Yesterday, my mom would have been 100 years old. This brings back a lot of memories of mom over the years. One of the things that most people remember about their mom was the food they prepared.
We were quite poor and did not have a lot of money to buy food, but we always got by - Thanks to mom. She knew how to "Stretch" food so there was more than enough. Once the ketchup bottle was almost empty she would add a little water to make it go a little farther. When she fried the potatoes she usually added pieces of bread to make it taste better but also to make it last longer and fill us up. She loved to bake bread, cakes, pies, etc. We would come in from playing outside or working in the barn and she would be making loaves of bread and above all caramel rolls with brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins. Poor mom, these never had a chance to get cold when we got a hold of them. The same was true with any cake she made. Us boys thought it was our duty to make sure that the whole cake was eaten up in one meal. She also made a lot fruit pies. The fruits did not come from the store, but the berry bushes in the yard or the woods. Blackberry pie, strawberry pie, choke cherry pie, and of course apple pie.
She rendered her own lard and we always had "real cream" on our cereal each morning, right off the top of the milk can. We had a big garden and our job was to pull the weeds and keep the bugs off. One thing we always had enough of was potatoes.
When we could we would have roasted chicken (After we chopped the heads off and plucked the feathers). We ate everything except the cluck We ate the gizzards, neck and all. Ever so often we would have beef roast. Mom was almost too careful to make sure it was DONE - always with a burnt crust. We actually enjoyed a little char with our beef, as long as we had ketchup.
I cannot ever remember eating at a restaurant, just plain good homemade food, prepared by the best cook in the world (In our eyes). One more important thing, we always sat down and ate as a family around the table - ever so humble! We never gave thanks to God, but we were still blessed beyond measure.
Take a look at the pictures. I am the one in mom's arms in both photos. The other two are Clayton and Steve.
