Thursday, May 20, 2004

Food for thought, as well as conversation

By KATHY KELLY
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The conversation turned to food, as it so frequently does when women gather.

“My family always had scalloped potatoes when we served ham,” she said.

“My husband´s family has rice. Can you believe it?”

Yes, old traditions die hard, especially those learned at home. Growing up, it usually meant preparing, serving or combining ingredients as your mom did. Other ways seemed odd, but more important, just not the way you were used to.

I could relate to my friend´s dilemma. Once you´re grown and start your own family, your likes and dislikes blend. You may never adjust to eating rice with ham, but then your husband has never liked grits and never will.

The current buzzword now seems to be sensitive. Things are time-sensitive or case-sensitive when it comes to upper or lower case letters on the computer.

Certain food topics are family-sensitive.

Growing up, my mom always made macaroni and cheese (the best!) when we had fish. The two foods just seemed to go together so we never varied. And we never served milk with fish. That grew from some old wives´ tale that serving those two items together could have deadly results.

“Milk,” my friend exclaimed. “Of course, we had milk. What were you supposed to do when you choked on a chicken bone?”

The aficionados of the Southern-type flat dumplings, like my Aunt Minnie used to make, wouldn´t be caught dead eating one of those “drop” dumplings they seem to favor up north.

I love a good old country breakfast, but I still dunk my toast or biscuit in my egg and save my last biscuit to slather with jelly. That sweet treat at the end of the meal is more like a dessert. I know, you´re not supposed to eat dessert with breakfast, but here again, it´s a family thing.

I´ve grown up hearing the tales of the way my grandmother could stretch the smallest bit of food to feed nine hungry mouths. At dinner one night, my mom and some of her siblings found themselves at the Morgan house for dinner.

“We had mashed potato sandwiches for supper,” she can recall now as clearly as if that starchy repast was yesterday. I guess Mrs. Morgan was pretty good with stretching the household food budget too.

That was a trait my mother was quite good at as well. At our house, she added boiled potatoes to a can of corned beef for hash. That little culinary shortcut made sure there was enough to go around.

Years later, I ordered corned beef hash in a restaurant and was astounded to find it was all meat and no potatoes. I can´t say that I liked it as well.

I once ate a peanut butter and sugar sandwich at the home of a friend where I had spent the night, a real favorite there. Those little lumps of sugar between the bread and the peanut butter sure left a bad taste in my mouth. That was one recipe I didn´t try at home.

I was brought up to eat what was put on my plate without complaint so I´ve eaten new – to me – foods that I wasn´t particularly wild about. That was mainly because it wasn´t something that showed up on our dinner table.

I ate the zucchini quickly at the home of some northern relatives so I could quickly get the taste out of my mouth. In the years since, I´ve learned to like it so it was a case of a different food opening up a whole new world.

But don´t try serving any scalloped potatoes or hash browns with my fish, please. Just bring on the “mac and cheese.” My arteries are used to it by now.

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