By 1916 it was clear that Pine Mountain Settlement School was food challenged and more ways were needed to supply the workers and children with a sustainable and nutritious diet that would go beyond the current mountain practices.\u00a0 By 1917 the challenges and food shortages of WWI were being felt across the country and Pine Mountain joined thousands of institutions in subscribing to President Woodrow Wilson’s programs to conserve food.\u00a0 Administered by Herbert Hoover, the “Gospel of the Clean Plate<\/a>,” was started as an attempt to ensure that there would be adequate food for the troops and for the Europeans caught up in WWI.\u00a0 The government designed a program for certain days to be “meatless, sweetless, wheatless and porkless.” Each state was charged to oversee the program and to monitor commercial businesses and restaurants.<\/p>\n The staff at Pine Mountain followed the war efforts intently, as did many Americans. Many of the staff came from missionary families, and were familiar with many of the dynamics of the European conflicts. One staff, in particular, was following the war daily.\u00a0Leon Deschamps<\/strong>,<\/a> a Belgian, still had family in Belgium and watched the war unfold with great anxiety.\u00a0 In May of 1917, the strain was too much and he left the School to fight in the Great War for his homeland.\u00a0 Deschamps was much admired by the staff and students at the school.\u00a0 He was a vital part of the farming activity at the school and when he left his departure left a void and not just a little anxiety. Before he left, Deschamps made sure that\u00a0 Pine Mountain understood that he would return following the end of conflict. He also made sure that the School was committed to the support of\u00a0 the Belgian Relief<\/strong> Fund<\/strong>. Deschamps, as the school’s forester and farmer knew what the loss of a farmer at Pine Mountain meant, but his need to join the war effort was overwhelming and immediate,\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Baugh, who had worked with him, assumed his responsibilities in the forest and the farm and the campus had Deschamps promise to retrun to Pine Mountain following the end of the conflict. His strong belief in the war effort and his subsequent departure stirred many students to action to support the War and was their first introduction to a world “beyond the seas.”<\/p>\n The children began to imagine Mr. Deschamps in the fields of war and for them, Belgium became a real place. \u00a0A campaign was put into place by the students, not just the staff. They determined to save money for the War effort, and particularly for Belgium, by rationing themselves once a week.\u00a0 This rationing included adhering to the “Clean Plate Club”.\u00a0 The children took the idea one step further.<\/p>\n On a chosen day, the children planned to forego their meal and to substitute a lean fare of rice with cocoa rather than a full course meal. \u00a0These rice and cocoa meals were adopted following WWI for other occasions when the Schoolchildren adopted some cause which required saving money. \u00a0For example, the swimming pool was a rice and cocoa student project but clearly, other campaigns held little persuasion alongside the looming disaster in Europe and the danger to one of their own — the forester and farmer,\u00a0Leon Deschamps.<\/a><\/p>\n “JUST THE WAY I LIKE IT!”<\/strong><\/p>\n The students at Pine Mountain were well prepared to be “Clean Plate” eaters as one of the rules of the School was that all students must eat at least three bites of the food served to them. The story is told of a young boy who was served some soup from the communal large bowl at the center of the dining table. As he lifted the spoon to his mouth and took the first taste he quickly offered his uncensored opinion. “It tastes like soap!” he exclaimed. Somewhere in the depths of the kitchen a soap bar had inadvertently fallen into the soup pot. The young boy, startled all the children as no one was to comment on their like and dislike of any one food. He looked around the table at his fellow diners and quickly recovered, “And, that’s just the way I like it!” he said as he looked sharply at the supervising staff at the table and continued to slurp the offensive soup.<\/p>\n The Clean Plate Club asked that America, ” Leave a clean dinner plate. Take only such food as you will eat. Thousands are starving in Europe.”<\/em><\/p>\n PRACTICE HOUSE\/MODEL HOME\/COUNTRY COTTAGE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Another piece of the effort to promote the “Gospel of the Clean Plate” was the industrial training that young women received at Practice House, the home economics training center at the School.\u00a0 Practice House, also called Model Home and\u00a0Country Cottage<\/strong><\/a> was built with funds that were donated to the School by the New York Auxilliary of the Southern Industrial Educational Association<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 The donation was a testimony to their very active woman NYC President, Mrs. Algernon S. Sullivan<\/strong><\/a>. Mrs. Sullivan was a generous supporter of Pine Mountain Settlement School. The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award is well known in academic circles for its high minded ideals. For example : the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award<\/a>\u00a0 is presented to undergraduate seniors at colleges on vote of the faculty for an individual who “exhibits Sullivan’s ideals of heart, mind, and conduct as evidenced by a spirit of love for and helpfulness to others, who ‘excels in high ideals of living, in fine spiritual qualities, and in generous and unselfish service to others.’ ” [Wikipedia]<\/p>\n Practice House\/Country Cottage was just that, a place to practice frugality and attention to good housekeeping, gardening, cooking, budgeting, and other household skills. These were the skills that made the difference during war-time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Evelyn Wells <\/a>in her gathered letters and history of the School describes the Practice House in this manner:<\/p>\n “Our Country Cottage aimed to show them [the girls at Pine Mountain] what was good about their own methods, and to introduce to them others that they badly\u00a0<\/em>needed to learn.\u00a0 Some ideas with which we started had to be abandoned, such as well with water running by gravity to the kitchen sink because we could not strike water …”<\/em><\/p>\n Cornelia Walker<\/strong>, a Cornell graduate, and our Domestic Science teacher in 1922-1923, was the first hostess.\u00a0 There followed\u00a0Mrs. Seidlinger<\/strong>,<\/a>\u00a0Mary Work<\/strong>,\u00a0Annette Van Bezey<\/strong>, and in 1926,\u00a0Marguerite Emerson<\/strong>.\u00a0 During Mrs. Emerson’s regime, the name was changed from the Model Home<\/strong>\u00a0to the\u00a0Country Cottage<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n No attempt is here made to estimate what this building has meant to the groups of girls who three at a time have spent six weeks in the Country Cottage, cooking, living on a carefully worked out budget, caring for the cow and selling its milk, and entertaining, under the guidance of the housemother.\u00a0 The garden was also important, and a summer worker has usually (and with varying degrees of success) canned its produce for the family’s winter consumption.<\/em><\/p>\n Two lots of lumber were measured out “according to the Country Cottage plan” and were then sold to community families. The house and the terraced gardens were copied by many in the area.<\/em><\/p>\n The structure was built between 1922 and 1923 and was then remodeled in 1927 and again in 1951.\u00a0 It became a staff residence in 1940 and today serves as a residence for various interns at the School.<\/em><\/p>\n Evelyn Wells noted that\u00a0“We regret that as a neighborhood house it has not become the center that was one of its ideals at the first.”<\/em><\/p>\n While the home only accommodated three girls at a time, the impact on those three girls was profound and had a lasting effect on the surrounding community. [The girls were rotated through the program for short periods of time.]<\/em><\/p>\n [From\u00a0The Pine Cone, \u00a0May 1935, p.3]<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “Groups of four or five girls have lived at Practice House each six weeks period of this school year to learn what they could of home life.\u00a0 Twenty-eight girls have had the privilege of making it their home this year while at school.<\/em><\/p>\n We realize just as a nation is the composite of the states of which it is made, a state is dependent upon the atmosphere of the communities with it and in turn, the atmosphere of a community is the home life in the community.\u00a0 We feel we can do a little bit of world service by helping to make the girls of Pine Mountain worthy home members.\u00a0 A worthy home member is one who not only does her share of the work willingly but one who adds to the joy of the home by her desire to do the right thing and by her pleasant courteous manner.<\/em><\/p>\n Some of the more immediate aims which we have held before us have been as follows:<\/em><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The desire and ability to prepare attractive, tasty meals that were well balanced and inexpensive.<\/em><\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The desire and ability to plan and carry on the work in an orderly way.<\/em><\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To develop a feeling of helpfulness, thoughtfulness and interest in others.<\/em><\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Desire to become a socially poised person.<\/em><\/p>\n The work has been grouped and each girl has taken her turn at the various types of work to be done in the home life here<\/em><\/p>\n BUTCHERING<\/strong><\/p>\n “Mr. Hayes has been teaching his A-1 and A-2 Agriculture classes how to butcher hogs.\u00a0 Hence good pork chops and hams appear on the dining table.”<\/p>\n Most all butchering of meats was conducted by the school during the Boarding School years and meats were canned, salt-cured, sometimes frozen, smoked, and sometimes dried.<\/p>\n This recipe for liver-loaf is most likely scaled for calf liver, but pork liver and even chicken livers could be substituted.\u00a0 The author would have no desire for any!<\/p>\n [From\u00a0The Pine Cone<\/i>, April 1934, p.3]<\/p>\n LIVER LOAF – REALLY!?<\/strong><\/p>\n Liver Loaf<\/strong><\/p>\n One way to make a popular cut of the animal go ’round!<\/p>\n 1 1\/2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 lbs. liver Pour boiling water over liver. Let stand five minutes.\u00a0 Drain and chop fine and\u00a0 add all other ingredients, mix thoroughly and shape into loaf.\u00a0 Put into greased baking dish, or lay strips of salt pork or bacon on top, add one cup water, bake one hour, add one cup tomatoes or tomato soup fifteen minutes before taking from the oven.<\/p>\n IN THE KITCHEN<\/strong><\/p>\n Kitchens in the community varied widely.\u00a0 Delia Creech<\/strong><\/a>, wife of Henry Creech<\/strong><\/a> , son of William\u00a0 and Sally Creech<\/strong><\/a>, was known for her frugality and the rich maple sugar she created from the Creech “Sugar Camp”.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the photograph below a woman prepares food in a traditional enameled metal bowl.\u00a0 Sometimes called flow-ware, these enameled metal-ware pots were favorites in Appalachia and in the South at the turn of the century. Either a blue or a red flow-ware color these metal-ware containers were found in many homes and continue to be prized as family keep-sakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n On this page below, is Aunt Sal (Sally Creech) seated at her churn in her very tidy kitchen.\u00a0 In this posed photograph of Sal, she is seated at the churn which was a necessary kitchen tool for all households that owned milk cows.\u00a0 Tools in most mountain households were often hand-made or were purchased from “Tinkers” who roamed the mountain valley with wares such as tin pans, crockery, and wash-boards. “Tinkers also made it part of their trade to repair items.\u00a0 Rarely would any item be thrown away and then only if completely broken or ruined.<\/p>\n Kitchens could also be as rudimentary as cast-iron pots on tripods located near the backyard doorway, or they could be fully equipped centers of family life., as seen in this photograph.\u00a0 The dangers associated with yard kitchens, the soap pots, and the “blue” pots (indigo dye pots), often located in the yard, are obvious. Small children and adults frequently suffered scalds and burns from these open-air kitchens.\u00a0 A daughter of Aunt Sal was scalded and died from the burns.\u00a0 The luxury of an indoor kitchen was only for those whose home was large enough to accommodate an indoor cooking space.\u00a0 More frequently, the fireplace was a center of household meals and large cast iron pots hanging on hooks or settled on stones, or buried in cinders, were sources of family meals.\u00a0\u00a0 This kind of cooking encouraged stews, soups, and simple baked goods.<\/p>\n HOME ECONOMICS RECIPES<\/strong><\/p>\n A variation of the old\u00a0 and well-known favorite:<\/p>\n Spider Corn Bread<\/strong><\/p>\n 1 3\/4\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cups of milk Beat egg and add one cup milk;\u00a0 stir in corn meal, flour, sugar, salt and baking powder which have been sifted together;\u00a0 turn into a heavy, new frying pan in which the fat has been melted;\u00a0 pour in remainder of milk but do not stir it.\u00a0 Bake about twenty-five minutes in a hot oven.\u00a0 There should be a line of creamy custard through the bread.\u00a0 Cut like pie and serve hot.<\/p>\n Don’t let an aversion to spiders\u00a0 or bugs stop a trial of this corn-meal bread. It is delicious!<\/p>\n One of the goals in later years was to provide at least a quart of milk per person per day. Further, the staff was allotted quarts through the end of the Boarding School years (1949) This supplement, no doubt, was a great off-set for the prior Great Depression years as well as both World Wars.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meals at Pine Mountain cost the school 33 cents per person per day in 1925 and\u00a0“it requires great skill and ingenuity to serve interesting food for this sum of money, in a place where there is no ice, and no market where the fresh meat is local beef or pork possible only in cold weather.\u00a0 Miss Gains<\/strong><\/a>, [Ruth B. Gaines]\u00a0 who has been with us thirteen years, has developed so unusual an ability in dealing with these circumscribed conditions that she has often been urged to get up an institutional cookbook for others up against such difficulties as we have .”<\/i><\/p>\n![\"Clean](\"https:\/\/cdn.loc.gov\/service\/pnp\/cph\/3g00000\/3g08000\/3g08800\/3g08893r.jpg\")
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1 1\/2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cup dry bread crumbs
1-4\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cup melted fat
1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 egg
1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 teaspoon salt
1-8\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 teaspoon pepper
1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 onion\u00a0 — chopped<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kingman_071c.jpg\")
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1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 egg
1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cup corn meal
1-3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cup of flour
2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tablespoons sugar
1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 teaspoon salt
2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 teaspoons baking powder
1 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tablespoon fat<\/p>\n
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