Editor’s October Notes

Posted on September 30, 2013 by bob in EdNote

I never ate a slice of homemade jellyroll, or a serving of chicken or tomato pie until I married. The same could be said about spoon bread, oyster dressing, or caramel cake. An entirely new palette of foods opened up to me in my late 20s, and my mother-in-law drove those discoveries.

My own Mom was a wonderful cook, but traditional southern recipes weren’t  staples in her catalog. And my mother rarely used recipes — while my mother-in-law (“Mama”) poured over a collection of recipe books that took up an entire kitchen shelf, and then some. Each style of cooking has its benefits and I’ve been the lucky beneficiary of both.

By the time I married into my husband’s family, Mama had just retired from a 20-year stint with the Public Health Department, first as an RN, then serving as the state’s first female Public Health Administrator — no small feat in Alabama in the 1960s.

Though she was probably always organized, her years of work just intensified that predisposition. “To do” lists (which she seemed to always accomplish) were rampant and could be found all over her house — tucked in books, on the table by her den chair, or on the chalkboard upstairs. And those were just the obvious places. Nowhere were her lists more evident, however, than in her kitchen. Lists of ingredients. Lists of recipes. List of timelines for preparing and serving the food she’d cooked.

Mama passed away six weeks ago, just 21 days shy of her 95th birthday. As family gathered to remember her in the days that followed, to a person we all recalled the great support and love she provided to each of us. And, in just as true a testament, we also talked about her food. She, herself, would have denied any notion of culinary skill but, secretly I think, she would have been pleased.

It wasn’t just the taste of what Mama prepared, it was also the event. As a guest at her table — regardless of what was served — you knew it was the result of intentional thought and thorough preparation. That alone created a delightful expectation. You knew you were going to have something good.

As my sisters-in-law and I talked about preserving Mama’s recipes during that long weekend in August, we also talked about the old recipes that no one seems to prepare anymore. When was the last time you had Charlotte or hoecakes or ambrosia?

Do you have a family heirloom recipe you’d like to share? We’d love to include it in an upcoming feature where we showcase classic family recipes. Mixed in with yours I’ll contribute some of my own treasured favorites, handed down through generations on both sides of our family.

And when I do — though I’ll never know it — I’m sure both my Mamas will be looking down and smiling with pride.

Editor Sandra Polizos