At nights 'twas threshing. Women and men in the barn. Women cutting the bands of the sheaves. Men feeding the mill with the sheaves. The machinery they had - like the shaker, they called it: the grain went over this shaker; the chaff went one way and the grain went another. Many a time I sat here with the half-bushel catching the grain. Children never kept you home from the barn, not then, no. We always had to have plenty of bread and rolls and biscuits and gingerbread, as a rule. And thick molasses cookies, because my mother always sent out a plate of those big molasses cookies to the barn. And a pitcher of tea for the threshing crowd. There would be [12 to 14 men for dinner]. Perhaps cold pork, roasted pork, or something like that. Yes, [and] we'd have them for supper. Scallop... or fried potatoes, cold meat, or something like that. We'd always have baked beans on Saturday. Never had them any other day. Yes, that was baked beans day. There was something went with beans. The bread: brown bread. We always had steamed brown bread. It was just like a steamed pudding. Then there'd be another crowd come in the evening. After visiting for a while we'd have cards, game of cards. Forty-fives. Oh, we always had lunch. The oatcakes and the kneaded biscuits. For the oatcakes - now, I'd have a cup of flour and a half a cup of oatmeal, cut oatmeal. Salt. And oh, a good half a cup of shortening, you know, to mix that up. Never followed a recipe for that you know. [The kneaded biscuits] took a lot of kneading. The more you'd knead them the better the biscuits. [You'd use] any little leftover bacon fat or a little bit of beef fat or any fat that was left and clear after a meal. Oh boy, those hard biscuits were good. The men killed their own beef. A lot of it was pickled. They'd kinda dry it out and then put it in a barrel. We had it on the upstairs. The upstairs wasn't finished in the old house, you know, and there was a barrel there that held it. And they'd have the intestines [of the animal]. They would use them to make maragams. They'd be up in that barrel and we used to be so sorry when we'd be getting near the bottom [and] the maragams1 be nearly done. They were always so good. 1. A Gaelic word, pronounced 'marrocks': a sausage-like foodstuff made primarily from suet, oatmeal and onion. The intestine of the animal were used as casings. The maragams were boiled, and then fried. 82 BELFAST PEOPLE