Betty Craiglow has this to say about Louisiana kitchens in the 1930s and 1940s:
Lillian Pepper, my mother, wasn't one to hand out compliments to people, feeling, I believe, that it was a sign of weakness, but I heard her remark a few times about what a wonderful cook Grandmother was. One thing that stands out in my memory is Grandmother's Butter Roll, made from biscuit dough rolled into saucer-size rounds, slathered with home-churned butter like we're never going to taste again, sprinkled with sugar, rolled into bundles, placed in a biscuit pan, a syrup of sugar, butter and water poured over it all and baked until done and crusty brown. I've never successfully made a butter roll that comes anywhere near as good as what I remember. My brother JW remembers her fried pies.
Every place we ever lived Mother and Daddy always had a large garden with lots of vegetables. During the time we lived in Beech Springs at the teacherage I remember Mother "put up" by canning or preserving over 2000 cans and jars one summer. We had a mud room off of the kitchen which Daddy lined with row after row of narrow shelves all around. The shelves were just wide enough to hold a jar or can. I think he used 2x4s. Mother was very proud of her work, and well she should have been, because those containers of food represented many long, hot hours of labor.
During and after the Depression, the state agriculture and home demonstration agencies held community-wide cannings where the local women would bring their produce, like tomatoes, and use the facilities and equipment of the parish to put up food for their families. In those days most families were too poor to afford canning equipment. The time I remember, it was sweltering hot in July or August and was under a roof with open sides. Many long tables provided surfaces for the women to work on. Some of the biggest metal canners I have ever seen were used there.
Many things were home-made in those days that we take for granted today. Soap, for instance, was not store-bought. Mother made our soap from kitchen fat drippings and lye plus other ingredients. Ashes might have been used. Being only five or six at the time, my memory is not as sharp as it could be on the recipe. I remember her pouring the liquid soap into shallow wooden forms. Each form would have about eight 3"x6" sections which Mother would fill with that ugly dull yellow mixture. When hardened, the soap was used in the kitchen and for both bathing and clothes-washing. Mother would shave it into small pieces for the black wash pot in the yard where she boiled the whites such as sheets and shirts and dresses -- all cotton, of course.
My first culinary effort at baking was, sad to say, a fiasco. Mother prided herself on her cooking prowess without benefit of, perish the thought, a cookbook. Until later years there wasn't one to be found in the house. Nobody could outdo her in cooking vegetables and meat but, thinking back, I realize cakes were not her strong suit, most tasting a lot like sweetened biscuits. In Mother's era, in South Louisiana, perhaps there weren't many areas where women could take pride in their accomplishments. Only in rearing good children, keeping a clean house, and in cooking, an area they could really be the star performer.
One morning Mother told me the ingredients for a cake and went over with me what I was to do. Then, trusting soul, she left for a couple of hours. She returned to find cake batter all over her kitchen, overflowing the pan, oozing out of the oven, everywhere! Just a little mix-up of spoons. She'd said two teaspoons of baking powder, I'd used two tablespoons. Maybe that's why, after that, I was relegated to the clean-up detail. Mother hated to wash dishes.