Another Piece of Memoir
Mar. 19th, 2011 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlightSo, it only took me about two and a half hours to write this :). I did it during Ever After. It's a companion piece to Mortality in a memoir I've had on my heart to write for sometime now. And it's beginning to flow quite nicely.
Fudge and Gravy:
Fudge and Gravy:
I think it must be some kind of rite of passage in my mother’s family, but if you have to know something about my family, it’s that there are certain things you must learn how to make: fudge and breakfast. Fudge is something that we have had in our family for heaven knows how long (I certainly don’t) and we make it a lot. It’s one of the things that if we ever get together as a big family unit, fudge is one of the things we make. You don’t really learn to make it until you’re older, because it’s really a two person job, and if you stir the fudge, you need really good arm muscles, because when you stir together the butter and the sugar, and the chocolate and marshmallow fluff the fudge batter gets thick and rich and really hard to stir into a great consistency. All the women crowd around, either talking, or helping pour ingredients in the pot, or taking turns stirring, because really, it could be quite tiring stirring the fudge.
Sometimes, the stirring was the most important thing, because that was what made the consistency of the fudge and eventually would help it set up. You couldn’t stir too slowly, because you were boiling together butter, and sugar and evaporated milk (not condensed or sweetened, just evaporated, you had to make sure to get that right, otherwise the fudge would be too sweet and then fudge just taste wrong when it’s too sweet). You would have to mix it all together, until it just looking kind of like fat, and then you would turn the stove and make the fat boil until it became quite less like fat, and more like cream. And when it boiled for about five minutes, you would stir in semi-sweet chocolate and then marshmallow fluff (and I forgot, you have to take it off of the fire, before you start mixing in the chocolate and the fluff, otherwise it will burn).
And when the mix was just creamy enough, you would pour it into a cake pan, nine inches by thirteen, all greased, lightly, with Crisco, or you could parchment paper in if you didn’t want all the grease, but that can always make it taste better. Then, it had set a little, or hardened up for those of you that don’t speak cook book, but only a little, because you would have to put foil or plastic wrap over it so that it would not become too hard.
And then, because all of the women would stand in the kitchen cooking, while the men were somewhere else, we would all get the first slices because we would call them in, and this is quite possibly why we all have just large hips, because we would just stand there eating fudge after we had stirred it all together. And someone would always ask, “Why are there nuts in this fudge? You never put nuts in fudge!” Or, inevitable, “Why are there no nuts in the fudge? You always put nits in fudge!”
I must sound like a cook book, but I just think about how warm it gets when we start baking. And it’s never just the fudge. There is always something else. Cookies, usually, we make cookies in spades. I was always commissioned to make chocolate chip, my sister, Alizza, always made no-bakes. Peanut butter cookies always got made somewhere in the mix. Once, we made peanut butter cookies, and fudge that did not quite set up, in my aunt’s kitchen in the winter (it was winter, because we surprised her for Christmas and we put the fudge outside to help it set). And my cousin’s girlfriend, Krystal, and who is now my cousin as well, spread the gooey fudge all over the peanut butter cookie, and it was so delicious that we all had to try it.
Sometimes we made brownies, and maybe a cake, but cakes were usually reserved for birthdays, not when we were all baking together. But mostly it was cookies; we made many, many cookies, and dozens. Usually they would be half gone by the time the night was over with (and of course after we called the boys in).
I sound like a cook book, probably, and somewhere out there, I’m making someone hungry. Well, if you weren’t hungry, you were going to be, because we made all kind of food. Goulash, I remember my aunt made when we were staying one summer at her house.
I had never had goulash before, and it was a kind of dry goulash with plenty of hamburger meat and plenty tomatoes and peas and corn. And it was really good, even though I remember I didn’t like cut corn then, but I liked the goulash, better than the watered down version we got in Germany many years later. And we had it for dinner, because Daniel forgot to eat lunch and he was usually such a picky eater but he ate an entire bowl of it, though it was full of things he didn’t normally like. And, oh gosh, we would grill, and make chicken fried steak and there were always mashed potatoes. I don’t know what it was about mashed potatoes, but we made a lot of them. And they were filled with sour cream and butter and cheese, and you could gain weight simply by looking at those mashed potatoes
For holidays, we would make butter ball turkey with all of the trimmings and gravy made from gizzards, and you think it would be disgusting boiling organs to make a dressing to put on potatoes and turkey and anything else you could think of. I remember eating a lot of green beans as a child, and a whole lot of spinach. I loved spinach when I was younger and still love it today. There was just so much…so much. I think about it and realize just how much food we had to eat, how blessed we all truly were to have all of that good food.
The second thing you need to know about that we made was breakfast.
Breakfast was never not an option, especially when we were with family. When we were in Oklahoma and Kansas with family, there was always plenty of breakfast to be made and had by everyone, because there were always at least ten people in the house when we got together, maybe more. And as soon as you could reach the stove and learn to stir, you were not forced to make breakfast, but you wanted to learn, because it was just something all of us did when we got together.
When we were together as family, there were usually only the women in the kitchen, especially for breakfast.
First, always first, the biscuits had to go in the oven. Whether we made them from scratch, or sometimes, we would get the biscuits you could keep the biscuits in the freezer, and just put them in the oven, but they had to go in first, because they usually had to bake for twenty minutes or a little less, but we could usually make almost everything in the time.
There would be a frying pan, and when you had just put it on the oven, you would have to put in the bacon. My aunt would simply throw it all in, but Dad always taught us to line it up so we could watch every piece fry and nothing could burn or be undercooked, but it was still all bacon and it when it was fried up and good and greasy and absolutely delicious.
In addition to the biscuits and the gravy, there would also be sausages sometimes, and sometimes we would mix it up with flour and water and milk and make that into gravy to go with the biscuits when they came out of the oven. And sometimes that could be a little salty or a little floury or a little too watery, but mostly it would just be good.
And then there were the eggs.
There were too many people usually to make eggs the way everybody liked, so we would usually make scrambled eggs for everyone. It would usually take something like fifteen or twenty eggs and the biggest bowl to scramble them in and then the biggest frying pan any of us owned to cook everything up.
I remember being taught how to cook the eggs.
You would have to take a fork or a whisk to the eggs, and maybe add a little milk into to make them fluffier, and when you had beat them around enough until they went from a yolk and a white to a whole yellow mixture. You know when it’s good and ready to fry, when it’s all yellow, and there are bubbles on top, and that’s how I was taught to know how to put them in the pan, but there was more to it than that.
You had to grease the pan, not usually with grease, but with butter (why is it that country, Mid-Western cooking involves so much butter? Was that the only thing we had to flavor things with back in the day, when we started cooking things in this region?) Or perhaps a spray sometimes, but it was better with butter. And then, when you could put your hand above the metal of the pan, and feel that it was a little hot, that was when you poured the eggs in. And you would have to wait before you started pushing them around to get a scrambled sort of effect that made the eggs fluffy and nice.
But not even the eggs were the most important part of breakfast, not when you’re in Oklahoma. Oh, no, there was a much more important piece. It’s called chocolate gravy.
Usually white gravy was never enough, and of course when I tell people about it, I always get the stares and questions of, “You put chocolate in gravy?” or something to that affect. But it wasn’t that. It was sugar, flour, coco powder and milk all mixed together and boiled to perfection. Not enough to burn, but enough to thicken it to put over the biscuits, and the eggs and the bacon and everything really. We put it over everything like some people use syrup.
That was another thing you had to stir carefully. Because if you stirred too slowly, the gravy would burn, and be too thick, but if you stirred to quickly, the gravy wouldn’t thicken hardly at all and would spill everywhere, even places you didn’t want it to. And like the fudge, it would give off steam, that, if you did not position yourself correctly could give you some wicked burns.
Often Aunt Cissie or Mom would be nearby in both situations, asking if I needed them to take over for me. When I first learned how to make gravy and fudge, I eventually consented and let them finish stirring it up for me, before we would let either of them set. But after a while I could do it myself, and I learned my own way of doing things. Stir in a spiral one way toward the center of the pot, and then spiral out in the other. And you could always feel both thickening beneath the spoon, growing smooth and creamy. Delicious.
I think stirring has taught me patients, because sometimes standing a the stove too long, my feet would hurt and I’d want to sit, or I would find half way through a batch of gravy or fudge, that I had to go to the bathroom. Or maybe the steam was burning my arms and I couldn’t quite get away from it. It was always something, and I could never quite get away from that. But then I could grow calm and think about the stirring. Stir, stir and stir again. Life is thickening beneath my spoon, and become good and creamy. And then, it’s done, ready to set, and then to each, with biscuits and peanut butter cookies. And maybe with a little more fat around my hips, and just maybe, with a little bit of peace.
Piece Count: 2042
3/19/11 Count: Same
Project Count: 43182
Now Reading: Girl Power collected by Hillary Carlip
Sometimes, the stirring was the most important thing, because that was what made the consistency of the fudge and eventually would help it set up. You couldn’t stir too slowly, because you were boiling together butter, and sugar and evaporated milk (not condensed or sweetened, just evaporated, you had to make sure to get that right, otherwise the fudge would be too sweet and then fudge just taste wrong when it’s too sweet). You would have to mix it all together, until it just looking kind of like fat, and then you would turn the stove and make the fat boil until it became quite less like fat, and more like cream. And when it boiled for about five minutes, you would stir in semi-sweet chocolate and then marshmallow fluff (and I forgot, you have to take it off of the fire, before you start mixing in the chocolate and the fluff, otherwise it will burn).
And when the mix was just creamy enough, you would pour it into a cake pan, nine inches by thirteen, all greased, lightly, with Crisco, or you could parchment paper in if you didn’t want all the grease, but that can always make it taste better. Then, it had set a little, or hardened up for those of you that don’t speak cook book, but only a little, because you would have to put foil or plastic wrap over it so that it would not become too hard.
And then, because all of the women would stand in the kitchen cooking, while the men were somewhere else, we would all get the first slices because we would call them in, and this is quite possibly why we all have just large hips, because we would just stand there eating fudge after we had stirred it all together. And someone would always ask, “Why are there nuts in this fudge? You never put nuts in fudge!” Or, inevitable, “Why are there no nuts in the fudge? You always put nits in fudge!”
I must sound like a cook book, but I just think about how warm it gets when we start baking. And it’s never just the fudge. There is always something else. Cookies, usually, we make cookies in spades. I was always commissioned to make chocolate chip, my sister, Alizza, always made no-bakes. Peanut butter cookies always got made somewhere in the mix. Once, we made peanut butter cookies, and fudge that did not quite set up, in my aunt’s kitchen in the winter (it was winter, because we surprised her for Christmas and we put the fudge outside to help it set). And my cousin’s girlfriend, Krystal, and who is now my cousin as well, spread the gooey fudge all over the peanut butter cookie, and it was so delicious that we all had to try it.
Sometimes we made brownies, and maybe a cake, but cakes were usually reserved for birthdays, not when we were all baking together. But mostly it was cookies; we made many, many cookies, and dozens. Usually they would be half gone by the time the night was over with (and of course after we called the boys in).
I sound like a cook book, probably, and somewhere out there, I’m making someone hungry. Well, if you weren’t hungry, you were going to be, because we made all kind of food. Goulash, I remember my aunt made when we were staying one summer at her house.
I had never had goulash before, and it was a kind of dry goulash with plenty of hamburger meat and plenty tomatoes and peas and corn. And it was really good, even though I remember I didn’t like cut corn then, but I liked the goulash, better than the watered down version we got in Germany many years later. And we had it for dinner, because Daniel forgot to eat lunch and he was usually such a picky eater but he ate an entire bowl of it, though it was full of things he didn’t normally like. And, oh gosh, we would grill, and make chicken fried steak and there were always mashed potatoes. I don’t know what it was about mashed potatoes, but we made a lot of them. And they were filled with sour cream and butter and cheese, and you could gain weight simply by looking at those mashed potatoes
For holidays, we would make butter ball turkey with all of the trimmings and gravy made from gizzards, and you think it would be disgusting boiling organs to make a dressing to put on potatoes and turkey and anything else you could think of. I remember eating a lot of green beans as a child, and a whole lot of spinach. I loved spinach when I was younger and still love it today. There was just so much…so much. I think about it and realize just how much food we had to eat, how blessed we all truly were to have all of that good food.
The second thing you need to know about that we made was breakfast.
Breakfast was never not an option, especially when we were with family. When we were in Oklahoma and Kansas with family, there was always plenty of breakfast to be made and had by everyone, because there were always at least ten people in the house when we got together, maybe more. And as soon as you could reach the stove and learn to stir, you were not forced to make breakfast, but you wanted to learn, because it was just something all of us did when we got together.
When we were together as family, there were usually only the women in the kitchen, especially for breakfast.
First, always first, the biscuits had to go in the oven. Whether we made them from scratch, or sometimes, we would get the biscuits you could keep the biscuits in the freezer, and just put them in the oven, but they had to go in first, because they usually had to bake for twenty minutes or a little less, but we could usually make almost everything in the time.
There would be a frying pan, and when you had just put it on the oven, you would have to put in the bacon. My aunt would simply throw it all in, but Dad always taught us to line it up so we could watch every piece fry and nothing could burn or be undercooked, but it was still all bacon and it when it was fried up and good and greasy and absolutely delicious.
In addition to the biscuits and the gravy, there would also be sausages sometimes, and sometimes we would mix it up with flour and water and milk and make that into gravy to go with the biscuits when they came out of the oven. And sometimes that could be a little salty or a little floury or a little too watery, but mostly it would just be good.
And then there were the eggs.
There were too many people usually to make eggs the way everybody liked, so we would usually make scrambled eggs for everyone. It would usually take something like fifteen or twenty eggs and the biggest bowl to scramble them in and then the biggest frying pan any of us owned to cook everything up.
I remember being taught how to cook the eggs.
You would have to take a fork or a whisk to the eggs, and maybe add a little milk into to make them fluffier, and when you had beat them around enough until they went from a yolk and a white to a whole yellow mixture. You know when it’s good and ready to fry, when it’s all yellow, and there are bubbles on top, and that’s how I was taught to know how to put them in the pan, but there was more to it than that.
You had to grease the pan, not usually with grease, but with butter (why is it that country, Mid-Western cooking involves so much butter? Was that the only thing we had to flavor things with back in the day, when we started cooking things in this region?) Or perhaps a spray sometimes, but it was better with butter. And then, when you could put your hand above the metal of the pan, and feel that it was a little hot, that was when you poured the eggs in. And you would have to wait before you started pushing them around to get a scrambled sort of effect that made the eggs fluffy and nice.
But not even the eggs were the most important part of breakfast, not when you’re in Oklahoma. Oh, no, there was a much more important piece. It’s called chocolate gravy.
Usually white gravy was never enough, and of course when I tell people about it, I always get the stares and questions of, “You put chocolate in gravy?” or something to that affect. But it wasn’t that. It was sugar, flour, coco powder and milk all mixed together and boiled to perfection. Not enough to burn, but enough to thicken it to put over the biscuits, and the eggs and the bacon and everything really. We put it over everything like some people use syrup.
That was another thing you had to stir carefully. Because if you stirred too slowly, the gravy would burn, and be too thick, but if you stirred to quickly, the gravy wouldn’t thicken hardly at all and would spill everywhere, even places you didn’t want it to. And like the fudge, it would give off steam, that, if you did not position yourself correctly could give you some wicked burns.
Often Aunt Cissie or Mom would be nearby in both situations, asking if I needed them to take over for me. When I first learned how to make gravy and fudge, I eventually consented and let them finish stirring it up for me, before we would let either of them set. But after a while I could do it myself, and I learned my own way of doing things. Stir in a spiral one way toward the center of the pot, and then spiral out in the other. And you could always feel both thickening beneath the spoon, growing smooth and creamy. Delicious.
I think stirring has taught me patients, because sometimes standing a the stove too long, my feet would hurt and I’d want to sit, or I would find half way through a batch of gravy or fudge, that I had to go to the bathroom. Or maybe the steam was burning my arms and I couldn’t quite get away from it. It was always something, and I could never quite get away from that. But then I could grow calm and think about the stirring. Stir, stir and stir again. Life is thickening beneath my spoon, and become good and creamy. And then, it’s done, ready to set, and then to each, with biscuits and peanut butter cookies. And maybe with a little more fat around my hips, and just maybe, with a little bit of peace.
Piece Count: 2042
3/19/11 Count: Same
Project Count: 43182
Now Reading: Girl Power collected by Hillary Carlip
