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.
The mental image of those dripping fangs, almost did me in ... YIKES! &;-)
It was one of those rare moments when time seems to stop, and a single image gets burned into your brain forever. Fortunately, that was years ago. I was 17, and had the reflexes that go with it.
"Here Honey ... you hold the pillowcase and I'll hold the broomhandle." &;-)
That is similar to a true story I was told by a local farmer. He had bought a mechanical bale thrower that attached to the side of a truck bed. It would pickup and throw bales of hay onto the bed of a flat bed truck. This eliminated one of the hardest jobs of hay season. Anyway to make a long story short on this day there were three men on the truck bed stacking hay as the bale thrower deposited the bales amongst them. The truck driver said I knew there was something wrong because I had never heard a hay bale buzz like that before. But it was too late to stop the truck and the bale was thrown up onto the bales already stacked. The men stacking the hay knew instantly what the sound of the singing bale was caused by and immediately abandoned the moving truck. Somehow a rattlesnake had crawled inside a hay bale and was upset by the trill ride of the bale thrower. This story is still funny even though it happened forty years ago, One singing rattler in a bale goes up and three grown men bale off........... : )
Wanted to tell this story this morning but didn't have time. : )
Iced tea is the beverage of choice for "guys who sweat a lot"-- lots of sugar, and so strong you can see it raise its dukes when you pour it...
Now that is "Iced Tea" the way I like it. : )
How hot was it out there?
Why it was so hot that my hens are laying scrambled eggs.......... : )
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