The days of the black phone landline mounted on the kitchen wall are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Like some of our neighbors, such as the Scammerhorn family, we still have a traditional landline telephone. However, most of our rural friends got rid of their landlines a long time ago in order to maintain only cell phone service.
If you live in a rural area, your landline telephone remains an important practical purpose for critical communications even in the event of a power outage or failure. Especially this time of year, common spring storms can wreak havoc with downed trees and branches that can leave your power back on for hours or even days. “Cordless” phones using electricity-based cradles will not work without electrical current, and mobile phones will quickly fail if not charged, whereas traditional wall-mounted telephones will never fail. Our farm landlines still have the classic “curl cord” attached to the handpiece.
Decades ago, telephone lines were suspended in the air from utility poles, just like electric wires. But in recent decades, telephone companies have realized that underground telephone cables and lines are less susceptible to damage from storms and weather elements.
Mother’s Day 2024 makes me think about Mar Bell and how my mother and our farming family have remained connected through telephone communication throughout the last century.
Affectionately known as “Mar Bell” (short for Mother Bell in honor of the telephone’s inventor Alexander Graham Bell) for more than a century by consumers, media, and marketing campaigns, the Bell I had no choice but to respond. system. It served as a corporate umbrella for telecommunications companies led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). It dominated the North American telephone service industry from 1877 to 1982, until government antitrust laws forced it to break up and break up to allow consumer choice.
At 53 years old, I still remember that it was “expensive” to talk on the phone during traditional business hours (other than a deemed “local call”) throughout the 1990s, until cell phones became popular in the late 1990s. I remember. Even in the latter case, only a certain number of “minutes” were allocated to the call time.
My mom still enjoys hearing both her landline and cell phone ring (unless it’s an annoying telemarketer). My mother and her oldest sister, Aunt Ruby, still have the original black rotary-dial telephone mounted on the wall in Aunt Ruby’s kitchen at their home in Highland, plus , there are testimonies of how traditional landlines connected friends and family, and there’s a special connection. use. Their mother, my Grandma Green, was “Mar-Belle” in their small hometown of Wheatfield, Indiana.
As described in my last published cookbook, “Back from the Farm,” published in 2019, in the early 1940s, Grandma Green’s little house in Wheatfield was home to the town’s telephone exchange. was installed in an alcove in the hallway near the kitchen. It was Grandma Green who ran the cords to the select few households in town that were lucky (and wealthy enough) to have telephones and plugged them in to send out and receive calls. My mother and my late twin’s sister, Aunt Patty, said Grandma Green tried to teach her pre-teen twins how to operate the switchboard while her mother was away, but she was in vain. He often told the story. But Aunt Ruby, now 94, was very good at stepping in and helping Grandma Green if she needed a break.
My brother David gave my mom and me a “recipe break” earlier this month by sharing an easy recipe for making cube steaks using the slow cooker. Our family grew up with my mom’s cube steak as a Monday night staple. Steak patties packaged as “tender” in the meat aisle are cooked quickly, but still traditionally tend to be tough.
And just like last month when I was looking for round steaks in the meat section of my local grocery store, I once again had trouble finding packages of cubed steaks. I think this falls into “retro recipe” territory.
My mom always loved how easy it was to make cubed steaks with lots of onions in an electric skillet and serve them with fries and vegetables like homemade asparagus this time of year. I’ve always liked cubed steaks with lots of onions and lots of steak sauce.
Brother David’s recipe calls for layered cube steaks to be simmered “low and slow” overnight for eight hours. The served patty will be about a third smaller in size once cooked, but this method guarantees a delicious “fork-cuttable” result, as David describes it.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the marketing director for Theater at the Center. Contact him at pmpotempa@comhs.org or email questions to: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, IN 46374.
David’s cube steak and onion gravy
Makes 6 servings
4 large carrots, chopped
4 pounds cubed steak, about 6 steaks
Seasoning blend or garlic powder
1 large (24 oz) can of cream of mushroom soup
1 cup of water
2 onions (chopped)
1 envelope of dried onion soup mix
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (optional)
1 teaspoon gravy browning liquid (optional)
direction:
1. Layer the carrots in the bottom of the slow cooker.
2. Sprinkle both sides of the cubed steak with your favorite seasoning mix or garlic powder and add a layer of meat patties on top of the carrots.
3. Spread half of the condensed soup over the meat layer and add water, onions and dry soup stock.
4. Add another layer of seasoned meat patty and finish with the remaining condensed soup.
5. Set slow cooker to low setting and cook for 6 hours.
6. If using mushrooms, stir the contents of the slow cooker after 6 hours, add the mushrooms, and cook for another 2 hours.
7. Using a slotted spoon, remove the meat patty and cooked carrots to a plate.
8. For traditional brown gravy, add gravy browning if desired. To make a thick gravy, slowly add 2 heaping teaspoons of cornstarch to the hot liquid in the slow cooker until the desired consistency is reached.
9. Note: To make this recipe more efficient, you can set your slow cooker to high and cook the contents for just 5-6 hours, but the meat will be a little less tender.
