During the holiday season in Bossier Parish, delicious food is always on the menu. From the parish formation in 1843 to today, treasured recipes are the backbone of family gatherings and community events. Newspaper articles from the 19th century are full of words and delicacies we might not recognize now, but the celebratory spirit and impulse to gather with special friends and family and favorite foods remain.
Rupert Peyton, newspaperman and a recorder of Bossier Parish history, was born in 1899 in Webster Parish and grew up as a child and young man on a farm in the Plain Dealing area of north Bossier Parish. He recalled, “Of all the seasons of the year Christmas time was the most enjoyable. Though we seldom received many presents such as toys, we always had plenty of good things to eat, oranges, apples and candies. It was also the time for feasting on such things as roast turkey, cakes and pies. It also meant family reunions. We usually gathered for Christmas day at some relative’s home there to play and enjoy ourselves with our many cousins … Eggnog was one of the delights of the day for both old and young. The older folks would spike the nog with whiskey, which they drank and it added to the gayety of the occasion. We children, however, got no whiskey in our nog, it was served to us unspiked, but that made little difference with us children.”
For 19th century Bossier Parish residents, Christmas eve was an especially celebratory time. Clare M. Nelson wrote in her August 28, 1987 independent study paper, “Christmas Customs of the Northwest Louisiana Pioneers, 1850-1880,“ that following a night of dancing, which rarely ended before midnight, “Christmas morning came early and usually brought visits from friends and family.” These visitors enjoyed eggnog offered by hosts and hostesses.
Ms. Nelson continued that the main Christmas meal was served at mid-day. It included the usual fare of meat, vegetables, relishes such as chow-chow (made typically from pickled, chopped green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and seasonal peppers or other vegetables), cucumber pickles, and pickled peaches. Cornbread and “beaten biscuits” (that were more like a slightly soft cracker than the fluffy, airy biscuits popular today) were eaten with freshly-churned butter. She pointed out that oysters were a special Christmas treat and therefore a popular hostess gift.
The desserts would include cakes, puddings and pies. As an example of the ingenuity of nineteenth century homemakers, “vinegar pie” would be made when no fruit was available or affordable and were said to taste remarkably like lemon pie. The most delighted-in cake might be the fresh coconut cake. Since they cost as much as an extravagant ten cents each, coconuts were also a special Christmas present. After the milk had been drained from the coconut and the meat grated for a cake, the shell was carefully saved and used as a dipper bowl or an ornament.
A tongue-in-cheek article in the Shreveport Times of January 18, 1883, which began with the premise that remote Bellevue, the parish seat until 1888, “is the Paris of Bossier Parish,” remarked that the town earned its high-tone reputation for its renowned whiskey. The article continued the story of Bellevue with less mockery when it described Bellevue’s “Holiday Week,” which exemplified many of the traditions described among the “Christmas Customs” article, above:
“On Thursday night (likely December 20th) the ladies gave a church fair in the courthouse. They had a great many tables filled with choice viands (a fancy, archaic word for fancy foods) of every description; also, an abundance of presents or gifts, alluring to the eye but very painful to the purse….The big ball that followed the fair was attended by some of the fairest ladies in Bossier and Webster. She whose rosy lips had been dallying with a pound or so of salad, nuts and cakes a few minutes ago, was now whirling gracefully in the mazy waltz, coquetting behind her fan with auburn haired gentleman who erstwhile had ravenously tackled a turkey, etc. The enchanting strains of the Bellevue string band infused with life and gaiety everyone present, and upon the midnight air the sounds of revelry and joy broke, and youth and beauty and innocence reigned supreme.”
From the staff of the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, we wish you all the best this Christmas and holiday season. If you have any information, stories, or photos about Christmas and other holiday traditions in Bossier Parish, we would love to add them (or scanned copies) to our History Center’s research collection. We are located at 7204 Hutchison Drive (formerly called 850 City Hall Drive) just across Beckett Street from the old Central Library and History Center in Bossier City, LA. All Bossier Parish Libraries locations will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, 12/24 and 12/25. Normal operating hours for Bossier Central Library and History Center are M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org
For other local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.
Images:
- Photo of beaten biscuits, which were traditionally made by literally beating the dough against something hard (like a tree stump) with any number of tools at-hand, like a hammer or sideways axe. Photo by Stuart Spivack from Cleveland, Ohio, USA - Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7587136.
- Rupert Peyton, who once wrote for the Shreveport Journal, the Bossier Press and the Bossier Tribune and other local publications.
- Picture of Bellevue, C 1900 - 1910.
