Friday night Grandma mixed up a batch of buckwheat pancakes, covered the brown crock with a dish towel, and placed it on the back of the kitchen stove to rise. Saturday morning, hot off the griddle, the pancakes, generously spread with syrup, honey or butter, would fortify Grandma for a hard day's work, and stimulate the family for their activities.

The flour barrel stood behind the pantry door. Its wooden cover dangled over the side most of the time, for there wasn't a day that Grandma didn't dip into the barrel to concoct something or other for the family table. The spice shelf hung above the dusty mould-board, with an array of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and the whole family of fragrant spices. The shelves on both sides of the Pantry were filled with tiers of bread pans, cake tins, muffin pans, and round, fluted, tubular cake pans in several sizes, one a tiny size suitable to turn out a small cake or two for her visiting grandchildren.
Friday noon Grandma saved the potato water, added it to her "spook" and readied her bread making equipment, but Saturday, that was a special day. Up at the crack of dawn, she added flour to the sponge, and stirred it up into a bubbling mass in the huge round breadpan. It was allowed to rise, and punched down to rise a second time before the mound of dough was ready to be divided, kneaded, and shaped into bread, biscuits, coffee cake, or cut up to become raised doughnuts.

Before iceboxes became a common household item, Grandma stored her bread and pastries in the pie safe. Pie safes had punched-tin panels in their doors. These allowed air to pass through the shelves and kept flies and other insects away from the baked goods inside.
Miracles were performed with the dough with the addition of eggs, honey, butter, or brown sugar. After the proper rising time, all the delicious goodies were popped into the oven, topped with trimmings of apple slices, ground- cherries, butter, or sour cream.

Grandma was creative as well as conservative. Her odds and ends of pie crust, cut into diamond shapes using the white china cutting wheel, were dusted with cinnamon and sugar, and came out of the oven just in time to appease the appetites of hungry grandchildren. At times the leftover crust, edged and crimped with a three tined fork, became little pies with the addition of fillings, made from a small portion of apple sauce, strawberry jam, or a handful of cranberries.
Bread making was a major operation in itself, for Grandma baked enough bread to last her large family a week. Fresh from the oven, it rested on a long table in the summer kitchen to cool. It was always covered with cheesecloth to protect it from flies, and also from Grandpa, who loved to snitch the heel of theloaf as soon as it came out of the oven.
When Grandma was baking, Grandpa was assigned the duty of swatting flies. "Close that screen door, you're lettin' in more flies," came his admonition as we continously scampered in and out. Grandma had a definite schedule and followed it religiously.

Grandpa had worked up an appetite by noon, thus dinner was served at 12 o'clock sharp; no eating meals after sundown for him! He ate with relish and washed his dinner down with several cups of freshly brewed coffee. We loved the aroma of the coffee beans when Grandma ground them in her coffee grinder.
After the dishes were washed Grandma started baking cakes. She usually made a spice cake in a square tin, a two-layer chocolate cake, or a coconut cake. If the Minister and his wife were coming for Sunday dinner. Grandma made her specialty, a four-tier cake with white and yellow layers alternated and put together the last minute with whipped cream. After the company left, the remainder of the cake disappeared quickly.
"Delia, you know what that'll do to our milk check?" he warned her, for he was certain their test would go down when Grandma dipped cream from the top of the milk cans on Saturday morning. Of course. Grandpa was pretty fond of Grandma's special cream cake!
Samples were the best part of cake baking for us children. Grandma never baked a cake without pouring a small portion of batter into a tiny tin, and baked it to see if it needed a bit of flour, sugar, or some thing or other. We hovered at her apron strings ready to consume the rest of the little cakes after she had sampled them.
"You'll burn your fingers children," Grandma admonished, as she gently pushed us aside. Oven timers were not available in Grandma's days, so she kept her eyes on the clock and used straws pulled from the kitchen broom to prick the cakes, testing them for "doneness" as she called it.

While the cakes were baking Grandma mixed up a batch of sorghum cookies and rolled them out thin on her mould-board. One batch would never feed her family for the week, thus she made our favorite, white sour cream cookies, sprinkled with sugar and decorated with half of a hickory nut pressed in the center. We stood by with our mouths watering when the cookies were scooped from the tin, in hopes some would be out of shape or broken and find their way into our hands. "Now don't spoil your supper, " Grandma warned as she handed out the bits and pieces. To rush into Grandma's kitchen after a fast game of pump, pump, pull away, and be met at the door with the delightful odor of fresh baked bread, rolls or cookies, was one of the most pleasant of childhood experiences.
In later years when we asked Grandma for one of her recipes she would casually reply, "Oh, you just take a handful of this or that," or, "Just add a pinch of one thing or another, enough to taste right." How could we ever imitate the wonderful foods Grandma prepared?
Today, when we pass delicatessen counters, displays of frozen goods in cases, or the rows of bread for sale, we recall the days of yesterday and are left with an empty feeling.
There is never a Saturday morning that we do not long to be back in those " Days Of Yesteryear," spending the weekend in the country home with our grandparents, enjoying the happenings in Grandma's kitchen.

Featured Music: "Come Saturday Morning"

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