Category Archives: Rancho Roly Poly

Was rearranging a bookshelf when I encountered my Mississippi grandmother’s 1928 copy of Holland’s Cook Book, a product of the Texas Farm and Ranch Publishing Co., whose founder more or less started the State Fair of Texas.

I found and reread the part about how to clean and salt butchered hogs. Still fascinating. I thought there was also a section on cooking possum, but I couldn’t find it. Then I stumbled over the instructions for buying a few dozen eggs in April, when they’re cheap, and preserving them until the following winter (almost fresh) when they’re not.

Takes a big crock and eight or so quarts of water mixed with sodium silicate, also know as “water glass.” Any drug store will have it, it says there. Something tells me probably not nowadays. But I could be wrong. Seems when Obamalot ran its stupid cash-for-clunkers program, dealers were supposed to kill the clunker by injecting water glass into the engine.