As I have previously written, my mother was an excellent and relatively creative cook for the 1950s. Even the best of cooks can experience a failure or serve a meal that is subpar. One memorable meal and a menu offering (that occurred with some frequency) fall into the realm of my mother's failures.
The White Thanksgiving
One Thanksgiving during my teen years, mother decided not to serve the usual gargantuan holiday feast and instead go "traditional." Mom's upbringing was heavily biased to old New England menus. Married to my Italian-American father she learned to cook a repertoire of food that pleased his palate. Mother always loved traditional New England specialties. For example, we enjoyed Finnan Haddie -- lightly smoked haddock cooked with milk and potatoes and onion. It would appear on cold winter mornings. Finnan Haddie was cooked overnight in a device that I now recognize as a 1950s slow cooker. It was a warm, delicious treat. I digress.
The Thanksgiving that mother went traditional/off the rails the menu included: turkey, mashed potatoes (no sweet potatoes graced the table), creamed pearl onions (not a favorite of mine or anyone but mother), and lovely white parsnips. There is something notable about this menu -- it was all white, even the turkey. The ritual cranberry sauce looked like an unsettling red gash on the plate. What was my mother thinking when she put this menu together? I will never know. I was not the only one struck by the stark whiteness of the meal. My siblings took it to the next level. My brother began singing: "I'm dreaming of a white Thanksgiving with every bite." This was not appreciated by my mother. My father thought it was hilarious -- I'm not sure he wasn't smarting from the absence of the usual pasta course. I do know that in the run up to every Thanksgiving after the White Thanksgiving various members of the family would check in, sing/hum a brief verse of "I'm Dreaming . . . " and offer colorful menu options. This was when I learned that food not only had to taste good, but it also has to look appetizing.
About "Good Earth"
"Good Earth" was my mother's name for a concoction that does not deserve a name. It was usually served as lunch, often on Saturdays. It was leftovers at their worst. We did not regularly have a large quantity of leftovers. Seldom was there enough from one meal to make adequate servings for everyone for another meal. I learned about leftovers after I married my husband, an only child. His mother never didn't have some portion of almost every meal leftovers from a previous meal. In his home this were not a function of cooking too much, but rather there were too few diners. We never had too few diners. Even so, nothing was ever wasted. Every dab of leftover food was put away in the back fridge.
Our house was a big old late Victorian beauty. It had a good sized kitchen with a butlers pantry and another storage pantry with a large built-in refrigerator -- the back fridge. This fridge was original equipment, so old that it had wooden insulation on the doors, like a vintage icebox. The refrigeration unit was on top and looked like a hassock fan. The fridge was cavernous. It regularly held whole watermelons, the cheese fossils and lots of large bulky foods -- pans of lasagna etc. It was also where the leftovers were stored and whatever was the Sunday/holiday roast was simply entombed in its roasting pan in the back fridge waiting to be called forth to make the dreaded "Good Earth." There was also a front fridge in the kitchen prep area that held food that would be used immediately -- eggs, milk, fresh vegetable, fresh meat.
As a kid, I knew "Good Earth" was in the works when mother would get out the food grinder, a hand operated contraption, and clamp it on the counter's edge. She would summon us to bring forth all of the leftovers from the back refrigerator. All of the remnants of meals past were fair play. Whatever meat was extracted from the carcass that had been in the back fridge and all the other leftovers were passed through the food grinder. This was then mixed with an egg to bind it -- similar to how a meatloaf is made, but this was no delicious meatloaf. The result of mother's efforts were put in a baking dish, often topped with homemade breadcrumbs and baked. The result was usually awful. The color was suspect. It never looked the same twice, since there was never a predictable quantity of leftovers. It never tasted like anything but leftovers at their worst. We grimly ate our portions of "Good Earth." As I have stated previously, mother wasted no food and brooked no complaints about her cooking. I made a fatal mistake of grousing about breakfast, and I will cover the results of that mistake at another time. Today, I do not make anything that even vaguely resembles 'Good Earth." I shudder at the memory.
Comments