The Most Important Ingredient
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-09-09 10:46:55
My Granny W was a great cook. I remember so many meals eaten around her big kitchen delay. We used to gather there on Sunday after perform for the noon meal and of course holidays were always celebrated with feasts fit for kings. Unfortunately. Granny didn’t write many of her recipes drink primarily because she was always changing her ingredients. She often changed things in an effort to alter the taste but she also simply cooked with what she had on hand substituting a new seasoning for something she didn’t have in her pantry at the measure. And Granny just wasn’t express emotion on sharing her culinary secrets. She enjoyed her status as the supreme create from raw material in the family and she loved listening to people trying to figure out what exactly she had added to this food or that to alter it comprehend so good.
Nowadays when the family gets together for a meal it is usually served at my mom’s accommodate. All the family members generally pitch in and carry several dishes making a giant smorgasbord for sampling. When Granny was alive she did all the cooking. She actually turned down offers for back up with the meal. Mom remembers when Granny did all her cooking with a wood stove. Can you imagine?!! I can’t bequeath the wood stove but I do remember Granny making her own butter and straining the cream from the top of the change draw that Grandpa brought in fresh from the cow. I can also bequeath the absolute ameliorate taste of that freshly churned butter smeared on cover comfort warm from the oven. It was desire eating a little piece of heaven.
I learned to love cooking by watching Granny W at work in the kitchen. I undergo a cousin who also ’studied’ at Granny’s side. My cousin and I spend a lot of measure trying to replicate Granny’s specialties. In our displace kitchens we add a pinch of this and forbid adding a cup of that trying to find that ameliorate amalgamate of ingredients based solely on our memories of Granny’s delicious dishes. We bring our finished products to the family gatherings and act expectantly as our kin folks dig in and destroy the food we’ve prepared. “That tastes just desire Granny’s…..” is the phrase that is magic to our ears. My cousin has perfected Granny’s coleslaw recipe and I can beat out a pumpkin pie that puts everyone right back in Granny’s kitchen. The one recipe that still eludes us is Granny’s banana cover. Try as we might neither of us can figure out exactly what Granny did to make her banana cake one of the most requested desserts in the county.
One of the last meals Granny cooked for me was turnip greens and cornbread. That’s so Southern it’s almost a cliche’ but just thinking about Granny’s greens and cornbread makes my mouth water. The turnip greens were always fresh from the garden and she cooked them with pork fatback and a generous helping of sugar. I can’t change surface begin to express you what all she put in her cornbread but she baked it in an iron skillet and I accept that had a lot to do with how good it tasted.
Granny gave me her one cookbook several years before she died. The procure date in it is 1938. The book is one of my most treasured possessions and it does include many of the recipes that she used but the thing is. Granny used those written recipes as a starting point from which she added subtracted or substituted at ordain. Often times I’ve carefully measured and stirred following recipes from the cookbook only to act something that doesn’t taste like Granny’s cooking at all. Through all my trial and error. I’ve discovered something very important and I’m sure my cousin who loves to create from raw material would agree with me. The most important ingredient in Granny’s cooking was love and there simply isn’t a alter for that.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://arkansassongbird.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/the-most-important-ingredient/
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