Fixin' Supper Last Night

When I say "I need to fix supper", Northerners ask me if supper's "broke", kinda upsets me, but when I was a child and still today I "fix" most of my meals. Maybe it's a coal camp phrase, maybe it's a rural phrase, maybe it's a southern phrase, but some people just don't understand it. Or, they want to tease me--a little-like my students when I ask them if they got their "lessons". I say it on purpose knowing "homework" has been in vogue for half a century now.


This piece is about food, though, not language.


My friends and family know that I've been a proclaimed vegetarian for about 25 years. Well recently, I admit to eating some of brother Johnny's fresh, homemade pork sausage. It was wonderful. About once a year I become a social carnivore and eat a fresh, organic hamburger and they do taste good, especially when I make sure where the beef came from. But I stay pretty faithful to my vegetarian life style--and eat soy burgers fried crisp with lots of seasoning and mustard and onions. Healthy and pretty good. Anything fried crispy is pretty good to me!


I have to be creative in fixing tasty old fashioned meals though. Actually, in our home, we grew up on vegetables with salt bacon often being the only meat on the table...we didn't like it, so the little saucer of fried bacon was always placed in front of Daddy's place. Mother used the hot, smoking skillet of grease for baking our daily bread. Yes, everyday except Sunday we had cornbread.And everyday, Mother cooked beans or black-eyed peas (Daddy was from Alabama so we learned to like Black-eyed peas)


Real treats were chicken on Sunday, pork-chops for breakfast (Mother made awesome brown sop), ham on holidays (courtesy of the coal company), turkey at Christmas, & meatloaf occasionally. To me, fried wieners and kraut was the best meat dish--and perfect with soup beans. In spring, Mother picked wild greens in the hills to go with our beans and cornbread, tender spring greens killed with bacon grease, fresh green beans, sliced tomatoes and onions with each meal, new potatoes, cabbage, roshineers, (found out when I was in college this meant "roasting ears"..did you know that?).


Since we were usually 6-10 people, Mother always had tons of potatoes or macaroni with tomatoes or cheese to fill us up. Of course, when we waked home for lunch we found fried bologna, pork n beans, cheese sandwich with a sweet pickle, etc. Once in awhile we charged lunch at the fountain and caused a big fight on payday if Daddy "went in the hole". Fountain food was worth it though. I still think the secret ingredient in their hot dogs was the waxed paper melting down into the food. People quit using waxed paper when Saran Wrap came out and it made a difference in taste. Wrap your hot-dog in waxed paper some time, let it steam, and enjoy a memory. Saturdays was a time for hot dogs and hamburgers. Sunday was a large breakfast with biscuits. Then, Sunday dinner usually had special meat or Chicken and dumplings and several bowls of vegetables and gravy to go with it al, and biscuits or rolls. I don't remember Mother making cornbread on Sundays.


But this is about fixin' my supper yesterday. While a small pot of butter beans cooked with a little salt, olive oil and margarine for seasoning I fixed everything else. I put a little olive oil, into a skillet, added a large can of seasoned mixed greens, threw in some fresh spinach, then as it simmered, I added a can of hominy (I also do this with quartered potatoes) and let it cook down. Mother taught me to let things cook down into the seasoning.


OK, beans are simmering and butter beans --I like the large Limas--take just a little4 over an hour to cook...so I start on my cornbread. Fresh ground corn meal, (brother Johnny's hand ground is the best), add some flour...guess at it, but no more than 1/4-1/2 cup for my taste. If you use Johnny's Wiley Branch cornmeal, you don't even need to add flour it's so rich and naturally thick. I remember mother scraping fresh corn to get that rich goodness for fried or creamed corn. I added 1 Tbsp baking powder and 1 tsp. salt. Never, never add sugar to cornbread. I taste it sometimes at restaurants and wonder what they're thinking! I made cornbread for my NYC neighbors once and delivered it hot for their evening meal. They saved it for morning and ate it with jam. So, cultural differences come into the cornbread experience.


So I'm making cornbread. I pour some skim milk, adkd about 1/4 Cup veggie oil, then since I need to use up some eggs, I add three into my liquid, beat it up pretty good, and stir into my corn meal.


Today, I decided to fry cornbread since I love it and it's easy and I want a piece real fast. Aunt Olga actually bakes cornbread in an iron skillet on top of the stove. She's the one who taught me that serving the men folk first was, "tradition, not submission". She's the last sibling of my Mother's 12 brothers and sisters.


While I'm cooking, I wish some of my brothers and sisters were with me. We love to eat and will eat almost anything. We talk and taste and talk about life while we cook. Both my brothers are great cooks so we all enjoy the kitchen.


Mind you, I'm cooking this meal for myself. My daughter has a special diet and we're alone here, most of the time.


Here's where I cheated: There was a jar of bacon grease in Sandy's fridge and I thought I'd better use it up, then we won't have any more. So, heated up the bacon grease in a large skillet and started the frying process, 4-5 cakes at a time. Fixed a plate covered with paper and napkins to absorb any extra of that bad old bacon grease, flipped the bread over at just the right time and started taking it up. I hope everyone knows what "taking it up" means. My friends will!


Since I made a lot of batter, I pour me a big glass of milk so I can have hot cornbread and cold milk while I work. Nothing better in this world. So I turn the bread the little bubbles tell me to and hope they're a little crisp around the edges. I start taking them up. I eat one with my milk, even as I add the next batch to the skillet. Women can do anything! All at the same time! Flip them, take one out, turn them, flip, eat one, turn, take up, eat ...you know the drill. Then I decided I'd better taste those greens and make sure they are seasoned good. Check the butter beans, not done yet, so I have a little, very little plate of the greens and hominy. Cornbread, milk, greens, this is really good.


I'm still standing, mind you, fixing supper, and have already eaten a full meal. Do you ever do that? It's especially fun when you set the table for several people and take care of them; them not knowing of course you'vealready had a full meal. How noble we women are! When the beans got done, I had just a little of everything to make sure it was a totally good meal. It was. Of course for this final tasting, I sat formally in front of the TV and watched a really bad episode of Maury. Totally decadent meal.

Then, last night about 11 PM, I went downstairs for a snack. Guess what I had? Right. And there's enough for granddaughter who will visit today. She's vegetarian too, so I told Sandy not to tell her about the bacon grease. Not nice of us, but the bread's just too good for her not to eat it.


As the Dawson and Nova Bussey children always said, if we have some cornbread, we can have some cornbread and milk, if we have any milk.


I enjoyed fixin' this meal so much I just had to share.


Peace,
Judy