My Legacy of Food

My mother passed away February 16^th, 1987 at the age of 52.  That was such a devastating time.  She had been ill for so long from the debilitating effects of unmanaged diabetes.  This past August, I turned 52.  It is strange to turn the age of my mother’s passing.  I’m sure this timing has a lot to do with me paying better attention to my health today.  It has been a struggle to indulge my love of cooking and eating and still be in control of my diabetes.  I do this by practicing moderation most of the time with occasional splurges.

I miss my mother every day, however, the anniversary of her death brings back memories with more poignancy.  I’ve been spending time this week thinking about the food I grew up eating.  It was very rich country style food.  There was always lots of meat, potatoes and gravy.  It was food full of comfort, carbs and fat.  Food was a big part of every celebration. Most weekends, we would have a gathering at our house centered on a meal to be cooked and shared; and afterwards a game to be played.  The preparation of the meal was as much of the evening as was the partaking of the meal.  Even cleaning up afterwards was part of the socializing.  One common meal was crispy dogs.

Our family love of crispy dogs was born from a misunderstanding.  We went to the State Fair every year, and my mother’s main interest was the fair food.  One of the things she loved the most was the corn dogs.  When I was about 11 or so and my sister was around 15, our family was in the parking lot after having left the Fair. My mother decided she wanted one more corn dog.  She sent my sister back in with instructions to get the ones called “crispy”.

When she returned, my sister had a crispy dog, but it was not a corn dog.  It was some new fair food which was a hot dog and cheese wrapped up in a corn tortilla and fried.  My mother was so angry!  This was not what she wanted and my sister was in big trouble. Funny thing was that by the time we got home, everyone had tried it and we figured out what was in it.  We gathered the ingredients and experimented until we got it right.  Crispy dogs became a family staple, especially on the weekends.  The making of them as well as consuming them was a social event.  Now, I better get this right, or I’m sure to hear about it from my Sis!

One person (usually my mother) would be the “fryer”.  One person would be the roller and another person would ready the dogs.  First, the hot dogs need to be boiled to plump perfection.  Then they are split down the middle (but not all the way through!) and stuffed with a piece of cheddar cheese.  Finally this is wrapped with a corn tortilla, secured with a wooden toothpick and fried in a pan of hot oil.  Invariably, some of the cheese would melt its way out of the crispy dog into the pan resulting in fried cheese.  That was the prize of the cooks and we would fight over it.

At the table, toothpicks would stack up and the stacks would be compared to each other.  Some stacks would be compromised by theft or added to by neighboring eaters.  There was competition to see who would eat the most.  Toothpicks would be counted to declare the winner of the glutton award that evening.  I rarely make crispy dogs now, because I just don’t know of a way to make them healthier.  So, they remain an occasional splurge.

Another favorite I remember from my childhood is chicken and dumplings.  I made this recently and it was so satisfying.  Making this brought to mind the differences in how I cook today and how I was raised.  Chicken and dumplings is something I can still do and feel good about it.
 

I started with 6 chicken breasts and poached them in a pot of water seasoned with some sage, salt, pepper and bay leaves.  After about 20 minutes of the chicken gently cooking, I removed them from the poaching liquid and continued simmering the liquid to intensify the flavor and turn the poaching liquid into a nice rich broth.
 

In another pot, I started to caramelize a large chopped onion in some olive oil. After the onion started getting soft, I added some fresh garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh thyme and fresh cracked black pepper.  Next, I chopped 4 or 5 stalks of celery and added that to the onions.  In the meantime, I chopped a bunch of fresh carrots and the chicken, which by now had cooled enough to handle.   Finally, I shelled some English peas and set them aside to add at the last minute.

As the celery softened, the onions had caramelized nicely and I began to deglaze the pan with the poaching liquid.  I just added a ladle at a time, let it reduce, then add some more.  The method reminded me of the way you would do a risotto.  When this mixture was thick and rich, I added the carrots, chicken and the rest of the broth.  I tasted for seasoning then just let the soup simmer for a while.

When the carrots were tender, I turned the heat up on the soup to a full boil.  I mixed three cups of biscuit mix with 1 cup of milk. After adding the peas to the pot, I dropped the dough by spoonfuls into the boiling soup.  I cooked the dumplings for ten minutes uncovered then turned the heat down and let the dumplings cook for another ten minutes covered.

The dumplings were perfect! They were soft and tender yet still firm and fully cooked in the center.  So delicious and comforting was the soup that it felt like a nice warm hug from my mother.  I love recreating the food memories from my childhood.  I enjoy taking something like the chicken and dumplings and making it healthier by using fresh vegetables, and the most natural ingredients I can find.  In this case, I cut down on the carbohydrates by omitting the potatoes my parents would have added, and lessened the sodium by making my own broth.

Though my cooking methods are different from my parents, and my food choices are now more conducive to a healthier lifestyle, my core remains the same.  Food is a celebration of love, family and friends.