NOSTALGIA RUN RAMPANT

by Phillip Charles DeNise

THE WORLD'S BEST COOK

My mother was the world's best cook. I'm pretty sure that there are many of us who feel that way, and I pity those who do not, or cannot. Before my Mom attained to this very prestigious honor, my paternal Grandmother held the title.

When my Dad went overseas during WWII, Mom moved in with her in-laws, and the tutorial began. You can imagine all the psychological tension that such an arrangement entailed for both teacher and student. Further complicating things for my then 20-year-old future mother, was Granny's habit of adding a dollup of this and a pinch of that, instead of using a measuring cup and spoons.

Mastering the common biscuit became the most difficult goal for Mom, but she proved to be quite determined, and persisted regardless of all discouragements, until her new, and better biscuit emerged from the process. They were beautiful, a bit smaller(meaning you could consume more of them) and surprisingly consistent. I hope my dear Granny is not rolling over in her grave; I'll always miss her cooking, just like I now miss my Mom's.

Times have changed so much since the 1950's when I was growing up, and nothing has been affected more than our kitchens and what you find inside them. In Granny's refrigerator, you could grab a piece of fried chicken from a dinner plate she had set in there; never any wasted leftovers from her cast iron fryer. The cold chicken legs tasted so good; that was then; now, you may find that cold fried chicken is mostly not fit to eat.

Here's why: Granny's chicken came whole from the corner grocery, where they had a full-time butcher that had killed and plucked a live chicken (carefully draining all its blood during the process).

Granny used to have a vegetable man who came round with a truckload of fresh produce; there was a scale dangling from the shade/roof sticking out at the back. Standing around the back of his truck while the neighborhood ladies picked out just what they could use, and paid for these items with coins pulled from tiny changepurses, was a good way for a fellow to figure out where to go for supper(if his nose was not enough to tell him on which door to knock). Mr. Garman always had plenty of both new and old potatoes; Mom preferred old potatoes for her french fries; both texture and taste are quite different from new potatoes.

Back in these good old days, eggs were fresher because they came from the layers down at the corner grocery, that had not yet graduated to baking hen. Milk was fresh, whole & probably unpasteurized; it was delivered to your doorstep in re-used bottles with waxed paper caps on them. Granny always bought more than would be used before it began to sour, and that sour milk, with a thick layer of butterfat floating at the top, was the liquid component in the mixture that produced buttermilk biscuits. The bottle brush in the drawer was used to scrub out the cloudy white ring left at the mouth of the bottle(where that layer of fat had been floating), before putting your empties back on the porch for the milkman.

On Granny's counter was a wooden bowl that was quite shallow and as big around as a prize-winning pumpkin. It was seldom put away, and usually contained enough flour to either make a pan of bicuits, or dredge a skilletful of freshly-cut chicken pieces (Dad's favorite piece was the 'little boy's britches;' that's the piece that contains the wishbone; the same bone that is sawn in half down at Wally World). When you need a bit more flour, you scoop it from the cannister over on the other counter (lots of counterspace; hooray). To refill the canister, you pour from the large sack of flour resting on the floor in the pantry; the printed cloth sack used to make clothing for your younguns on your Singer, and the sack where I used to find that Capitola Money. "Watch now girl, and you can learn how to make biscuits for my son."

By the time I was old enough to watch this secret process, step one would be to scoop out with your fingers a large dollup of Crisco(instead of the lard used for shortening before such luxuries as hydrogenated corn oil were commonly available). Crisco was purchased in a small aluminum can that you opened with a key; Grandpappy's workshop was full of empty ones with lids that could inflict horrible cuts on a curious little boy's hands; these rows of blue cans held various kinds of nails, screws, nuts and bolts & various electrical parts used to rewire the house, make something into a lamp or buid a radio; no coins could be found, but bloody pawprints testified to the thoroughness of my search.

Now Granny would plop that dollup of shortening down in that layer of flour and begin pinching all the lumps until there weren't any more, fully expecting that her less-than-eager trainee would put away the can without being asked to do so, as Granny's hands are now in no condition to handle anything. Perhaps she secretly wished to draw a little blood with that greasy tin-lid, but said nothing aloud. She would ask, in a certain tone that implied polite command with a pinch of "You should have anticipated this," for help retrieving the sour milk from the 'ice box.' This could also confuse a young girl, because there was an ice box sitting on the back porch, just outside the back door. There was no milk sitting in it though, and if there had been, it would have been realy soured, as it had been many years since the ice man last cameth.

Granny probably allowed this girl to slowly pour the milk into a pool at the center of all that flour until commanded to stop. Then, while she turned to replace the glass bottle on the wire-rack shelf in the quietly-humming Frigidaire, Granny would have already started adding those 'pinches.' Some Calumet baking powder, some Arm & Hammer baking soda & some table salt (Morton's Iodized to ward off those unsightly goiters). The exact amount needed to make the biscuits rise is pretty forgiving, but the girl doesn't know this, and she is thoroughly intimidated by the reprimand for not paying close enough attention. Plenty of salt is quite necessary for the biscuits to taste like anything; leave out the salt entirely and a houndog won't eat 'em.

Now comes the hard parts. Biscuits are not tender if you overwork the dough (not flaky if you don't get enough shortening). Once those secret dry ingredients have been introduced into that puddle of milk, you begin mixing/stirring with your fingers to insure all those six ingredients blend uniformly into every part of the sticky wet lump that is taking shape. You have to develop a feel for this, and when done right, the lump can be lifted from the bowl in one piece, there is still lots of dry flour surrounding your dough & a simple wipe of your hands/fingers on your chenille apron will clean them enough to move to the next step.

You take some of that leftover flour and sprinkle it liberally onto your counter. The counter may be covered with oilcloth to facilitate cleanup, and it was during the 1950's that Formica counter-tops began to appear everywhere (about as easy to wipe clean as the oilcloth, and about as questionably sanitary). You could just use today's newspaper for a speedy cleanup, if you don't mind those tiny letters baked onto the bottom. Hope I don't get Ralph McGill's picture on my biscuit. In your sprinkled flour, you gently lay your dough; then you must put some more flour on top of the still-rounded lump. With your rolling pin, gently roll out to the desired thickness; a bit less than one inch will allow for a fluffy biscuit nearly as tall as wide.

Granny cut her biscuits from the slab with a water glass, took the scrap missing the circles of dough, tossed on more flour and rolled again. If there was still room on her baking sheet, after placing the tougher double-rolled biscuits, she'd sort of hand-form something from the scrap to fill in. These 'odd-boys' were given to the children hot from the oven; margerine was in wide use by the time I was big enough to 'butter' my own. A pretty hot oven (375) for eight to ten minutes was about right; no glass doors back then; you either kept snatching the door open, which of course let out the superhot air & made them take longer, or you kept your fingers crossed and watched that old clock on the wall.

My mother perfected all those dishes she had learned about the hard way, once she had her own kitchen. Her biscuits were cut with a small biscuit-cutter that was sharp for her identical, if smaller biscuits; she brushed the tops with a finger dipped in canned milk, which made them shiny and golden on top. The scrap was forcefully rolled into a much thinner round piece of dough. This dough got itself smeared thickly with margerine, smothered in lots of brown sugar & sprinkled with fresh pecans. Rolled into a tube-shape and sliced into enough wheels to completely fill a cake pan, your desert went into the oven when the biscuits came out, and needed to come back out when you could smell them out in the dining room.

Half of the things we used in those two old kitchens to prepare and cook our meals would be totally unrecognizable for today's housewives(Are there any that would not object loudly to this term?); things like the meat grinder for her liver puddin' or the hand-cranked device clamped to the table, with various cup-shaped graters and slicers that were inter-changeable & removeable for washing or the gricer which turned those boiled old potatoes into the smoothest mashed potatoes you ever tasted.

My mother adopted any new convenience that seemed at all helpful, but like her candy thermometers, many quickly fell into disuse; this because she posessed skills that most of the gadget-buying public would never have. G_d, I miss these women, the smells that emanated from their kitchens & a lot more that has gone missing in the name of progress.

Comments for NOSTALGIA RUN RAMPANT

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TRY THIS METHOD & RECIPE
by: John Rodman/Albany, GA

I tried Phillip's RECIPE; my biscuits turned out, and I now have four new girlfriends who eat them with me, but no longer like/trust each other!

WHY PEOPLE WRITE
by: Phillip DeNise in Albany, Georgia

The 'publishing business' has been made-over by the world wide web; the radicality of these changes compares well with the 'sea changes' which occurred with INVESTING [not quite the same thing as 'saving']; the 'individual investor' no longer NEEDS the advice of a financial advisor to manage a portfolio of diverse holdings in 'negotiable paper;' this FACT has brought the FEES paid when purchasing/selling one of these 'positions' down out of the stratosphere.

Just as the major Wall Street players in the investment business have been forced to adjust their business plans to accomodate these changing realities, the big publishing houses [some still have the word HOUSE in their name] have been forever changed by the electronic medium, and their NEED to compete, in order to gain control of the PRODUCT they sell.

WRITERS however, compare more favorably with MUSICIANS [their 'business' has also been affected by technology, but in very different ways]; just as TALENT & SKILL in musicians, comes in different combinations, and levels of achievement, writers come in all varieties, and would represent every sector in a VENN DIAGRAM which could express these two aspects of writing graphically; and, much like in the music business, there seems to be no 'rhyme or reason' for why some writers have a big publisher that works with them, or why some of these do so well financially.

DUANE ALLMAN [another GEORGIA boy] was an 'accomplished musician,' before his tragic death occurred while riding a motorcycle; two other accomplished musicians ["DICKEY" BETTS & Chuck Leavell memorialized Duane's death on EAT A PEACH.

I used to watch the three of them, playing together in Piedmont Park [Atlanta, GA; they lived about 90 miles away, in Macon, GA] on the weekend. There was a popular saying, back in the day: MUSIC SHOULD BE FREE, LIKE BREAD. There was lots of 'free music' in 1969.

But Duane, and his Allman Bros. Band made plenty of money, by making their music. In the early 60's, Duane was already technically proficient on his guitar. Once he determined that making his music was going to be his way of making a living, he executed a 'plan' which eventually led to the successful introduction of his Rock'n'Roll Band to the record-buying public.

NASHVILLE, at the time, 'produced' most of the recordings which 'featured' guitar music; every guitar-player, whose name appeared on the album covers coming out of that music industry capitol, were ALL dues-paying union members.

Given those to incontrovertible facts, Duane's 'plan' was a rather simple one; he obtained the necessary union card, and then located himself just outside those recording studios where these albums were being 'cranked out.'

Whenever a recording session was 'planned [a sometimes difficult process, because it involves getting a number of 'artists' in one particular place & getting them to cooperate (with one another, and with the PRODUCER and his TECHNICIANS)],' and the PRODUCER determined that a guitar was what he wanted to hear in his orchestra, Duane was always 'handy.'

If you are not a record collector, and/or pay little attention to the names of all the musicians that contributed to the 'tracks' contained in the package [PRODUCT], then you would definitely be surprised/amazed at all the CREDITS Duane garnered for himself, during this 'critical' period of his development [into a 'seasoned veteran'].

The 'list,' if reduced to the names of the FEATURED singers, whose names are 'plastered' on the front of all these albums, would compel you to 'see' DUANE ALLMAN in a new light.

Duane's ATTITUDE towards 'getting paid' for all these recording sessions, had much more to do with the wide use of his guitar-playing during these 'early years,' than his TALENT, or his proficiency with his INSTRUMENT!

Duane, during those years when he was playing in NASHVILLE, made a lot more money for those RECORD PRODUCERS, than he did for himself. ALL successful RECORD PRODUCERS pay attention to such financial details. Duane's 'long range plans' for his music, involved PRODUCING his own recordings, and the successful execution depended heavily on his understanding of all aspects of that business, and on his use [when the time finally arrived] of the valuable CONTACTS he had cultivated with other SUCCESSFUL recording artists, with TECHNICIANS qualified to produce the actual PRODUCT & with those RECORD PRODUCERS that he would have to compete with, when he had his own label.

There are plenty of GOOD WRITERS, capable of producing the necessary PRODUCT; the PUBLISHERS tend to work [exclusively] with those writers that make them the most money.

If your 'plan' is to be a financially successful writer, with a prestigious PUBLISHING HOUSE selling your books for you, then you need to be 'all about' making money for them!

THINK DON KING; not all of the boxers, that DON KING made famous enough for you to have heard the name, were 'duped' by him, or too 'stupid' to realize what was going on; the biggest names were probably actively cooperating in Mr. King's personal enrichment throughout their 'prolonged' professional careers.

WHY DO WRITERS WRITE?

Each one of you GWE writers must provide your own answer to that one.

Consider JAMES HOGG. Or THOMAS JEFFERSON; TJ is, without doubt [at least in my estimation], the most important American writer; many of his most important ideas were very simply DISCARDED by the individuals who used TJ's PRODUCT to make him GREAT.

If you were locked in a motel room for 24 hours, and there was a copy of the Declaration of Indepenence, lying on a table, next to Tony Hillerman's Coyote Waits, which one would you pick up and read?

If your 'aim' is to make, for yourself, some serious money, FORGET ABOUT GREAT IDEAS! Identify your book-buying target audience, and figure out what is entertaining to them. Then use your TALENT & SKILL to write that!

If you are writing for another reason, you might still be able to use the information that I have pased along in this ARTICLE, to improve your current income picture.

For my FRIENDS here at GWE, I want to CHALLENGE you to limit your COMMENTS attached to my ARTICLE to answering this one burning question:

WHY DO YOU THINK I SPEND THE TIME THAT I DO WRITING?

Answering this one simple question will help focus your mind on something much more important than how to get paid for your own efforts as a writer.

If you take the time to do some research, before writing a COMMENT that almost nobody else on the planet will read [I'll certainly be reading them], my many ARTICLES certainly provide some helpful CLUES to guide your tiny composition.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT HOW I MIGHT 'TAKE' WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT MY WRITING.

The point to the exercise, is to mis-direct your conscious mind, just long enough for your sublimated personality to decide, for you, why it is that you write.

JUST TRY THIS [it really works]!

WRITING NOSTALGIC STORIES FOR OTHER BABY-BOOMERS
by: Phillip DeNise in Albany, Georgia

You Boomers out there shouldn't be reticent about telling your stories in your accustomed way of 'speaking.'

1) this site, and many others, are called BLOGSITES for a reason; my rambling prose hardly qualifies as 'Creative Writing,' but many readers will push right through to the end anyhow.

They are searching for little nuggets of nostalgic imagery, that will nudge their dreary or tired brain-matter into a sweeter place for a while; when their own memories begin to wear thin (again), they will go hunting for more nuggets, and amateur writers with those nuggets stand as good a chance of getting found as the next BLOGGER.

Tell them your stories, and set them free!

2) writing about sweeter times can be therapeutic for housebound seniors (be it weather, infirmities or just poverty keeping them in); just change the name of the fella or gal in the story, & you can write about more trying times without embarrassing yourself, and you'll find that the therapeutic value of this kind of story-writing, can be many-times more effective, and there really are a lot of folks hunting for these more realistic & emotionally powerful tales than you would think.

3) writing about past events will jog your rusty old memory for some nuggets you already had, but temporarily misplaced some of them; the ones that have been sub-consciously buried the deepest, are the ones begging to get dug out, and discarded, once and for all, far out into CYBERSPACE where they truly belong!

good memories
by: Elizabeth/Spokane

Thanks for the memories. I learned to cook a bit from my mom, however, as a rebellious teen with my mom working, I really learned to cook when I married my first husband.

He knew how to cook lots of stuff and taught me. His mother is the one who taught me how to bake and to make excellent meals.

Once I was hooked, I began to gather lots of cookbooks.

Great
by: Om Joshi

Your memories are great, not only food but mother's hands and her love for the consumer of food was full of love.

Unfortunately or fortunately I am vegetarian so do not know much about recipies.
Om

Wonderful Article..!
by: Alison

Wow...what a really nice read....

I, too, remember my Gram making pies in the kitchen...giving us dough to play with....never paid much attention to her baking..or knitting skills.

I now, so wish I had of..I am retiring in 2 weeks...and have taken up knitting.

I was never the "in the kitchen" Mom...but intend to be that for my grandchildren and hopefully create the beautiful memories you have..

Thanks so much..!

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