerned. You did not need to treat it with any type preservative.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:13.000
You did not need to treat it for any insect of any kind. The powder puff beetle, the termites, were not, would not attack it and it would just keep on lasting year after year after year without, with very little maintenance.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:23.000
Bill Moore: Well that's, that's good. If a piece of wood is impervious to insects because of a high consistency of rosin, was it, or pitch, or tar, wouldn't that make it very flammable though too?

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:39.000
Daphne Crosby: Yes due to the fact that the growing process of this native yellow pine that we used at that time had a very high pitch content, this pitch has a very high rate of flammability.

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Bill Moore: How did that affect, how did that affect the layout of the traditional house itself? I would have to, you'd have to put your fireplace I should, think far out, wouldn't ya, or back?

00:39:47.000 --> 00:40:05.000
Daphne Crosby: Well usually the fireplace was in one part of the house, was taken care of carefully, and then the kitchen was built off, in a lot of instances separated forty-to-fifty feet from the main body of the house with its fireplace.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:18.000
And due to the flammabilities, if your kitchen caught fire you stood a chance to save you-your basic living portion. If your living portion caught fire you could always probably save your kitchen.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:27.660
Once one of these houses got to burning is hardly any way to extinguish the blaze due to the flammability of the material.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:42.000
Bill: If you look in your program, which is sold at all the entrance booths, there's an article on the dog trot house which explains the structure in more detail than we can give you

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:55.000
but it's important to remember that the aesthetic aspects we talked about the yard, the way the house is kept orderly is part of the total understanding of a dog trot house, the materials and the way the materials relate to the environment

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:15.000
the fact that yellow pine is largely not available and if it is available it's extremely expensive is now been replaced by a different kind of pine and in the past when yellow pine was used it was highly flammable and that required that people place their kitchens at some distance from the main part of the house

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:30.000
all these factors are integrated in the understanding of traditional housing. It's also important for us to appreciate how these houses or these spaces were used socially. How do you, how do you [[?]] your house, Mrs. Coffee? Where do you sleep and where do you have your parties and get togethers and things?

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:40.000
Speaker 1: Well, I sleep in the front room of the house where I can see out to the road ain't nobody coming up I'm most likely to see em. And then a hard winter time make it gettin cold [[??]]

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:47.000
I have a little heater that I [[??]] up the [[??]] with the tin and cut hole and put a pipe in and extend two pipes out into the room with the little heater

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:59.000
then I cook and eat and sleep and do everything in the same room [[laugh]] that'll be saving wood [[laugh]] cus my stove in the kitchen takes so much wood to heat it up so I just cook and when I'm done I eat in the room.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:08.000
Bill: Jack [[??]] how do you recall your boyhood in a house like this, what were the social times, did you have parties? How did you use your house in that sense?

00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:23.000
There was, there would be in the community maybe somebody might have a dance. Musicians would be somebody local they'd have a little fiddle playing and guitar picking maybe and maybe a banjo

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:36.000
They'd have square dances in the home which was traditional back then have square faces and they would maybe take the beds down in one of the big rooms which the rooms would be a lot bigger than these in the house over here.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:43.000
and also out in the hall, they would dance all over the house they'd have square dances going in each room two or three rooms at a time yeah

00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:52.000
Bill: We're gonna have some quilting, some quilting demonstrations here in just a little while. Quilting was carried on these houses, would that be in the breeze way or inside?

00:42:52.000 --> 00:43:08.000
Well that would be mostly inside Bill, and they'd let it they'd have it where they could let it up and down and do it when they was wanting to quilt on it they'd let it but the women take chairs all around the bed all around the quilt at night they'd roll it up on their sting and put it up in the top of the house.

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:17.220
Bill: I see, Daphne how bout your younger years in a dog trot house like you told us some good stories about parties and things you wanna ...

00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:27.000
Daphne Crosby: Mr. Moore in my experience there we had basically the same thing there.

00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:41.000
We had our parties, we had our social activities in the dog trot on the front porches and remembering way back when I was a kid there in the dog trot house.

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:55.000
I don't believe anyone that I recall at this time has elaborated very much on the furniture back in those days that was contained within the dog trot house

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:20.000
and uh, at one time I was a child at the grocery stores which you would know as supermarkets today a combination of market and grocery stores and hardware stores, they got their nails in supply and displayed and sold them out of a wooden keg

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:38.000
They sold oranges and apples out of a square wooden box. I will remember, we poor people we didn't have money to get new furniture, we would ask the store manager to save these boxes and kegs for us

00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:47.000
and uh, we would go by on Saturdays when we bought groceries when we went to town about once a month or once every two months or what have you there

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:59.000
and uh, pretty often there we'd get some new furniture and that's about the only way we got new furniture using these apple boxes and nail kegs we were real proud to get 'em back then.

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:08.000
Mr. Moore: We've been talking about traditional housing in South Central Georgia and one of our main concerns is how the house itself relates to all the other things that are going on in that environment

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:16.000
whether it's a smokehouse or whether it's the yard or the environment and we're also concerned about the house as an energy saving device.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000
The house that we're building over here has a breezeway down the middle which keeps it cool in the summertime.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:35.000
It stands anywhere from ten to twenty inches off the ground which allows for breezes under the house, allows for storage under the house, and the wooden roof is a good insulator in hot weather and in cold weather.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:45.000
Do they still allow wooden shake roofs inside of towns and villages Daphne I mean, or do you have to have a metal roof now what's the code on wooden roofs, shake roofs?

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:52.780
Daphne Crosby: Today they are, they are coming back quite readily in our locality

00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:03.000
Daphne Crosby: uh the wooden shake roof, now there, if I are cold, in our particular city which I'm sure it is all over the nation

00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:13.000
we are using the national fire code. They are required to be treated with a fire retardant material

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:24.000
to keep the cinders and sparks that might happen from adjoining burning buildings or from any accidents that might happen there,

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:33.000
To keep these roofs from being ignited by these embers or sparks that might light upon the wood shake house at this time

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:43.000
Mr. Moore: If you drive through Georgia today you'll see a lot of these houses, dozens and dozens of them, but them almost all have a metal roof today as opposed to the hand split shakes which is the traditional form

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:50.000
There might be questions in our audience today about traditional housing and if possible we'd like to be able to answer them for you

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:53.000
If you's like to tell us what your concerns are or your wonderings?

00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:55.000
[SILENCE] {Indistinct question from audience}

00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:07.000
The question is is this house to scale. It's proportionally correct to what a traditional house would be, it's a bit small for I think wouldn't you agree my panel of experts here

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:12.000
It's a bit small for real, real Georgia living.

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:15.000
I think Miss Coffee's house has two sometimes three beds in the front room

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:22.000
Corrie Smith: Yes, we have three bed- rooms in our house you can put up two beds and have all the room you want to walk around.

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:32.000
Mr. Moore: And then it's as I said earlier there's usually an L extension off the back of one side with bedroom storage and kitchen, the kitchen being the last room as far removed as possible.

00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:41.000
The older the house is the more likely the kitchen is going to be far removed because the older the house is, the more likely is it gonna be built of yellow pine which is highly flammable

00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:51.000
It's an interesting factor that how you inter laid environment, environmental resources with cultural resources and how it comes together

00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:57.500
Gerri Johnson(unsure): The number of rooms you'd have in the house and the size of the room determines the size of your family or how many- how big you want it to be

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:02.000
Speaker 1: You build so many rooms now.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:08.544
[[silence]]