Letters taken from readers about recent food articles
Last month’s articles about “foods from the past” generated considerable response, including messages from several folks who told me they fondly remember enjoying chicken feet as a dinner treat. From Lou Opall, a Brownsville transplant who now lives in Oestersund, Sweden, came this note about some of those foods from the past. “What a mouth-watering read,” Lou wrote. “Just the thought of fried scrapple makes me tear up. I have tried many times to find it on the Internet and have asked various friends to search for it in the stores, but it seems to have disappeared entirely. The canned variety was good, though it had perhaps a little too much white pepper, but the best was made by Mr. Brown at Brown’s Grocery on Market Street near Fifth Avenue. It was in a loaf form, and you could buy it by the pound. I have tried to make it myself several times using boiled pork bits and cornmeal mush, but it just doesn’t seem to be the same without using a real pork head and boiling off the meat.
Lou lamented the passing of unusual foods from bygone days.
“You can’t buy chicken feet,” he remarked, “bologna is a thing of the past, potted ham is no longer the answer to a quick sandwich, and scrapple is just a memory. Whoever said ‘the best of times is now’ should look over my shoulder and see how great it was in the past.”
Brownsville native Sam Loy, now of Mesa, Ariz., was interested in Jan Rowe’s fruitless attempts to purchase “chipped ham” in various east coast cities. That unique western Pennsylvania lunchmeat had a special connection with Sam’s father.
“In the late 40s and early 50s,” Sam explained, “my father was the proprietor of the Isaly’s store on Market Street in Brownsville. Dad was a 25-year Isaly’s man, and chipped ham and Klondikes were proprietary items of Isaly’s. Chipped ham was a specialty item due to a contract with the Rath meat packing company. It was pressed, then packed in tin containers shaped like a loaf of bread.
“I have lived all over the country since leaving Brownsville in 1956, and I have never found chipped ham anywhere else. Only recently did I find a store in Arizona that will ‘shave’ the ham like Isaly’s did. We used to mix barbecue sauce with chipped ham, put it on a hamburger bun, and have it with a Coke. Ah, those were the days.”
Our articles about foods from the past included Lou Opall’s memories of eating pokeweed that he and his grandfather had collected in the woods. That anecdote prompted Front Street native Russ Moorhouse to write, “My mother and I used to pick poke in the woods behind our house. You had to pick it just as it was emerging from the ground, about 4 to 6 inches tall, then cook it almost all day. I was told if poke got too big, it would be poisonous to pick.”
Pokeberries provided kids with some cheap entertainment that didn’t make them popular with their mothers.
“We had fun as kids making ink from the pokeberries.” Russ remembered. “We would throw the berries at each other’s white T-shirts, much to our mothers’ disgust, since the stains weren’t easy to remove.”
Reading about city chicken, chipped ham and scrapple made Russ, who now lives in Stevensville, Md., yearn for some of those foods he enjoyed as a child.
“After reading your column, I’m hungry,” he declared. “Lucky for me, my wife has both my mom’s and my grandmother’s old recipes, so every year on my birthday my wife fixes me ‘city chicken.’ Down here in Maryland, we have to buy the ingredients separately. In our 36 years of living here, we have only found one butcher who knew what we were talking about when we asked for city chicken.
“This year on my birthday, my wife fixed 10 of them with the intention of freezing a few for a later meal. They were a little on the small side though, and once I started eating, there was none left to be frozen.”
Word is spreading about chipped ham too, which may be promising news for Jan Rowe in Boston. Perhaps chipped ham will spread northward too.
“Chipped ham is now available in Delaware and on the eastern shore of Maryland,” Russ Moorhouse revealed. “You just have to tell them that you want the chopped ham chipped. We used to get strange looks when we asked for this, but there are so many people from southwestern Pennsylvania living here that everybody knows what you’re talking about now.”
And there is even some good news for Lou Opall in Sweden, who may be able to mail-order some scrapple after all.
“Scrapple is very popular in the Baltimore, eastern shore of Maryland and Delaware area,” Russ Moorhouse remarked. “It has spilled down from the Lancaster-York-Philadelphia region. I never had it until I moved down here in 1967. They served it at our work’s cafeteria and I noticed a lot of people eating it, so one day I gave it a try and have been hooked on it since.
“Even after seeing it made at the Landis Valley Farm Museum, my daughters and I still like it. There are a number of scrapple makers in the local Delaware area. In the fall they even have a big Apple-Scrapple Festival in Bridgeville, Delaware, home of one of the larger scrapple makers.”
After recalling all of these childhood favorites, Russ’s appetite spurred him to take action.
“I think I’ll go and fix myself a fried bologna sandwich now,” he declared, “another of my favorites!”
Blanche Simeral
Our recent interview with Dona Saunders, whose mother was Blanche Simeral, prompted an e-mail from Miriam Laby Vinicur of Parkland, Fla.
“I really enjoyed your article, which included information on Blanche Simeral and St. Clair School,” Miriam wrote. “Mrs. Simeral was a wonderful teacher and an innovative, forward-looking principal. I started first grade in 1943, at which time each grade had a classroom. Helen Mountain and Lena Rose were two of my favorite teachers. I believe Miss Mountain was also a music teacher. We had wonderful plays to which parents were invited.
“[Unlike Dona Saunders], we were not given an option of which school we would attend on leaving St. Clair. We went to the Brownsville Junior High on Front Street for ninth grade, then on to Brownsville High School on High Street.
“My family’s house at 226 Union St. was the first house in the township. I visited the house about five years ago, and the retired female doctor who bought the house shortly after my family moved to Pittsburgh was kind enough to invite me in to see where I had grown up. When I told her I had lived in that house, she commented immediately that I must be ‘one of the Laby girls.’
“She was right. I was the youngest of three girls and a beloved brother, Larry Laby who passed away in 2002. Larry was enamored of becoming a pharmacist while yet a boy. He had a student/mentor relationship with Ollie Mossett, about whom you have written in your earlier columns.”
Isaly’s
In past years, I have written two series of articles about Fiddles Confectionery and the Hagan store in South Brownsville, two “hangouts” that were popular with folks of all ages. Soon I plan to write about another well-remembered Brownsville eating establishment, one that was located in Brownsville’s “Neck.” As we take our walk into the past in a few weeks, we will leave the South Side, cross the Cast Iron Bridge, and stroll around the curve midway through the Neck, the downtown business district. On the right side of Market Street, where the large municipal parking lot is now located, stood a solid stretch of businesses during the mid-twentieth century. Among those businesses was one which was a popular stop for many shoppers and other residents – Isaly’s.
Do you remember the Isaly’s store in the Neck? Do you recall what you usually purchased when you visited there? Can you still envision what Isaly’s looked like, inside and outside? If you can, I am asking for your help.
If you remember the Isaly’s store in Brownsville, its proprietor, its menu items, or your own personal memories of the times you spent there, would you kindly give me a call or drop me a line? Just as Fiddle’s and Hagans were popular in their day, Isaly’s also had its fans. If you were one of them, I am hoping to hear from you soon with your own favorite memory of Isaly’s Brownsville store.
Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201 or by writing to 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, Pa., 15442. Comments about these weekly articles may be sent to Mark O’Keefe (Managing Editor – Day), 8 – 18 East Church Street, Uniontown, Pa. or e-mailed to begin mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com end
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