Captain Me Planet

And as I’m thumbing through this recipe box, not only do I realize I can place several people by their handwriting, but I can place certain events and periods in their life by the scrap paper the recipe ends up on. There is one, on a Butte Knit Factory inter-office memo. From March of 1970. About the time I would have been conceived, and from the place my Mama Kat used to work her fanny off in. There’s another on a hotel note pad piece, that I’m sure was written at my house when I was much younger, and Mama Kat was visiting, and tasted my mom’s Poppyseed Chicken. I can see her in the kitchen, asking mom what the recipe was, and grabbing a notepad to record it. Why do I put it together like this? Because Mama Kat has never been in a hotel like the one this recipe is on, and my dad is a pilot. We had scads and scads of hotel note pads for years. I see my dear neighbor’s handwriting. One that my mom learned so much from, so many recipes from (like our now have-to-have Christmas Morning Sausage Balls) and that has a daughter that is my friend to this day. We grew up doing everything significant with them. Birthdays. Christmas. Illness. We all got impetigo from the dog that jumped in our cheap Kmart pool, propped up in our drive way, and that was eventually eaten by yet another dog, in his fervent pursuit of the rock that found its way under the pool.

Some of the papers in this box are so faded. Some of the writing so indecipherable. But in this box, I find myself tracing back through my history, through these bits of writing, and the recipes I grew up on. And I ask my husband, will some child of our children’s children find my stuff one day, and be able to recognize my handwriting, and associate wonderful memories with it? I certainly hope. And then I realize how rapidly we are all becoming digital. Virtual. Computer everything. And we will not have this legacy to leave behind. This bit of history that binds one generation of women to the next. And right then, I vowed to stop using recipes from on line only. Printing them out. Never getting hard copy at all. But to earnestly try to write them down. For someone else to remember me by. It definitely takes more time, but today, I saw the fruit. The can-not-be-replaced bit of family legacy. That we women weave through out our histories. The fudge I may eventually learn to make (I’ve tried soooo many times), and teach my children to make, is the one my own mom got from hers. One the one that was nearly the last thing Mama Kat could cook. The very acts of melting, mixing, pouring out and cooling conjures up thousands of memories. The taste brings together family memebers that may have never been able to sit down and talk, or even meet. To hug. Or share a meal. But in this recipe, there is common ground. Common love of something that’s important. Breaking bread (or fudge) together.

Seems silly, I know. And my recipes won’t ever carry quite the impact Mama Kat’s does. Her kitchen was her heart. Which is exactly why my own mother is so attached to this card file. And why I am fascinated. There must be such grief in realizing, what once what the heart of your own mother, is now something that is so far removed from her. I can not even imagine. Mama Kat must live in assisted living now, in part, for fear she may hurt herself even trying to turn on a stove. This, from the woman who once cooked at least 3 hot, from scratch, meals a day. And homemade desserts. And taught my mama how to do what she does, and has been, even in a watered down way, transferred to me. I just have too many conveniences to stick to all homemade, all the time. I marvel at once she once did. As a part of just who she was, and what she was called to. And pray that even with my current conveniences, I can at least partially pass down to my daughter. Or my sons.

Because here, in the south, there is still a legacy, albeit a dying one. We feed those we love. We feed those who hurt, who grieve. We feed the parents of newborns, of those who have loved ones in the hospital, of those who have a surgery in the family. We feed our families much more than the food on the plate. We feed them love in every bite, because we don’t work in that kitchen for nothing. The world may be falling apart, but a body’s still got to eat. We work there to convey we care. It matters, what goes in your mouth. A real meal counts. And while the substance of that meal has changed in our family to lean grilled meats and sauteed veggies, the heart is still there. Passed down from from strong women way before me, to Grandma Keith, to Other Mama, to Mama Comer, to Mama Kat, to my mom, to me, and prayfully to my daughter, and on.

And I want to have a recipe card box, with handwriting, and chicken scratchings, and friend’s notes and input, for those who cook after me, in which to see the history. The years of feeding souls, much more than just a meal. Some things just shouldn’t be lost, and I hope I don’t lose this. I may use the microwave a whole lot, but I sure want those who enter my home to feel the history in the hands that made the meal, even if they cannot identify what it is. I bring something to their plates that cannot be duplicated. Pieces of all those who have prepared meals before me, whose blood courses through my own, and who have been proud to say they serve.

There is wisdom that says man cannot live on bread alone. I think this is because bread by itself won’t wholly nourish the soul. But bake a loaf of bread with heart, and history, and something entirely different is created. Something ripe, and life-giving, even. All I know, is that when my tastebuds get a load of my mom’s, or her mom’s cornbread, there is nothing else like it in the world. And common sense alone tells me this is not entirely due to the brand of cornmeal, or flour, or the seasoning of the iron skillet. There is a lifetime, several lifetimes, of memories baked into that golden brown, cracklin’ crust. And it is yummy. And I want to pass it on.

I just discovered my grandmother’s recipe box. My grandmother, who has spent a lifetime serving everyone around her, and cooking the very best food you’ll ever put in your mouth, and is now being lost to dementia. Alzheimers? Maybe. No one really knows. All we really know is that she is largely lost to her family, and it is very, very sad.

For my mother, particularly, as she is the one who is largely charged with helping my grandmother (Mama Kat) dismantle the life she once had, and try to cope with what is now. In the wake of the dementia, that due to dementia, Mama Kat can. not. understand. Also in the aftermath of losing my grandfather nearly 2 years ago. The man she’s lived with since she was 19 or 20. Don’t think this was a picture perfect marriage. They duked. it. out. There was a lot of pain. But it was the only thing they knew, and they counted on that. To be left without the only thing you can recall, as your brain is deteriorating, must be more frightening than I can ever imagine. And pray I never know.

We’re southern. Born here, mostly. Raised here, primarily. Lived here, largely. Heck, around where I live now, there is a street named after my grandfather’s side of the family. We know cornbread. Buttermilk. The best biscuits you could ever put in your mouth. Iced tea, sweet. Fried okra. Pinto beans. Butter beans. Cheese grits and full fat bacon. Mashed potatoes to die for. Really. die. for. Covered dishes are a way to say hello. Welcome. I’m sorry. We care. Congratulations. Call if you need us. We love you. You are cared for. If you care, cook.

When I was a little girl, Mama Kat and Shealy (my grand dad) used to take me out for drives in the country. The country. We’d pass the cemetery where half my relatives were buried, and stop at a small country store for a strawberry Ne-hi. I said staawbebby. A word Shealy used with me til the day he left this earth, and that when my own toddler said, I called Shealy to listen to it. You hear that, Shealy? He said staawbebby. We need to find him a Ne-hi! For them, I’d never grow up. And somehow, there’s a comfort in that. That someone in your life will always see you as sweet, innocent and as blameless as a small child. This is a gift. No matter what I did, I could do no wrong. This testimony I gave at his funeral. I was always perfect, to him.

There’d be Sunday Dinners whenever some family could gather. In our part of the country, dinner is at noon, and supper in the evening. All my adult life, whenever my exposure to other cultures would have me saying I’m going out for dinner, my Shealy would say, don’t forget who you are, you’re going out for supper. And at these Sunday Dinners, were the finest delicacies ever to touch the human tongue. Now we southerners do often get a bad rap for what we eat. Fried road kill and the like. But these critics never sat down to dinner with my Mama Kat. Once, in college, I drove over from Athens to Spartanburg, just to visit and spend the night. Mama Kat said what do you want for your homecooked meal? And I replied, oh maybe some fried chicken, or butter beans and cornbread, or pintos and fried okra. When I arrived? All of it, and more. A southern woman never lets a guest go hungry. Our mantra? Too much is not enough. Have enough to feed any number of unexpected guests, and then some leftover for breakfast.

So. I have an inside view of her recipe box, now. And what surprises me at first, is that all my favorite foods are not listed. Not recorded at all. And then I realize, she doesn’t need a recipe for those things. Those are things she’s known how to cook since she was about 10, and her mama wrang (correct past tense?) the neck of a chicken to fry up for supper. Or dinner.

What’s in the box, primarily, is my mama’s recipes. For things like lasagne. Poppyseed Chicken. Cheese Krispies. My other grandmother’s BBQ sauce. Wedding Punch. And often in her very distinct handwriting, but sometimes in my mama’s. And one that I think is my great-aunt Lib’s. Shealy’s sister that left us when I was a little girl. And that loved my mama like her own. And was one of many brothers, the lone girl. Some other scripts are in there that I may never know the author of.

The recipe box is a window to a past. My past. My children’s past, and theirs’.