On the Menu: Sumter, Edna Lewis, and a Nice Pie

A Saturday Short!

Today’s History Lesson

Happy 164th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter, the day when our country blew itself up for the first time! Only one soldier died, and that was by accident during the Union troop’s final evacuation. In the four years that followed, 620,000 men would die in 10,500 more battle. That’s 2% of the nation’s male population. An additional 475,000 men survived their wounds, although many came to wish they hadn’t.

How, You May Ask, Is This a Subject for a Saturday Short?

My brother Joe is out driving again, this time to six Civil War battlefield in Virginia. Unlike The Route 6 Pie Adventure, I am not with him and he doesn’t seem to be eating as well as we did. Photographic evidence shows he picked up many packets of Starkist tuna at the Dollar Store.

But he is continuing to stop at historic sites.

“Heard of this person?” he asked his sisters.

Sue did not.

I launched into an ecstatic lesson on the greatness of Edna Lewis.

The next photo he sent was of the gravestone of General Stonewall Jackson’s arm, cut off during the battle at Chancellorsville (30,000 casualties). It was picked from a pile of limbs outside the surgeon tent and carried across the street to a family graveyard.

If I was with him, we would have discussed the possibility that they picked up someone’s else arm from the heaping tangle of severed limbs outside the surgery tent. I text him my query, instead.

Joe did not reply.

And this is how I discovered that today is the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter. All because it seemed very important to learn how a Civil War doctor sawed off limbs. I can now tell you in great detail how it was done–I also have illustrations–but I’ll be merciful and leave that for another time.

More Approbate for a Saturday Short—I Finally Baked a Key Lime Pie!

I wanted a clean taste of the limes so I left off the traditional meringue or whipped cream. The filling didn’t completely become firm until the third day. By that time there was little left but a smear and crumbs. I have every intension to getting around to whipping the leftover egg white into tiny meringue cookies.

---

It’s raining for the third day in a row here but hyacinthus and daffodils are bobbing about in the garden and an impertinent cardinal is wedging his way through the gang at the bird feeder. The general consensus in the neighborhood is that it’s a good day to shelter in place for whatever is coming around next week.

Hope you may do the same! I’ll see you Tuesday!

---

Show your love of America Eats! with a press of the heart and a share or two!

And, as always, I’d love to here about your Saturday plans!