Viewing page 6 of 17

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:12:49]
{Speaker 1}
We're not familiar by that name. We make Perloo out of chicken. Might be about the same.
[[Crosstalk]]
[Audience member speaks]
Whats Perloo?

[00:12:58]
{Speaker 2}
Perloo is chicken and rice cooked together in a washpot. You have a crowd.
{Speaker 3}
Uh, Is that chicken dumplings you're talking about? Is it a dumpling?
[Audience member speaks]

[00:13:09]
No, I don't think that it was. It was ah, like uh, I guess it was chicken kind of cooked off the bone, then you put a lot of soda crackers in it. And a little milk put in.
{Speaker 3}
Chicken pot pie. Yeah

[00:13:21]
{Speaker 3}
Yeah, that's a German chicken pot pie is what they tell me.
And you just fix it like you do a chicken pot pie, only instead of making the crust
like the dough, or for pies or something like that
you use your crackers, you use a layer of your crackers and your meat juice from your chicken,
you know like you make chicken pot pie, your eggs and all and your little peas.

[00:13:47]
[Audience member]
I think this is less fancy than that.
[[laughter]]
{Speaker 3} Yes Well that's the way they do it

[00:13:50]
{Speaker 4}
I tell ya, for these folks that are just come up and sat down,
why don't we go over again this the way you cook a opossum?

[00:13:56]
[[Cross talk]] [[laughter]]
{Speaker 3} Okay. Squirrel, squirrel too.
{Speaker 1} Excuse me, ah Dennis, first we got kill this opossum before we can cook him there i think somebody ought to get into that.
[00:14:06]
{Speaker 3} Alright a possum hunt now [[laughter]]
{Speaker 4} Well, I uh, finding a possum oughta be easy i see lots of them out on the highway that's no problem. [[laughter]]

[00:14:12]
{Speaker 2}
Let's let Daphne hunt 'em and then we'll cook him.
{Speaker 3}
Alright.
{Speaker 1}
Okay uh we normally in the procedure, we would go through with there we would go out normally the teenage kids there had to have something for entertainment, and opossum hunting was, one of our great sports.

[00:14:32]
{Speaker 1}
Uh, as part of our hunting back when I was coming up, it's not very prominent now but we always had uh, what we called uh, a cur dog uh, around in the yard there, most of us did and uh, and I don't really know uh, what kind of dog that was other than a Heinz 57.

[00:14:48]
{Speaker 1}
But this dog was trained to do everything. He'd run rabbits and tree 'em in the daytime and squirrels and he would do opossum and coon at night. Guess whichever time of the day that you needed him that's what he would get. Anyway, he would take him out and trail these opossum down and tree 'em up a persimmon tree.

[00:15:04]
{Speaker 1}
Uh, if ya'all not familiar with a persimmon tree it's about as high as our dog trap house over there with a fruit on it about this big and opossum were crazy about this.

[00:15:14]
{Speaker 1}
So normally you could uh, go to near a good persimmon patch there with your old uh, cur dog and he'd have you a couple of opossums there uh, pretty soon and you'd take the burlap bag along with you of course and an axe if the tree was too big to climb to get the opossum down, you'd cut the tree down and get the opossum. [[laughter]]

[00:15:32]
{Speaker 1}
You'd put the opossum in the bag and put him on your back and take him home you'd put him in the pen normally there and feed him several days there and get him fattened up at to the right consistency. And uh, course then we had to, somebody had to butcher that doggone opossum and that was always my job there.

[00:15:50]
{Speaker 1}
And I don't know how these other ladies did theirs but uh, my job was to, to kill the opossum and I would always take the ax handle and I'd real carefully catch the opossum by the tail. Of course you had to be careful when you do that.

[00:16:05]
{Speaker 1}
Take him out in the yard and I'd slap him upside the head and a opossum has the tendency his characteristics uh, he will what we call sull and if you tap him ,tap him kinda hard there you won't really be hurt him but uh, he would kinda fall over like he's dead there and he thinks you'll think he is and you goin' to leave him alone but uh,

[00:16:27]
{Speaker 1}
once you got him in that position, you reached over and you got your axe handle and you'd ease it over on his neck and you put both feet on that axe handle and you catch the opossum by the tail and you'd give a quick jerk and break his neck.

[00:16:39]
{Speaker 1}
So then we turned it over to the ladies. [[laughter]]

[00:16:43]
{Speaker 4}
Now that the hard work's done uh, alright now you've got an opossum now whatcha going to do with it?

[00:16:48]
{Speaker 2}
We have to skin him. [[laughter]] We would skin the opossum and as we skinned him we'd be very careful not to touch the opossum to get him down to the meat.

[00:17:04]
{Speaker 2}
Now, when we get him cleaned and dressed, we would always put him in a pot and boil him. This way, we would tenderize him and also we would get the wild taste out off him.

Transcription Notes:
KraussMouse: With good headphones, I was able to discern the audio from the inaudible audience member. Made some other minor adjustments. Also the correct term is "cur dog" which is a low class of mixed breed dog.