More Memories!

Isn't it funny how you can go to Mom's and sit and eat the types of things, like the bread pudding, that she use to fix when we were kids and just love it. I guess it comes from the fact we were always hungry enough that anything tasted great. Like Daddy always said,"If you don't like what is served at this meal, come back for the next meal. It will taste a whole lot better.". I love cooking anything, if I know it will be eaten and appreciated. Like when the Amish fellows help us on building projects. Anything you cook, they eat and simply love it. I guess they had worked up a good appetite and were really hungry. That's when food tastes the best.That's why I loved cooking for the school. There were always a few picky kids that you could never please, but for the most part, the kids around this area, ate just about anything and appreciated it. Then, too, when you are in school, you can't run to the kitchen every 30 minutes and get something to eat. The smells coming from the cafeteria use to get to me bad when I was a kid waiting for lunch. I thought I would starve to death before they took us to lunch.Mom use to have something for us to eat most days when we got home from school. She knew we would be starving and we usually were. While walking in the mile lane, from the bus to our house, we'd fight over a green apple one of the bunch had left from their lunch, we were so hungry.One of the things I remember best, that Mom would have ready for us, is the cold biscuits from breakfast, sliced open, dipped in milk and egg, pan fried, then rolled on cinnamon and sugar. Now that was good. And then there was the burnt sugar milk. We had lots of milk with our own cows. She would burn a little sugar in the iron skillet, and just as it began to turn black, she'd add water, then we'd sweeten it to taste. Ummm! Now that was good.Once in awhile, we'd raid the refrigerator and gobble up whatever we found, only to have Mom throw a fit because we had eaten what she had planned for supper.I know it must have been a job, planning ahead for meals to feed our bunch.We were never really hungry though. We learned to eat pumpkin and squash more ways than I care to remember. We ate a lot of rice since Mom grew up in south Louisiana. We had all the dairy products you can possibly make from milk.Fresh whole milk, thick sweet cream,cottage cheese, butter,buttermilk.Mom even tackled home made cheese a few times.She had a way of fixing cottage cheese with mayonaise and diced vegetables. I know it had onions in it, and I think radishes. That was gooood!We didn't have a lot of material things, but every nook and cranny in that big house was packed with those Bob White syrup jars filled with squash, pumpkin, apples, green beans, tomatoes.Mom would buy peanut butter by the bucket, I think it was a half gallon, and a half gallon of Bob White syrup every Friday. We ate every drop every week, what I didn't use to stir up some type of sweets for us all.Those jars used the # 63 jar lids. I'll bet Mom bought most of those lids that Mr. Stringer carried in his litttle store.When she could get a ride she would shop at Houchens, but a lot of things she bought at the little store 3 or 4 miles from home. Houchens was in town and a little harder to get to, and Mom didn't drive. One of us girls could drive one of Dad's old trucks to the little store, even though we were only 12,14, and maybe 16 years old. We'd get there somehow, even if we had to drive the tractor, or pull a little red wagon through the fields. I could go on and on with these memories, but I'll stop here and maybe relive a few more at a later date. Until then,Have a Good Day!