I remember when

Thursday January 21, 2010

I remember when……………..

Food was something that you not only ate, but something from which memories were made.

When I was a little boy, I’m not sure of my age then, but I was small, no older than 5 or 6 I would guess, I saw Momma come from the house carrying a brown paper bag (what we called a poke), and head down towards the road behind the house. There was a weed, or what I thought was a weed that grew on the fence line down there, and she picked some of those weeds and put them in the poke. Early that same evening we ate some of the best something I can recall ever eating at that time in my life. There was some really tasty meat, some beans or maybe it was blackeye peas, and this other something that was dark green. I remember being told that I had to eat some of all of it, even the green stuff. The meat it turns out was chicken, however it was baked, and not fried. I thought then that the only way a person ate chicken was fried chicken. And the green stuff, (poke salad), turns out it was pretty doggone good. And the beans, or blackeyes, or field peas, or whatever it was also was very good. I’m sure that there was either biscuits or cornbread or maybe even both. But what I remember most was that all of it was just real good, I mean really good.

The next day I remember getting me a brown paper bag and off outside I went. I didn’t know what to get, so I just picked anything green and put it in that bag. I knew only one thing, I wanted another dinner like the one we had the day before. And if my Momma could pick green stuff from outside and come up with that dinner then she should be able to do the same thing with whatever I put in my poke right? Makes perfect sense to a 5 or
6 year old county bumpkin little boy. As it turns out, clover, tall grass, and broadleaf weeds can’t necessarily be eaten. Thus begin my learning of food. And at the same time, my understanding of how that food also makes memories. I’m 52 years old now, and I’ve never forgotten that meal or the laugh of my Momma when I handed her that bag of weeds and told her I wanted something like what we had the night before.

My daughter loves for her Dad to cook for her sometimes, and I do. She loves it when I fry chicken and make gravy and biscuits. There have been times that all I would cook is just the chicken, gravy and biscuits and call it a meal. I remember once her staying with me the entire time that I was cooking. When it came time to make the gravy I started sort of playing a little bit and acting like a cooking show host. I was explaining every step of the way what I was doing and how to do it. I had taken some of the grease from the chicken and I put flour in it. I started explaining that to make good cream gravy that you first had to make a good rue. I remember stirring the flour and grease together and pointing out how pasty it should get. When the rue was just right, I reached for the milk and slowly started pouring it in, holding back just slightly waiting to see how it would thicken up. If it is too thick of course, you just pour in a little more milk. Well the gravy turned out perfect, the biscuits came from the oven just as the last chicken was finished frying, and we plated our food up and gorged our self on fried chicken, gravy and biscuits.

Now she couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old at that time. But very recently (she’s 18 now), we were getting ready to eat a family dinner at my sisters’ house and something was said about gravy. I spoke up and said something about Ashley knowing how to make gravy, that I had showed her once. Then I looked at her and said “right?” She smiled and answered, “yes, I do, you have to make a good rue first”. And as simple a thing as that was, I smiled real big because I knew that those few minutes spent with her that day was also a memory that we had made together that she will keep all of her life. Turns out now that I know the gravy wasn’t the best thing we made that day, instead it was the memory of the time we spent making it.

So grab that kid or grandkid or your spouse or your best friend. And don’t go out to eat.
Instead run to the kitchen. Make something. Make anything. But remember that what you’re making more than anything else is a memory…………..

Chicken soup for the soul………….

More to come………

Gary