Momma was a good cook but then she had to be as the women of her time were raised to be housewives and knowing how to cook for their family was essential. She cooked in a time when frying was done with lard and leftover bacon grease, this was known as "Southern Cooking". There were five of us kids, dad's was the only income so meals were often planed with the cost in mind. Dad was a butcher but we didn't always have meat on the menu but when we did it was the best cut.
Breakfast was simple and easy enough that one would also think it cheap but when you factor in two adults and five kids even the simple meals could be expensive. Dad would have fried eggs with toast and bacon or country ham washed down with coffee. Us kids had cold cereal, corn fakes, Rice crispies or Cheerios in bowls filled with cold milk and sugar. As I aged my appetite grew as much as I did, I was always hungry and often was accused of having a hollow leg because I was so skinny it was wondered where all the food was going. By the time I was a teen my cereal bowl was a large mixing bowl that was filled with Cheerios and milk with many spoonsful of sugar. The household food budget dropped considerably when I left home at 18. Every morning we could easily go through a half gallon of milk, a cup of sugar and most of a family sized box of cereal. Every now and then during the winter we would get hot oatmeal with and slab of butter and spoon full of sugar on top. Sometimes there would be toasted bread with melted slabs of butter covered in jelly or jam, usually grape, and occasionally hot biscuits on Sunday morning.
So, what did mom eat for breakfast, I don't think she ate anything until we had all gone our various ways then she would take care of the younger kids who were still homebound, there was eleven years between me and my youngest brother. One thing for sure is she would go through copious cups of coffee in the winter and in the summer, she would start drinking iced tea by lunch time.
Lunch time, when we were in school, consisted of either bologna and cheese sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly wrapped in wax paper and served from a brown paper bag, cookies or chips would be included. We had to fold the bags and bring them back home for the next day. During the summer it was much the same minus the paper bag but now and then we would get tuna fish, potted meat or beanyweenies.
Mom's culinary skills came into play for dinner, that was when she would pull out all the stops. She would cook things like mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas with turnip greens, sauerkraut with bits of hot dog in it, dad's goulash (hamburger meat with stewed tomatoes and onions with noodles) roast beef and sometimes liver. White bread was a staple that we used to sop up the plate with but the one I liked was her cornbread made from scratch and cooked in a cast iron skillet, sometimes she would make cornbread patties fried in the skillet with Crisco lard. She always kept a can of used grease on the stove that would have some bacon flavor that she would pour into the skillet before frying something. Some things were over boiled and the steam clouded the kitchen as heavy as the aromas.
I have to say that I was a picky eater, there were some things I just couldn't get down my throat, turnip greens and asparagus along with boiled cabbage come to mind. Dad's goulash was too greasy for my taste as he didn't pour off the grease before adding the final ingredients, his version of fried liver I could eat but it was usually fried so hard that it could be used as a hockey puck. Mom nor dad would pour the grease off the pan as they cooked or cut fat from the pieces of meat and I had a problem with that. One of my worst whippings came when I held my nose trying to down the goulash. I'm still a picky eater but not as much as I used to be.
I have to say the meals I remember most were in fact the meat and potatoes meals. Mashed potatoes, Navy / White Northern beans, some roast beef and cornbread were and still are my favorite. I dare say that every week we went through close to twenty pounds of potatoes, several ponds of beans / peas and at least one pot roast. Throw in at least three pans of cornbread and I was a happy camper.
Don't get me wrong, there were variations of different items just to spice things up. In addition to navy beans and Black-Eyed Peas we had green beans, crowder peas, and butter beans although I didn't like the butter beans. If, and I do mean if, there were any leftover roast mom would chop it up to make hash with diced potatoes and diced onions.
Dad would have two fish fries each summer, mom would freeze all of the fish he caught and dad would fire up the grill and deep fry fish and hushpuppies. The fish were not filleted and still had bones but none of us ever got one hung in our throat - at least not for long. There were the occasional cook outs with hamburgers and French fries and us kids would be in charge of turning the hand crank on the ice cream maker.
Mom was sick from time to time and once brother Pat and I became of age at around 9 years she started teaching us how to cook. We learned to cook the standard smashed potatoes and beans, toast and sandwiches and bacon. in our teens we tried making more intricate foods like biscuits but the best we could get was a flat, rock hard somewhat round disc best suited for skipping across the lake.
There were other people that didn't eat as good as we did and a lot who ate better. We thought our meals were standard for everyone but we never went hungry - there were always meat and potatoes.
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