“Laughter is brightest where food is best”
-----Irish proverb
When someone says, “home cooking” or “homemade” the image
that comes to mind is something delicious, made fresh, with tradition and love.
That’s a nice thought; it just has never been my experience. Recently one of
those pictures with the sayings on the bottom (they’re called memes I am told)
came across my social media feed and it said “Name something your mother or
grandmother made” and it was this retro scene of an older lady in the kitchen,
wearing an apron and concentrating on something being cooked. In my head, I
tried to remember what dish or treat my mother or grandmother had made that was
a favorite of mine, or anyone’s for that matter.
Like my friend Winnie The Pooh, I sat and had a good think
on it and… nothing. There was absolutely no memory of any amazing family recipe
or special holiday treat that my mother or grandmother always made. Meanwhile, dozens
of my friends were going on about Granny’s walnut bread, or Mama’s gravy. Gravy
in this case being spaghetti sauce, since that’s what Italian grandmothers call
it. It seemed that in everyone’s family but my own, there were heirloom recipes
that had been handed down from one generation to the next. Holidays were not
complete without these special dishes.
It’s likely because just as we get hair color and eye color
from our parents and grandparents, we get a kind of history as well. Family
stories for one. In my family what we might lack in recipes we make up for in
pure, unadulterated legends. Like the time my father took a police cruiser for
a joy ride. Or the time my mother wore a pair of shoes to a party that she
didn’t realize still had the bright orange price tag stuck on the bottom sole. The
entire evening she wondered why everyone walking by the couch she was sitting
on (with her legs crossed like any proper lady would do) was craning their
necks to get a look at the bottom of her feet. We have stories, enough for ten
more generations to come and more are being created every year, but cherished
homemade dishes? Not so much.
Growing up I can recall no occasion where my grandmother,
mother or any other family member said, “Come to the kitchen Brenda, it’s time
you learned the secret recipe.” We never starved of course, there was always
plenty of food. It just wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Gourmet night
usually consisted of a hamburger patty, a box of mac and cheese and whatever
frozen brick of vegetables was available. The veg was my job because I am
hazardous in the kitchen. My mother figured nothing much could go wrong if she
handed me a sauce pan and a brick of green beans and said, “Smash those up in
the pan, but do NOT turn on the stove, just leave them there.” Culinary traditions
in the Kelley family were less about homemade goodness and more about making
sure nothing caught on fire and with me in the kitchen, that’s a challenge.
As for the previous generation, my grandmother was a pioneer
of sorts. She was the first woman in the State of Massachusetts to be granted a
chauffeur’s license. She always had a job of some kind. She was out working
when many women were perfecting their pie dough. She married a man who owned a
restaurant, which honestly was mostly a bar, but whatever. Cooking was not her
thing. Over a pack of Pall Malls and two fingers of Jameson she would say,
“There’s some ham salad in the fridge if you’re hungry, I just picked it up at
the deli and if you won’t eat that, have some Oreos.” She was nothing short of amazing though. In
the course of the discussion on home cooking, one of my cousins did tell me she
used to make a really good oyster stew of some kind, but that was before my
time.
Food is food is food is food, right? Some people have a gift
for making amazing dishes and handing down those recipes and traditions. In my
family, we don’t, but while a friend was telling me about how her grandmother
churned ice cream on the porch on hot summer nights, I remember my father
herding us all in the car and going on a late night run for cones. As long as
there is a tradition of some kind, and lots of laughter, the food will always
be the best.
