A Word Edgewise |
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A Word Edgewise |
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Last Updated 01/20/06
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Email: mjclen@our-town.com
THE SINS OF MY YOUTH ARE HAUNTING ME
Woe is me! The sins of my youth have come back to haunt me! All of that fried chicken, fried pies, fried ham slabs, fried potatoes, fried fish, fried squash, fried okra, fried cornbread, fried apples, whatever else could be fried mother did it—and it wasn’t in vegetable oil. More likely it was fried in hog lard. I can’t blame all of my poor eating habits on her. When I began to cook for my family I also did a lot of frying. When the sons were at that stage where stomachs went all the way down to big feet and hunger was always present, I cooked what they liked.
Hungry-boy years happened when we lived in Cloudcroft where I had discovered that yeast dough worked with such ease, and Mexican food was delicious. I made yeast doughnuts which Mike could eat almost as soon as they came out of the pan, and best of all, plenty of sopapillas. Using yeast dough rolled thin and deep fried they were brown pillows of goodness. What better dessert than sopapillas with honey and butter?
Almost every Saturday I made pies—with lard piecrusts—five or six pies at a time. Maybe I was a little less innocent than my mom was about balanced meals. After all, I did belong to 4-H Club at Lone Oak, and we had a few lessons about health in school. We did pretty well with the vegetables and fruit in season.
Come to think of it, we did eat lots of fruit at home. As kids we played all over the orchards and helped ourselves to all the fruit we wanted—even if it was so green that informed mothers said, “Don’t eat that. It will give you a stomach ache.” Apples, peaches, grapes, apricots, plums, whatever was anywhere near ripe helped the hunger pains as we chased and played.
Mom made biscuits, meat and gravy for breakfast, and more biscuits, meat and gravy for lunch. Sometimes that meat was salt pork, but even that made good gravy. The biscuits with nice brown crusts and plenty of butter with peach preserves served for dessert, if we didn’t have pie with thick cream spooned off the top of the milk. Did you ever eat hot buttered biscuits with a heaping spoon of sugar on the butter? How about coffee as a kid with enough thick cream and sugar to make it look like caramel.
Ice cream suppers meant we gorged ourselves on rich with cream, ice cream. Loleta made a great caramel custard type, mom peach, someone else vanilla or even, occasionally store bought banana ice cream.
We ate vegetables and fruits in season. That means in winter, sweet potatoes might be the only vegetables for several days, if the home canned ones ran out. Dad did trade trees for boxes of oranges and grapefruit. So our school lunches usually had a piece of fruit along with the fried pie and sandwich.
The doctor said, “Read the labels. Limit the cholesterol. Forget fried foods.”
Someone said we’re to the stage where if it tastes good, spit it out. Not quite that. But after a little tinkering with the heart, I guess it’s time to change old habits. It’s like getting your fingers stuck together with super glue: very inconvenient, disagreeable, keeps you out of the fun, but sure does hurt to try to pull apart. Wonder how long this has to last? Come to think of it, I should ask the doctor how long it takes for that bad stuff to build up in veins. Maybe I haven’t got that much time left to worry. Meanwhile, I read labels, make a small bottle of cooking oil last till Christmas and droll when TV adds about good rich food come on.