Memories of food and my youth

One of my first and fondest memories is about food. I was in a morning class of half day kindergarten and one of the teachers churned milk into butter. I remember being fascinated by the repetition of her movements and watching with wide eyed anticipation as the milk became solid and butter magically appeared. Up until that moment, “butter” had been what I called margarine and it came in a bright orange plastic tub with a white lid.

It was in this same kindergarten class that I first saw baby chickens hatching out of the eggs in the incubator, pecking their way toward the artificial sunlight of the heat lamp. Until then, eggs had been a breakfast food, usually scrambled or fried over easy, and strangely the color of the baby chicks, I remember thinking. I love to eat chicken to this day, but I do remember how fuzzy and yellow and cute they are when they first hatch.

In my next year of school my first grade teacher practically had us all farming. I recall Mrs. Johnston, who I was going to marry when I grew up, thank you very much, having us save our milk cartons from the cafeteria so we could plant beans. I don’t recall what kind of beans that we planted, but I do remember checking my little carton every day first thing when I got there until the little pale green shoots broke through the soil, a sort of undeclared race happening amongst us kids to see who would win. I don’t recall the winner, either, but I do remember the joy of seeing the sprouts grow and remember the pride I felt when we finally got to take it home and I presented it to my mother one day after school.

My Grandma Mary and my Papa Walter lived a few miles away from us in another small town, even smaller than ours, in a green house on one of the main roads. Across the street in the front was a nursing home, I think. There was a front porch not far from the actual road, concrete and painted a dark brick red. The light green shingles covering the sides of the house were rough and gritty and would leave a scratch if you cut the corner of the house too close running through the yard. The back yard was enclosed by a chain link fence, and a large tree grew in the middle of the yard. I have picked many a switch off of that tree, one of the worst tasks ever given to a child. “Go pick a switch,” is not what you want to hear when you are little and the intended victim. It sounds worse than it ever was, but it was torture to pick the switch.

In the far corner of the backyard, farthest from the road, was a building, small and cool inside with a single door and a wood framed window at either end. Inside was a smell I remember well, one that I recall as I type: the smell of Earth. Earth worms to be precise. Lots and lots of earth worms. Night crawlers in large shallow trays on concrete blocks, low enough for me to stick my hand down into and feel the wiggling mass between my fingers. It both fascinated and terrified me, that feeling. That smell of the earth is one of my fondest memories, that musky, mushroom smell. The smell in the air as the first drops of rain begin to fall upon the dry summer soil and the vegetation glows a yellow-green before the impending storm to come. Gardening and caring for the earth come natural to me, genetically programmed, even.

It only seems fitting that I would have grown up with a love for food and how it is grown and how it is prepared. Both of my parents enjoyed cooking and preparing delicious meals, and I more times than not helped them with shopping and prep work. I would ask for recipes from friend’s mothers if they made something I liked. Nina Honeyman’s cheesecake recipe is to die for and you make it in a blender. I dated her daughter, not her, but I still have the recipe and I remember well her showing me how she did it.

My parents had us set together and eat as a family most every night. We never ate in front of the television, and the phone almost never rang during supper time. That white rotary phone on the kitchen wall that had a long tangled mass of cord that you would pretty much walk anywhere in the house and reach just fine fell mostly silent, as folks knew not to call. Long before the days of cellular telephones or caller ID.

We never had a full-on garden growing up. We moved to an apartment and lived there for several years and then my parents got a house near the lake. We went there in the summer mostly and on weekends and holidays, but the soil was rocky and shaded by trees. Finally we moved to a house in town with a yard. My father always had a few tomato plants in the corner of the house in the front because that was the best spot for tomatoes. My mother thought the tomato cages took away from the rigidly pruned topiary evergreen trees and the yard as a whole, but my father’s tomato plants always seemed to get to stay.

An aluminum restaurant style salt shaker, all dented and finger printed, was on the window sill outside so you could enjoy the fruits in the heat of the day. I would just pick a tomato, twisting it gently to remove it from the vine, then wipe it on my shirt and take a bite, sprinkle it with salt and keep eating, letting the warm juices drip down my chin. In my mind, there is nothing better than a home grown heirloom tomato fresh from the vine, still hot from the sun.

Times have certainly changes and fewer folks have the luxury of raising worms or growing their own tomatoes. Head start and kindergarten are a luxury, let alone making butter or hatching chicks. Many folks have hectic schedules and simply don’t get the opportunity to eat as a family, and they certainly don’t have the time to shop together and prepare healthy meals. My goal is to help change that and make food about family again.

Sharing food and sharing memories are often one and the same. Let’s remember that!