My Mother's House by Robin Odach (read more books .txt) 📕

My Mother’s Kitchen

In the middle of the 20th century, my mother’s kitchen smelled like cinnamon, cloves, baking bread and pickling spices. Sometimes we’d come tumbling off the school bus to find a cookie sheet of puffy, sticky cinnamon rolls waiting for us. They dripped with brown sugar, buttery-rich syrup and pecans. They had a lot of calories, but the chores of rural life allowed us a calorie-free lifestyle. There was always a food preservation project in the making: pickles being crocked, applesauce and apple butter bubbling away on the stove, tomatoes stewing and leftover soup being processed in jars for later use.


My Mother’s Garden

We were a family of heirloom gardeners. Seeds from special tomatoes and cucumbers were dried, wrapped and labeled for use in the coming year. These family plants, passed down through the generations, were well adapted to the environment and naturally disease resistant. The tomatoes weren’t the perfectly round, hardy varieties we see in the stores today, but misshapen, fragile and sweeter than anything you could ever buy. The garden was an area of activity from mid-May to late October. Herbs like basil, thyme, fennel, sage and rosemary were gathered up before the frost and dried for hardy soups in winter.


My Mother’s Harvest

My mother knew where all the best berries and nuts could be found. On Saturdays we turned into a family of hunters and gatherers. We carried baskets and paper bags to hold the blueberries, raspberries and wild strawberries we found. Everything had a season in those days, and no one had to look at a calendar to know when it was time to harvest. Hickory nuts, black walnuts and filberts were strewn across the attic to dry. By Christmas season they would be ready to be cracked and shelled to use in the baked goods everyone enjoyed and eagerly awaited.

Publication Date: 08-18-2010

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