Heat a clean skillet to blue heat, rub it with a bit of suet, just enough to keep the meat from sticking, but leave no fat in the pan.

And I'm going to fry us a little steak in this darling little skillet.

"Mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering appetite.