With the holidays upon us, and talk of everyone getting together for
a great meal, I think back to the days, when I was just a youngster and
depending on Mom & Dad to take care of me ,and to lead me in the right
path to adulthood. I guess that the one thing ,that will always stay with
me, was the meals that my mother would prepare for us . Early in the morning,
this fine lady was up standing over a hot stove, making breakfast for all
her children and her man. There would be soda bisquits made with her own
hands, and cut out with a drinking glass top, laid on a big metal sheet,
and baked to a golden brown. There would be gravy, made most of the time
by our Dad, who professed to being the world's greatest gravy maker. You
would never see lumps in Dad's gravy. Mom would fry the bacon, and then
use the grease from the bacon, to fry her eggs with. The eggs would be
the way that each one of us liked them. She could make them sunny side
up, and take the grease and spash just enough on top, to give them the
white covering. There would be fried mush, which she made from scratch,
and she would fry it just like each one would want it. Top that off with
the greatest hot coffee, which she boiled in a percolater. It was done
when the smell was right. She put egg shells in the grounds, so that they
would settle at the bottom of the pot. You didn't get grounds in your coffee
while Mom was there to make it. And that was just breakfast.
When it was time for dinner which came about at noon, she was at the
stove again, getting a meal ready, fit for a king. There always was mash
potatoes at dinner with some more bisquits, with plenty of butter melting
down the sides. There were green beans, corn, peas, along with the meat
of the day. Sometimes it was chicken, other times it was meatloaf, or pot
roast. Maybe sometimes she would deal out Dad's favorite which was pork
chops. Mom never failed to give us the best she had in cooking.
You would think that she would take a break, but that evening, it was
time again to stand over that hot stove and fix supper, which probaly was
the most important to her. She always wanted her children to have a full
stomach, when they went to bed that night. Supper would be my favorite,
because there was always a big pot of beans cooking ,and an oven full of
cornbread. Sometimes, instead of baking cornbread, she would fry it in
the skillet as corn cakes. Add to that, a big skillet of fried potaotes,
and there would be a smile on my face for the rest of the evening. There
usally wasn't much left at the end of supper, but she would save the beans,
and the next morning mix them with some flour, and fry them in the skillet,
as bean cakes. If you have never tasted bean cakes, you are really missing
something.
All of us in the family eventually learned to do all the things that
Mom did, in her duties as a mother. Each and everyone of us can do anything
needed to run a home. Some of her ideas on cooking have stayed with us,
and we use them in our homes. The one thing that went with her, was the
way that she could take any type of food ,and make it into the finest taste
around. No matter how good you get in cooking, it still isn't as great
as Mom's was. I think that it was the loving touch,that she used in preparing
food for each one, instead of a group. She knew that each of us has different
tastes and she cooked accordingly for each of us. Who else but a loving
mother would do that?
I am very fortunate to have a wife that is a great cook ,as was her
mother, and my mother. But you never forget the meals ,that Mom made until
she got called home. We ,as a family were truly blessed to have been under
the wings of an "Angel", who we called Mom.
As always, this was written straight from the heart. Thanks for listening.
"Uncle Ray"