Culinary Memories

Pop corn was not made then as it is now. Daddy would get a very big cast iron pot, put oil in it and when the oil got to the right temperature, he would pore the kernels of corn into it and place the lid on top. Daddy would began shaking the pot and pretty soon you would hear the popping corn pinging the lid.

Instant hot chocolate?---never heard of it. Mother used Hershey's cocoa, sugar and milk. If we had whipped cream in the house that was quite a treat.

When there was new fallen snow, we made snow-ice-cream with vanilla, carnation condensed milk, sugar and salt. Daddy taught us how to do that and we always looked forward to that first snow fall.

Other foods I remember were meatloaf. The meat was bought in chunks and then it was ground up in a meat grinder that was attached to the kitchen table. Daddy also made a dish called Spanish Rice using the ground beef.

In our refrigerator was always a pitcher of Kook-aid. Mother liked to drink Pepsi and had the Kool-aid for us. However, every now and then we were treated to having Pepsi.

The two lunch meats I remember the most were bologna and pimento olive loaf. I was not that fond of either one and would rather eat lettuce and mayonnaise sandwiches on toast.

The one dinner item that mother made that none of us were happy about was squash. I also did not like spinach; but Michele did. Daddy fooled me once by putting a turnip on my plate---it did not take long to discover it was not a potato like he said.

My sisters like to remind me about the day I made them pancakes from Bisquick for breakfast. The pancakes were cooked---so I thought--and ready to eat. The color on both sides was a golden brown. They began eating them and discovered that the middle was raw. The pancakes were put into the dog's dish by Lynn and even the dog did not want to eat them. If the griddle is too hot the only thing that is going to cook is the top and bottom---lesson learned. I would like to think today if I announced that I was going to make them pancakes; they would not all get in their cars and drive to I-Hop.