Five foods that made me who I am.

I’m still stuck on the potato log.

Meaning, since confessing to you about my lust and love for the said potato log, yesterday afternoon, I’ve not been able to think about anything else except food.

And so, at the risk of offending some of you, I feel I’ve no choice to move myself past this obsessive food-thinking other than to write about it. So, I’m going to spend the next few moments with you, making one confession after another about a few dishes, recipes, snacks, and various other, sundry foods that I not only grew up with, but that, I feel, have defined who I am, today, in large part.

I hope you like me by the time I’m done.

I know some of my culinary cred is going to be challenged, disputed, if not taken away from me completely. Because, Lord knows, I have a very distinctive palate. (Maybe, you’ll all take pity on me and send me recipes for the foods you think I should be eating, instead).

Either way, I think it’ll be worth it, talking about this.

Now, I can’t remember what her name is, but I do recall a random TV show on the Food Network that I was watching, oh this has been months back, in which this philosopher (a food philosopher, mind you; I know of only one other in the country, and that is my good friend Dr. Glenn Kuehn) made this profound statement, “Our history, [the only one that matters], is right there on our plate.”

It is to that sentiment that I, then, share with you, a little of the History that’s found its way onto My Plate, over the years. I’ll try not to bore you, and I think the only way to not bore you is to limit my plate to a regular-size, Noritake informal dinner plate: it should only hold five items, and no item should touch the edge.

(Note: This list is not vegetarian).

Let’s get started, shall we?

1. The Banana Sandwich. Contrary to the legendary gullet-stylings of Mississippi’s own Elvis Presley, we did not, in my family, follow suit with his particular banana sandwich design. Instead, we would often take two slices of white bread, usually Sunbeam, and slather it with mayonnaise. To this, we sliced a fresh banana, added cheese, and smooshed the whole thing together. I would, on average, eat five or more of these a week, all through grade school and beyond. U.L. started this internecine tradition, and with the exception of the kind of cheese, the glorious tastiness of this family snack has stayed relatively unchanged between his house and Nana’s. Sure, sure, you are probably already cringing, and that’s fine. I might, too, had it not started so early in my life. Every time I make a banana sandwich to this day, I can’t help but think about being a little kid, sitting by U.L. on the kitchen counter, oozing mayonnaise onto my knuckles, looking out the picture window at all the birds and the “idiot-fools, drag racing down the road. I’ve a mind to go call the sheriff, right this second […]” It’s more than a sandwich, you see; it’s the threat of a highway patrol encounter. Those were the days…
2. Biscuit Pudding. What, you say? I thought you hated pudding, Kris. And I still do, but this isn’t really a pudding. It’s a family secret recipe. My first exposure to the kitchen came, literally, at the heels of my great grandmother, Tigi. Her real name was Tiny Gertha. That was her real name and she lived up to it, all four feet, eight inches of her. She was born in the latter 1890s. And to this day, I love the idea that I am living in the 21^st century, but knew someone born in the 19^th century. It lends credibility to my old soul. She never used the first measuring cup, blender, food processor, or microwave. Everything she measured, she did so by using her hand or finger: to the first knuckle, a teaspoon. To the second knuckle, a tablespoon. She cooked by use of dashes, pinches, smidges, bits, and the evergreen rule of “Well, what’s it smell like?” A favorite dessert of hers, having grown up in the gumbo mud of the Delta, was biscuit pudding. The trick was to use stale biscuits. She’d line her trusty iron skillet with the crusty, tough buttered bottoms of the days-old biscuits, pour over that her own sugar cream syrup with the juice of whatever fruit might be around (usually apple or, pear, or if without fruit, Blackburn molasses), crumble the biscuit tops into the mixture, and bake it, like everything else: “on hot and until it smelled right.”
3. Nana’s meatloaf. I’m not sure what magic she uses when she makes this but I do know the process calls for it. That, and a good full morning of uninterrupted focus on her very specific mise en place. There was nothing easy about this meatloaf, but every inch of it was pure mouth ecstacy. In some order, the following went into the loaf: meat (beef and deer, sometimes turkey), green peppers, onions (sweet only, Vidalia above all else), red peppers, Worcestershire, eggs, day-old bread crumbs (homemade, soaked in butter), milk, and some other things. She’ll tell what the ingredients are, she says, but I know for a fact that she leaves a few choice ones out. Still, I have made this replica of hers a thousand times (before The Change, a.k.a. vegetarianism) and it’s never worked. Hers would melt into itself, and in the cooking process, some juicy, meaty pieces would slide off and into the corner, collecting what, even to this day, I can only describe as a liquid Shangri-la. I miss this dish more than anything else, and harbor about a quarter cup of jealousy when she serves it on Sundays.
4. Black-eyed peas and mayonnaise. Here it is again, that absolute necessity of the southern kitchen: mayonnaise. I mean, what’s better? Nothing. Mayonnaise covers all the bases whether it’s in a dip or flying solo. I realize, looking back, that I had (have) perhaps an unnatural kinship with this vinegar and egg by-product, but say what you will…it got me to eat my peas.  I don’t know if it’s the creamy romance that results from the mixing of the earthy pea flavor and the tang of the mayonnaise, or if it just grossed my sisters out, but it stuck. Many is the night that I was found, sneaking into the kitchen, uncapping the Tupperware bowl of peas and glopping a tablespoonful of mayonnaise on top of the gelatinous mass of legumes. I was afraid of the stove for many years, so until the microwave arrived, I generally ate this snack cold. Thank god for Kenmore.
5. U.L.’s Tuna Salad. Only U.L. could take something as easy-to-make as tuna salad and turn it into an art installation. U.L., the youngest child of Tigi, took after his mother in many ways. Despite being the baby, and thus the farthest from her culturally, he let nothing stand in his way of becoming as creatively frugal as she was. Granted, he’s allowed a can opener, a microwave, and a Quik-Chop in the house, he still uses only one large mixing bowl, and a knife that came over on the Mayflower. I can’t argue with him, though when a) the bowl and knife have withstood the test of time, coming from an era when things were made well and with genuine craftsmanship, and b) the tuna salad is so deliciously made with love it knocks out the fish smell. This is not your mama’s tuna salad; it’s my uncle’s, and that means, it ain’t fast food: boiled eggs; an onion; pimentos or Ro-Tel; a handful (i.e., cupful) of homegrown, homemade sweet pickles that, I should add, live in a butter churn kilned by my great-grandfather and hasn’t seen the sun since 1944; and a mayonnaise-based cream sauce that includes the juice from the tuna, a little paprika, a little lemon-pepper, vinegar…salt, and pepper. The last two, he says, you add just for taste, but if you do that, I’ll tell him.

Now, go have a great day.

Related Posts:

• Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.
• Gary makes me hungry.
• After that, I ate my chocolate cobbler in silence.
• Nothing but the blood: Tigi
• Because that’s what beards are meant for: hiding fat.

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