To pick up where I left off last week, the first answer is no, the barn didn't burn down, but Ma and hired girl Leona had their hands full in the kitchen where the Beaver Dam cast iron and porcelain cookstove had produced mountains of food. Heat wafted over the table Ma and Leona had stretched out and draped with a brand-new floral oil cloth just purchased from Stumpf's general store for the occasion. The long table sagged in the middle like Pa's old Percheron.

As a recent arrival from the city, Ma hadn't cooked for threshers since she was a kid. But she was well aware that the crews told stories about cooks new to the threshing, silo filling and corn shredding biz, like the young wife over in Ervin Coulee who actually served the shredding crew one Oscar Mayer hotdog on a Holsum bun and an ice cream bar on a stick. Or the wounded teamster who came into the kitchen for a Band-Aid, only to see a cat jump out from under a dishtowel covering eight loaves of bread on the rise.

Threshing meal stories abound—stories about spoiled canned goods, ptomaine poisoning, wives who knew how to cook and those who didn’t. It was rumored that the leaders of threshing runs met in secret to come up with scheduled moves that would guarantee a satisfying meal and avoid the boiled potatoes that were raw in the middle at dinnertime.

Ma wanted to be sure this crew would have only good stories to tell about her service, and that meant a mid-morning lunch preceding the Big Meal. So, she fussed until 10 a.m. when it was time to bring the wicker wash basket full of roast beef, meat loaf and Velveeta sandwiches out to the field pitchers accompanied by “egg coffee” in a huge bluestone coffee pot and a cream can half full of ice and a heavenly mix of icy well water spiked with a heavenly potion called “Watkins Nectar,” very hard on the pocketbook and only served to “company.” Ma worried that the coffee was probably not hot enough, the nectar not cold enough.

Then at noon, Oscar Peterson's steam whistle, the whole crew headed for the blackrimmed white enameled wash basins lined up on the porch, washed off the sweat and dirt and chaff and filed into the kitchen where the old oak table became a genuine groaning board. The men at the table smelled of hard work, not as unpleasant as the nervous variety. They crammed themselves up to the table and grabbed thick slices of homemade bread, a Leona specialty. There was plenty of butter, too from The Blair Creamery Assn., where most at the table sold their milk. No oleo margarine in this household. Plain-spoken Luther Chappell, our wealthy neighbor who owned a like-new John Deere model “B' and also a 1941 Torpedo-back Buick, theorized about what oleo was made of. The recipe is not appropriate for a family newspaper.

Serving platters were passed and diners helped themselves to three kinds of meat. Heavy hens, disjointed, fried in butter, then roasted in heavy cream. Delicious meatballs canned in Mason jars and stored in their own juices since last fall. Pork roast cooked to a fare-thee well, crispy fat glistening at its edges. Heaps of mashed potatoes, melted butter cascading down every side. Brown gravy from the pork roast. T-Bone had to do without a T-Bone. Our Guernsey herd did a good job on butterfat performance. But not so good on the waterboy's favorite steak.

And there was more: Buttered green beans picked that morning. Baby carrots in cream sauce. Vinegary coleslaw that bit the tongue, sliced cucumbers, turmeric and dill pickles (no garlic), sliced tomatoes served with sugar and cream. “Just like peaches and cream!” Pa said. as a tribute to the state's dairy industry.

Finally came pies. Apple, raspberry, picked and canned from our woodlot, and custard. Sour cream cookies. Ma let me sit at the first seating and I dug in, happy to participate in this annual ritual. “You got a pretty good appetite, boy!” said the neighbor’s hired man.

I had to say something, so I said, “Yah, threshing is the only time I get anything decent to eat around here!” Fortunately for me, Ma didn't hear me. She was worrying if the rest of the crew “could make a meal of it.”

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