Stopped in at an old timey dime store today in a sleepy little backwater town and this knife caught my eye. I see 'em around occassionally here and there but for whatever reason, I couldn't pass this one by today.
http://www4.gvsu.edu/triert/oldhickory.htm
Having grown up on a farm where butchering hogs was an semiannual event and a way of life, I saw a lot of these knives. They were always in the hands of some rough lookin' men who knew what to do with a knife and a hog. These big knives made short work of an awful lot of pork. Sure, the steel is not ATS 34 but half the fun of those winter butcherings was watching those blades fly across the honing steels so that they were always razor sharp.
When they got too dull, they were sharpened on a huge white wetstone that was pumped with a treadle, like an old sewing machine, then honed again with a steel. Some of those knives had been sharpened so many times they looked like filleting knives.
I must have cut up a ton of cracklin's with one of these when I was a youngser. Nothing like rendering lard and watching those cracklins turn a crisp golden brown as they are cooked in a big black kettle on a wood fire. Then the mixture is poured into a press, the hot grease filling 5 gallon tins making a milky white lard and the cracklins' turning into in huge round chunks like large round blocks of cheese as they were pressed down in the lard press.
I've owned a pile of knives in my life but few knives conjure up the kinds of images and memories that this one does. Bitter cold in the dead of winter, chopping wood for the kettle fire, men and occasionally women and kids standing at tall tables, with their knives a gleamin' away, dogs hanging around looking for scraps from the tables. Lot's of laughs and lots of food going around. These Old Hickories have been around for a long, long time. This one cost me $5.98. To me it's worth a lot more.
------------------
Hoodoo
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stonethe light-pressd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.
Walt Whitman
[This message has been edited by Hoodoo (edited 05-08-2000).]
http://www4.gvsu.edu/triert/oldhickory.htm
Having grown up on a farm where butchering hogs was an semiannual event and a way of life, I saw a lot of these knives. They were always in the hands of some rough lookin' men who knew what to do with a knife and a hog. These big knives made short work of an awful lot of pork. Sure, the steel is not ATS 34 but half the fun of those winter butcherings was watching those blades fly across the honing steels so that they were always razor sharp.
When they got too dull, they were sharpened on a huge white wetstone that was pumped with a treadle, like an old sewing machine, then honed again with a steel. Some of those knives had been sharpened so many times they looked like filleting knives.
I must have cut up a ton of cracklin's with one of these when I was a youngser. Nothing like rendering lard and watching those cracklins turn a crisp golden brown as they are cooked in a big black kettle on a wood fire. Then the mixture is poured into a press, the hot grease filling 5 gallon tins making a milky white lard and the cracklins' turning into in huge round chunks like large round blocks of cheese as they were pressed down in the lard press.
I've owned a pile of knives in my life but few knives conjure up the kinds of images and memories that this one does. Bitter cold in the dead of winter, chopping wood for the kettle fire, men and occasionally women and kids standing at tall tables, with their knives a gleamin' away, dogs hanging around looking for scraps from the tables. Lot's of laughs and lots of food going around. These Old Hickories have been around for a long, long time. This one cost me $5.98. To me it's worth a lot more.
------------------
Hoodoo
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stonethe light-pressd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.
Walt Whitman
[This message has been edited by Hoodoo (edited 05-08-2000).]
