It’s Saturday morning
and I hear our chihuahua, Peanut, barking with mini-canine wild & happy
abandon in the little “mudroom” entryway from our carport. Although it’s the other side of our rambling
South Carolina brick ranch house, I can hear my grandmother’s merry laugh and
the sounds of Mommas’ weekend things and crackling sacks of groceries being
carried into the kitchen.
At this point I
contentedly stretch, lie back in the cool sheets and smile to myself.
The weekends
that Mommas – our mother’s mother - spent with us were always the best. They were full of mouth-watering smells
issuing from the kitchen and – if it was summer time - lighthearted
conversation in the den mingling with the sounds of a southern summer night
drifting in through the open screened door to our back yard where gardenias
perfumed air in the waning heat.
Freshly baked
biscuits would tug me unresisting from bed and I would wander into the kitchen
to be hugged and kissed by Mommas.
The smell of Ponds cold cream scenting her cheek and a soft floral bath
powder fragrance in her crisp cotton dress was always a reminder that there are
places in the world that can be soft, peaceful and brimming with acceptance.
Quite possibly a
basket of sun-ripened peaches would scent the morning air if Mommas and Mother
had found the time to make a visit to the farmer’s market and there would be a
bowl of deep burnished ruby red tomatoes.
Mommas might already have cucumbers sliced to immerse in a sharp
combination of onion bits, a pinch of sugar and salt and pepper.
A pan of cut
corn would already be shaved from newly-purchased ears and simmering in a pan
on the stove where they would be stirred into creamed corn to heap on the
fluffy biscuits and the pressure cooker would be trembling on its stovetop eye
filled with Kentucky wonders.
Our Saturday lunch
would be made up of these delights but they would eventually find their way the
next day into a sublime Sunday lunch.
Slipping into comfortable clothes after church and stepping back into
the kitchen my mouth would water at the smell of fried chicken heaped on a
heavy crockery plate and feather light chicken gravy being ladled into our old
weathered gray gravy boat.
I regret to say
that I didn’t pitch into assisting this intense kitchen culinary activity. Mother and Mommas had it down to a
science that was best viewed from a stool at the kitchen counter where I could
watch the stirring, slicing and Mommas’ skilled “pinch of sugar” that she swore
made everything taste better.
I loved that
spectator seat as it was often rewarded with a buttered biscuit half, a frosty
glass of sweet tea with a mint sprig and a stolen glimpse of the fresh peach
cobbler growing a deep golden brown in the oven. Mother and Mommas managed to fill a table with a flower-aproned
grace that looked easy but was the stuff produced by years of experience turning
summer gardens into provisions that both sustain and delight.
The women of
their generations made simple fare wonderful! During the Depression when money was scarce or WWII when
rations were severe, Southern women took the produce of hot, dusty summer
gardens and stretched them into full tables and happy family stomachs and
somehow managed to additionally put up enough of their harvest to fill out cold
& dark winter suppers. The
current Fresh Market & Whole Foods generation has variety that is marvelous
and varied but the perfection of simplicity and the ability to work with what
was local and fresh was a talent that the Southern woman had honed into a
delicious art form.
Did I know these
things as I lifted a forkful of rice & creamy chicken gravy to my mouth or
speared savory green beans, making sure that I included a wedge of small potato
cooked in their pork-flavored depths?
No. But I knew that I loved the cooks! And still do.
Auntie J
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