When I was a child, one of the worst offenses I, or my siblings could commit, was wasting food. I didn’t see what the big deal was, at the time. Why should I have to eat something that I had had enough of, or didn’t want in the first place? I was always being reminded that there were children in other countries who didn’t have enough food to eat. I was convinced that the television networks were in cahoots with my parents. I’d be shuffling green peas around on my plate, strategically spreading them out so it would appear that there were far less than there really were on my plate. Just as I seemed to be making some headway in making my plate look semi empty, a commercial would come on, showing impoverished children with distended bellies and emaciated frames.
This was all my parents needed to corroborate their stories of world hunger. They always seemed to be able to pin point a country where hunger was prevalent. Since they knew so much about this problem, I wondered why they didn’t just send the peas and other loathsome foods I so dreaded, directly to these kids. Naturally, I pondered this to myself. Something told me they wouldn’t appreciate my diplomatic solution.
My parents grew up in the rural south and both came from rather large families. Survival was on their minds at all times. They lived in agricultural communities and were intimately acquainted with making every meal stretch to feed the many mouths in their households. This was something that I knew of in theory, but hadn’t experienced in practice. I didn’t quite grasp the importance of the lesson I was learning, even as I plotted to clear my plate through osmosis. Waste not, want not. Thankfully, not every lesson was as painful as the consumption of peas. Being my mother’s right hand in the kitchen had its benefits.
On a regular basis, I watched my mother the alchemist, turn leftovers into shiny new aromatic works of art. Stale bread was whipped into stuffing or bread pudding. Overly ripe bananas were reincarnated as banana bread. Sunday’s roasted chicken would experience rebirth as chicken salad by mid-week. She was never at a loss for recreating a meal, and making you feel like you’d never had it before. What was old could be made new again by her nimble fingers.
Between watching my mother and experimenting on my own, I learned the invaluable science of food alchemy. Every ingredient in your kitchen has multiple uses. If I have citrus fruit on hand, I’ll zest it before eating or juicing it. I love making my own bread crumbs, simply because I can. If I find myself with an excess of bread, I’m always sure to make a batch. Around the holidays, I’ll buy a loaf of white bread specifically for making seasoned bread crumbs or stuffing cubes and croutons. Of course, all these things are readily available in the market, but there is something more intimate about my cooking when I do these things myself. My mother was thinking of nothing more than making sure we were well fed, but she taught me that you could communicate with food. All of the tedious tasks that can be eliminated with store bought items become meaningful when you know that people you care about will be eating something you prepared from your heart.
Sometimes I’ll cook with my mother. I can see her watching me. She’ll ask why I’m making extra work for myself. No point in telling her that she drummed this neurosis into my very young and pliant mind, singlehandedly. She will disagree; it’s what she does. I smile, because I know better. Learning how to make a meal from bare essentials is a source of pride for me. It’s a survival skill. I didn’t grow up in the same times or conditions as my mother, but she’s passed along her instincts to me. I am a girly girl, with modern day conveniences. I have an excessive love of shoes and all accessories, but I know that if I chip a nail or find my cupboard nearly bare, I won’t starve.
I am my mother’s child.
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