Dear Mothers,
Ya know when Dan worked in NYC before moving to Oregon last week, he worked in a neighborhood restaurant close to Christian Joy's apartment. Their specialty food was comfort foods. Stuff like biscuits and gravy and cornbread and greens. Down home hillbilly food like bean soups and potato soups. And the New Yorkers love this restaurant. It's a very popular place to go. Dan told everyone there, "This is food I grew up on."
Last night I made ham gravy and biscuits for supper and a baked potato. I just got out my big cast iron skillet and poured a bit of oil in the pan. Then I fried up some ham and then I put in about a fourth cup of flour and smashed it in with a big enamel spoon. Then ya just pour in a scant 2 cups of milk and go to stirrin'. Let it bubble and thicken. Put in salt and pepper. And that's the gravy. That's how I made it for Wild Man. For biscuits, you just put 2 cups of self rising flour in a bowl and then throw some shortening in -- about a fourth cup. And work the fat into the flour with your fingers until the flour looks like cornmeal. Then throw in a scant cup of milk and make a dough and then pat it out on a floured table. Then cut the biscuits out with the top of a tin can. Or use a biscuit cutter, or a glass or something round at the top. Be sure to have your oven preheated to 450 degrees. Quick breads need a hot oven. Put the biscuits in a greased pan and bake about 15 or so minutes until they are brown.
But they say the Mothers during the Depression era saved their families from starvation because they knew how to make biscuits and gravy. Just always make sure you have flour in the house and some shortening and your family will never go without. You can make gravy and biscuits with no milk or meat. You can just use water instead of milk. You could flavor the gravy with onions if you have no meat. Or use some cheese if ya have that. I know Wild Man loved creamed peas. That's just the gravy with a can of drained peas in it to go over the biscuits. And cornmeal is easy to come by, too, and cheap. You can feed a lot of family with a pan of odds and ends vegetables and a pan of fried potatoes and a big pan of cornbread. Even if you only have two slices of bacon, you could fry that up and add it to the fried taters.
The old time Mothers usually canned up a lot of stewed tomatoes in Fall, and they added these tomatoes to the gravy or to any vegetable dish. Some old timers love just plain macaroni with stewed tomatoes over the top. You could fry up onions and green peppers and put this in, too. Add a bit of butter if ya have it.
All of these ideas are comfort foods. Just cheap foods that have gotten many people through Hard Times. Kept them off the street?
Wild Man Food
Between taking care of Baby and running about, I was gonna write down some food ideas that Wild Man ate. He would take a big bowl and crumble up leftover homemade bread. And over this, he would put milk and sugar and ate it like cold cereal. Sometimes he put fresh fruit in it, too. This would taste awful with store bought bread. But with dried out homemade bread, it is good. Well, he and I both did this with leftover cake. In the old days, I would put milk on Jello and stir it up real good.
Another Wild Man food is this. He liked plain gravy with chopped up boiled eggs in it. He always told me, "I could eat this stuff at least once a week." He called this Creamed Eggs. I would fix him potatoes with this, too, and a vegetable. Papa loved mashed potatoes with any kind of gravy on it.
In the summer, he would eat radish sandwiches with fresh radishes from the garden. He put salad dressing on it, like mayonnaise, but never Mayo -- he hated it. A popular sandwich from the Depression era was baked bean sandwiches with a slice of fresh tomato and an onion with mayonnaise. This is my favorite sandwich on homemade bread in the summertime. In the Depression era, if you didn't have meat, you ate a lot of beans for protein. Also I love chicken sandwiches with Granny Smith apples with mayo.
And I always had a pot of coffee on for Jim when he got home from work. He enjoyed just plain coffee -- none of that fancy Hickory Nut or whatever coffee. Jim wanted just plain comfort foods. If he was eating something the boys didn't like, he would say, "Aww, you boys are a bunch of sissies." But our boys do love the comfort foods, too, but not as many kinds as Jim did.
As I write this (with a hundred interruptions), I think of the words in Proverbs about how Wisdom cries in the streets and calls to the foolish to learn wisdom. And to me, this place where Dan worked was a call of wisdom to the NYC folks. To come back to the simple things of life. Ya know the comfort foods mainly take flour, eggs, and milk and some kind of fat like lard or oil. Not much meat but some, and a lot of vegetables. The Old time Mothers were experts at making many happy meals with just a few ingredients. They were expert bread makers and their biscuits were light enough to fly away. Their pie crusts were delicious and just made from flour, lard, and water, salt, and back yard rhubarb and berries, or apples, etc. Homemade noodles are just flour and eggs and a bit of butter and salt. All of these foods are cheap to make and so comforting. Potatoes of all kinds are cheap to come by and such a comfort to eat. I know Wisdom calls us sisters of the kitchen to get busy and learn to make plain foods.
Best close as Baby will be cryin' in a minute. She is just takin' a cat nap! MEOW.
Love,
Connie
