The Family Motto
Anonymous*
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The Family Motto
Anonymous* |
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IN MY HUMBLE OPINION ROkie White FEATURED COLUMNIST R Ray Collins FICTION |
Friends and family call me culinary-challenged – to my face. It isn’t something I feel particularly bad about. I’m convinced it’s genetic. Someday medical researchers will identify the gene responsible for cooking ability. I’m sure I’ll be missing it because no ancestor I can recall has been a good cook. Questionable meals are as much a part of my heritage as freckles and my Okie twang.
I’ll offer as evidence my own shortcomings first. I have so many. But I’ll explain only one for the sake of time and brevity. Take for example the term rare meat. It's not in my vocabulary. I figure if people want rare beef they can go out and bite a cow. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I just seem incapable of doing it. The smoke detector in my house performs double duty. Beyond the obvious, it also alerts the family that dinner is ready. If we ever do have a real fire, I imagine the family will gather in the dining first to see if the table is set for dinner. Next there is my mother who was once assigned the task of making communion crackers for church services. Not a hard task. Communion crackers for a Baptist church are tiny things…about the size of one piece of chiclet gum. Surely with something so little, even if she messed it up it couldn’t be too bad could it? When the appropriate moment in the service arrived and everyone popped Mom's crackers into their mouths there was a moment of complete and reverent silence. Then the crunching began. One devout gentleman broke a tooth. Whether my mother overcooked the little tidbits or used the wrong recipe will never be known. She refused to repeat her performance. And that service went on record as one of noisiest communions ever. Consider my grandfather who once pinch hit as cook during the autumn cattle round- up. The crew had stayed out longer than their food supply would cover. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, there was a soybean field nearby. Grandpa figured the cows ate them. Ought to be good enough for the working man. It’s hard to explain the lack of taste of appeal of a mess of soybeans cooked in a pot of water with no seasoning. Think of cardboard mush. That was one hungry group of men crawling into their sacks that evening. Even the hound dogs wouldn’t eat the leftovers. This is the same man who walked into the general store in Red Oak and asked for sauerkraut seeds for grandma to plant. And I would be remiss not to mention my great-grandmother. She once cooked crow for dinner because she’d heard folk talk so much about eating it. Figured it was a genteel delicacy. One bite and great-grandpa begged to differ with her. Asked her to stick with squirrel and catfish in the future. Although family recollections of food and disasters only goes back so far, I can imagine the rest of it back through history. Probably started with the invention of fire. I envision my infinitely great-grandparents Augh and Ooga Smith, sitting in their cave dressed for dinner in their saber-tooth tiger togas, a bowl of fruits, nuts and berries between them, chewing on raw pterodactyl and staring at their latest new convenience, a crackling, hot fire…. “Ooga,” Augh says in his best caveman voice, “I understand the neighbors are putting food in this bright what-cha-ma-call it.” “Fire?” Ooga supplies, her mouth full of raw meat. “I swear you’re losing your memory. And why on earth would the Jones’s put good food in the fire? Everyone knows fire is just for heat.” "They call it cooking.” “Cooking?” Ooga spits in the fire, letting the hiss emphasis her disgust. “Those Jones’s are always trying something new. Think they’re better than the rest of us.” “They’re not the only ones doing it.” “So what are you saying? Everyone but us is doing it? Since when do we have to do what everyone else does?” “They say it makes food taste better.” “Are you criticizing my food?” Ooga picks up the club leaning against the cave wall. “No dear,” Augh retracts and retreats. “It’s wonderful, very fresh…but maybe we could try something new for a change?” “Fine. No problem.” Ooga baffled by this unusual request picks up the bowl of fruit and drops it in the fire. “How long is cooking?” Augh shrugs. And so the very first cooked meal in my family turned to ashes. I’m sure that was when the family motto was first coined: Food...Can't live without it...Can't cook it. *Although this opinion piece was sent to us anonymously, the editorial staff believes anyone who has attended a potluck dinner in MendaCity can guess the author. However, we respect the author's right to remain nameless. |