Posted on 08/03/2002 3:55:10 AM PDT by 2Trievers
THE OLD-TIME DRINK, Switchel, frequently called by different names, was used as a thirst-quencher on the farm in days gone by. I have always known this special summer-time drink by the name of switchel. However, over the years it has acquired many names, possibly as many as the ingredients it was constituted with.
A Dover reader recently phoned to inquire what the ingredients of switchel were. Having never made up a batch myself, I turned to Peter Farrow’s The Yankee Trivia Book, with the added sub-title: Rescued from Oblivion, published in 1985, by Lance Tapley of Augusta, Maine.
Farrow wrote: “Switzel, sometimes called swizzle, occasionally miscalled sprill, most commonly harvest drink or harvester, it was a concoction of vinegar, molasses or brown sugar, pure, cold spring water, and whatever else you might care to add in the way of spice — ginger, cinnamon or nutmeg, or a handful of crushed mint. Made up by the gallons for the harvest hands, particularly during haying. Right bracey!”
As a lad of five or six, I may have tasted this drink, but I can’t be sure. Somewhere about that age while visiting Grandfather Cole’s farm, he allowed me to go into the field with the hired men during haying. When the men got thirsty they would pour a drink from a large jug into a dipper. As the dipper was passed around from hand to hand, I was offered a swig. I remember thinking how grand it was to be treated as an equal by the hired hands. I must confess, though, as far as the taste of the concoction was concerned, I have but one recollection — that being the taste of chewing tobacco left on the dipper rim by the men who drank before me. As much as I admired the men as they worked at haying, I did not enjoy the taste of chewing tobacco. When the dipper was passed around again, I denied being thirsty even though I was. I chose to remain so until I could ride back to the barn on top of a load of hay.
Back at the farm, after the wagon was backed beneath the hay fork to be unloaded, I was unloaded. One hired hand man handed me down to another that was standing on the ground. Free to run, I hustled into Grandma’s kitchen to quench my thirst. The water was cold, piped into the kitchen sink directly from a hillside spring.
Thirst taken care of, I hurried back to the barn to watch the hay being unloaded. The giant fork was positioned by a hired hand just right so that a great gob of hay was lifted straight up until it engaged with a track and was shunted into the barn. The oldest man worked the fork at the load while two other men in the barn decided where in the mow the hay should be dropped. Disengaging the fork for a return load was their easy work. Their hard work came mowing away the hay into the far edges of the barn. One had to be rugged to mow-away loose hay. Years later when I first had to mow away hay, I found out for myself how uncomfortable strained stomach muscles could really be.
Although haying in Grandfather’s time was mostly by hand, by the time I came along he no longer mowed his fields with a scythe or raked it with a bull rake. Pitching hay on the load with a pitchfork also had been mechanized. He used a two horse team to mow with and a one horse side delivery rake to gather the hay into windrows. A mechanical loader was used to pick up the hay from the windrow to be dropped onto the wagon. Hay balers, even if they had been invented at that time, were certainly not in common use. In 1929, grandfather sold the farm and never did use a tractor for field power.
Although my memory has somewhat dimmed, I still vividly recall one experience while riding on top of a load of hay. Navigating the road out of the field was a bit tricky as it was a steep and narrow way that led up to the main highway. The two horse team was pulling the heavy load up grade when one of them became startled. Suddenly it crowded back on the other horse and the load overturned. Quick as a wink, I found myself eating gravel. Slightly stunned, I remember hearing one of the men holler, “Stacey’s under there — get him out!”
I recall having a difficult time breathing and after what seemed to be an eternity I felt the tight grip of a hand on one arm. Shortly thereafter, I was pulled out. While the horses were being unhitched and the wagon uprighted, I chose not to wait for another ride and walked the a quarter-mile back to the farm.
At the house, Grandmother gave me a glass of ginger ale, my favorite drink. I found it much more acceptable than that swig of what may have been switchel.
Mr. Cole’s address is P.O. Box 55, West Swanzey, 03469.
"Navigating the road out of the field was a bit tricky as it was a steep and narrow way that led up to the main highway."
Some things never change........ : )
One of my summer jobs long ago was hauling hay. We didn't have any of that newfangled "switchel" stuff - just a 10-gallon trash can with water and (sometimes) ice in the back of the pickup. Of course, the guy running the baler and the older men always managed to have a can of Lone Star in their hand, but I would have been hided within an inch of my life if my folks had caught me drinking beer.
I wouldn't even think about doing work like that any more without at least a gallon of Gatorade on ice within easy reach. I don't think I've ever been so hot in any job I've ever done as I was lugging those bales.
Then there's HOT SPICED CIDER in the winter! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! &;-)
Haying is REAL work! &;-)
According to my old man (RIP), loaning my brother and I out for a couple of afternoons to the neighbors and relative to buck bales was a way to take up slack time between milkings.
Pop: "Did Uncle Arnie pay you?"
Me: "Yeah, ten bucks."
Pop: "Give it back to him tomorrow. You kids weren't doing anything you'd get paid for here."
Really good after feeding hay to the livestock in cold weather! : )
Thanks for the link.
During the 20th century, as Prohibition picked up steam, apple juice began to be marketed as "cider" and nowadays, most people assume that apple cider and apple juice are the same thing.
I never stopped to think why I felt so energetic after those breaks.
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