Ode to the old days

Surprisingly, today I made some homemade bread that turned out spectacular! My sister and I have been trying to come up with a good homemade bread recipe that is "just right". I tried some recipes in my bread machine, but they were hard to slice for Cameron's sandwiches that I pack in his lunch. I needed a good recipe that I could bake in the oven in large bread pans. We both tried out some recipes we found on the internet, to no avail. Renee even tried an "overnight" version of bread. Now thats brave! Needless to say, it didn't work out. Our pioneer women ancestors might have done this and survived, but from what she told me, the taste was unbearable. Refridgeration is a beautiful invention.
I finally decided to try one more recipe that I saw in the "fabulous" Finn family cookbook. This is Cameron's grandmother's family. That got me thinking about how times have changed so much in the last century. These are recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation, time tested and priven to be amazingly good. As I browsed through the "this 'n' that" section, I came across a recipe for Homemade Soap. The description stated, "Grandma Finn"(I assume this would be Cameron's Grandma Zelda Finn Brower's mother)each fall after the hog
had been killed-yikes!-She would save all the fat and cook it with lye and make soap. This was over a bonfire in the backyard. The children-yesthechildren!-would take turns stirring it until it was done. Wow. It also states that it was the only wash soap they used. Now I am not sure if this is implying for all their needs: bath soap, laundry soap, dish soap, ect. I assume it is, because if you were going to go to all that trouble to make the soap for just one use, you would think that these folks did not go down to the drugstore to purchase soap for another need. Imagine that!
Ok so this brings me to my point: I admire these women who were completely self-reliant. I admire their forittude and hard work that went into everything they did. I admire these "soap-and-water" kind of women who didn't have time to fuss over wrinkle cream and shopping malls and blogs. And if you didnt know how to make it, you didnt have it. I dont think I will ever be able to turn a hog into soap, but thats ok. I think there are valuable lessons learned from producing homemade and simple things that we would otherwise miss. And everything tastes just a little sweeter when its homemade!