Tn. farmer poor folks breakfast

The house I was born in Tennessee Applachian country(still occupied)and grew up in beginning in the early 40's never left me hungry. Yes, I was a WWII war baby. We weren't rich, but by any stretch did we think we were poor!
Recipe(source) help would be appreciated along with any rememberances you might have if your from the same vintage.
I recall being awakened about 4:00 am to help my Dad hand milk our dairy cattle, regardless of weather conditions. We'd finish, go to the house and breakfast would be about ready.
HERE IS MY REQUEST.... First, the big picture..... Always we'd have homemade biscuits, meat( bacon, country ham or sausage from OUR smoke house!) located about 50 yards from the outhouse. Fried eggs and gravy, always, made from the meat drippings.
After the main course I remember topping off with biscuits topped with molasses made by my Grandpa mixed with churned butter, or homemade preserves or apple butter.
FINALLY, Do you have a source to recommend for molasses, preserves or apple butter? I mean the real thing. Hope I've painted a good picture
Ole Rouxdog

I will resource my father-in-law, who grew up much the same way, but on  North Carolina tobacco farm...

What's poor about that?  We ate the same stuff every morning before we went to take out a barn or two of tobacco or before heading out to wash the cotton picker in preparation of our day's work...and we sure weren't poor..............well..............we didn't think so anyway.

As far as Molasses, all I could find were recipes on how to make it, and boy is it an undertaking!!!Do you mean you want to buy preserves, apple butter, etc.., or make it? As far as Apple Butter and preserves, Mr.Mayor and Janet make great stuff!

Ann and Jay,
Much in common amongst us! No Annie, I don't want to make those wonderful nostalgic items, just eat them! I helped Pa make molasses. Blue ,the mule, pulled that cane squeezer around and around. I think Blue was asleep the entire time. Pa called me his fire boy. I kept stoking logs on the fire underneath the big boiling tub (about 4 by 10 feet) while Blue kept squeezing the cane. Pa told both of us we were good workers? Al and Janet haven't stepped forward to my rescue. Hopefully they will. Tobacco growing? What would you like to know about the tedious details? We grew it. The first job I had(working outside our farm) in my life was hiring out at about eight years old to "set out" tobacco plants. Got paid $2.50 cents for the day's work.
Jay, you're right, ain't nothing poor about that country life I, and others, lived! We were rich!

Sounds like a good old farm breakfast to me. Not that I was ever on a farm growing up, but my English husband was. When he was in his late tens to early teens, he helped out on his great uncle's dairy farm in Cornwall. They'd get up at 4 and milk the cows. Not by hand, but herding them to the milking sheds where they each had a stall, and knew which was which. Howard would help hook them all up. The milk would run down a corrugated chiller into a tank, and then his great aunt would come out and dip out two big jugs of it and take them back to the house. She had a big old cast-iron AGA cooker, and on one back burner was a pan for the cream. It would sit there on low heat for hours and become clotted cream.

About 7am all the farm hands on this huge farm would come in to breakfast at an enormous wooden dining table. They'd have clotted cream on their corn flakes, 2-3 loaves of bread which had been toasted, fried eggs, fried mushrooms, fried potatoes, fried bread, bacon, and sausage.

Lots of fried and fattening stuff from our perspective, but then by the time they'd eaten this, they'd been up working hard for three hours.

Started picking up leaves behind the stick harvester at the age of 4.  That'd be considered child abuse today.

Dean, I'm really partial to the apple butter they sell at the Moose Cafe in Asheville, but I'm not seeing a website for it (but I'm not looking very hard either).  I know the Moose is affiliated with the state farmers' market restaurants so it might be available that way.  My jar is empty though so I was going to try this out http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sweet-and-Chunky-Apple-Butter-230706 and just haven't gotten around to it yet.  I can update you when I do give it a try.  A good friend makes her own all the time and apparently it's not supposed to be hard.

Rouxdog...Try some apple butter or preserves from Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria, Va. They have their own orchards and cannery. Everything is top notch.



http://www.thevirginiamarketplace.com/apple_butter_curds_and_jams.asp

rouxdog,      ....I can get you REAL Cane syrup. I have to look around, alot of what you listed is available locally and Farmer's Market stalls.
  ....I have thought of starting a website to sell these items and as gift packs.  But the fact is shipping in most cases will double the price.

savorwisconsin.com
Dont know if this helps, but they seem to have everything you are asking for-even molasses!

There's an Apple Butter Festival in Oak Glen CA the end of this year:
 
http://www.losriosrancho.com/public-events.html
 
Shouldn't be too far of a trip for a WorldTraveler like you!

Check out:
http://www.jelly.com/RetailLocations/index.php?file=NM.txt&state=New%20Mexico
 
http://www.jelly.com/index.htm
http://astore.amazon.com/applebutter-20

The Hinds County Penal Farm inmates used to make molasses from cane grown on the penal farm. It was sold to the public under the brand name "Serving Time" and the label had a picture of a cell on it. The inmates could work off part of their sentences by doing farm labor. They also sold hot pepper sauce made from peppers they grew.
 
I haven't seen any for the last couple of years, now that I think about it. I'll try to see if it is still available. It was really good, and the novelty just made it better.

Doggie-
Watch your mailbox for the answer to your request. We made Apple, Pear, and Plum Butter last season with the first good-sized fruit crop from our trees. We also did some Cherry Preserves and Coarse AppleSauce. We like the results... Hope th box arrives safely.
AL

There is an Applewood restaurant in Pigeon Forge, TN and Sevierville, TN that serves amazing apple butter!  http://www.applewoodfarmhouserestaurant.com/home.html
 
There is also a website for apple barn apple butter which is pretty good too!  http://www.applebarncidermill.com/

edwmax


rouxdog,      ....I can get you REAL Cane syrup. I have to look around, alot of what you listed is available locally and Farmer's Market stalls.
....I have thought of starting a website to sell these items and as gift packs.  But the fact is shipping in most cases will double the price.

Hey.  You stole my idea, neighbor.  

Dean, look VERY forward to your box from the Mayor-I can personally attest to the excellence of what he is sending you!!!!!!

rouxdog

FINALLY, Do you have a source to recommend for molasses

 
Did I send you a glass bottle of daddy's sorghum molasses? I've got cases and cases if you'd like some of it. No apple butter this year but I think I've got more muscadine jelly and daddy is sending me some pear butter soon.
 
I'll share :-)