Comfort Food Stories

We all have memories of a very special dish that we ate
when we were kids.
Every time we eat it we feel safe and warm.
We are back home. 
Actually, we don't even have to eat it -
just smelling it triggers happy feelings.

If you have a memory and I recipe you would like to share, email me susan@heritagecookbook.com and I will post it here for all of us.

SO HERE GOES - the first stories....

My favorite meal is meatloaf because whenever my mother made meatloaf my father would pull out of a drawer a cardboard cut out of a duck's head and a pair of wings. To the delight of the hungry children - we were 4 - he would announce, "Children, your mother has made us mock duck. A duck dinner has come to us" and then he would grin at our mother. "We laughed because "a duck dinner has come to us" was a quote from the children's story Ping which he used to read to us.
I thought that mock duck was a special type of duck that only my family knew about and that maybe, just maybe, my mother caught it in the ravine behind the house.

It was sort of like Santa Claus, you just wanted to believe.
PS: I never actually had real duck until I grew up and I'm not sure that the recipe below isn't better.

Mock Duck Has Come to Us

1 lb lean ground beef
½ lb ground pork sausage
½ lb mild ground chirozo sausage
2 eggs
½ clove of pressed garlic
1 small minced onion
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt or to taste
1 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp Worchestershire Sauce
1 cup of rolled oats, shredded medium fine in the food processor
¼ cup coarsely ground hazel nuts or pecans
1 cup of milk or enough to hold the mixture together
4 strips of bacon (optional)

Mix everything together and form two loaves.
Lay the strips of bacon on the loaves length ways.
Bake at 350 for an hour and 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and serve one loaf hot (don't forget the pretend head and wings made of cardboard).
Save the other loaf for wonderful sandwiches.
Each loaf serves 4-6.

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#2 Mom's Cookies, Ready-to-Eat

How Five Sisters Bake and Ship Care Packages

By Candy Sagon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 9, 2005

When Reeah Parker's son joined the Marines in 2004 -- meaning he'd eventually be sent to Iraq -- she turned to her sister and asked,
"How will I survive this?"
"You'll bake your way through it," Claire Goebeler of Bowie told her.
It's a piece of advice many families with relatives in the military follow, especially now as the holidays approach. As Parker puts it,
"It's not just cookies you're sending -- it's the taste, the smells, the memories of home."

For most troops stationed abroad, a care package takes two to three weeks to arrive -- which means it's time to get serious about baking, packing and sending. At the Parker household in Germantown, it's called Cookie Day, and on a recent Saturday, Parker and her four sisters divvied up the work with military-like precision. Someone kept the coffeepot going. There was food to nibble on.

Ebby, the black cat, wove in and out between everyone's legs. And every 10 minutes or so, the oven door opened and another sheet of cookies was taken out and a fresh one put in. The sisters' to-do list was long: soft molasses spice cookies, the ever-popular chocolate chip, tangy coconut-lime cutouts, peanut butter-fudge sandwich cookies, sturdy almond sables, and oatmeal-Rice Krispie cookies.

One sister, Kathryn Newman of Laurel, and her 12-year-old daughter Annie rolled balls of molasses spice dough in sugar. Another sister, Jeanne Parker of Urbana, carefully portioned out chocolate chip cookie dough. Goebeler kept an eye on the almond sables baking on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Meanwhile, Marie Sherrett of Upper Marlboro packed up the peanut butter sandwich cookies. "Chocolate isn't good for sending when it's hot, but now that it's winter, it's okay," she said.

The sisters made dozens of cookies for Parker's only child, Lance Cpl. Sebastian Parker-Vaughan, 22, who was visiting from Camp Lejeune, N.C., and is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in July. Until recently, cookies were also sent to Sherrett's son, Daniel, who last month completed his four-year tour with the Navy.

Watching his aunts and mother as they baked, Sherrett, 22, said getting homemade cookies was a huge treat.

"Guys would get a box from Amazon, and it's like no big deal.
But people really start swarming around you when they see a box with a handwritten label and it's obviously food from home."

Sherrett, who worked as a cook aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, said the ship provided chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies to the troops.

"But they were from a mix. Homemade is so much better," he said. Parker agrees. She and her sisters make all the cookies from scratch from both old and new recipes. The molasses cookies, for example, come from a recipe Goebeler remembers their mother baking when the five sisters were children. The coconut-lime cutouts are something new Parker tried this summer. Newman likes the traditional oatmeal cookie recipe on the Quaker Oats box, "except we substitute Rice Krispies for the raisins because we don't like raisins."

Baking for sons in the military is a family tradition. Parker remembers her mother baking for her brother when he served in Vietnam.
"She used popcorn to fill the box, but we use bubble wrap," she said. Parker and her sisters have learned how to ensure that their care packages arrive intact.

"Early on, Marie sent Daniel a box of cookies, and by the time it arrived, there was nothing but crumbs," Parker said.

"There's such great anticipation when they see a box from home, and you hate to disappoint them. We learned how to pack [the cookies] so even if the box gets crunched, the cookies are protected."

The secret, she said, is to use plastic containers to hold the cookies snugly. The sisters have used so many 64-ounce Glad containers, Marie Sherrett said, that the manufacturer sent them discount coupons. Wax paper is put between each layer of cookies, "and only one kind of cookie per container so the flavors don't mix," Parker advised.

The plastic containers are then placed in a sturdy cardboard box filled with bubble wrap.
"The boys have received boxes that look like they've been crushed, but the cookies inside were in perfect condition," Sherrett said.

And what does Parker's son think of getting the baked treats?

Parker-Vaughan tells the story of when he was waiting to ship out to Djibouti, Africa. The troops had been told to pack the military's meals-ready-to-eat for the flight, "but I had all these cookies from home. There wasn't enough room for both, so I threw out the MREs and filled my backpack with cookies," he said. "My buddies and I ate cookies for hours. The sugar high really kept us going."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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#3 OKAY - so, it's not food, but it's a great story!!

Given a Young Bride By Her Grandmother

Never thought of a washer in this light before. what a blessing !
Washing Clothes Recipe' - imagine having a recipe for this ! Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe. This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook - with spelling errors and all.

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Washing Clothes

Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water.
Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert.
Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.
Sort things, make 3 piles

1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.
Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.
Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.

Hang old rags on fence.Spread tea towels on grass.
Pore wrench water in flower bed.
Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
Turn tubs upside down.
Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs.
Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.
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Paste this over your washer and dryer. Next time when you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks. First thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer!
For you non-southerners...wrench means rinse.

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#4 Southern Memories

My mother and father met in the place that I visited for a technology meeting.
I was in the southern part of Virginia, Dinwiddie, Halifax,Goochland, various counties.
I really went there for the meeting, but the rememberances of food drew me into the experience of being there.

The reason they were in Dinwiddie was that my mother and father taught in a school together. She was furious that he was made the principal of this one room school.

She was an educator, he was trained in industrial arts, so for a while she hardly spoke to him. But eventually they married. I was the reason they left Dinwiddie. Women were not supposed to be married if they were teachers.. imagine that!

My grandmother intervened by inviting my dad over for dinner. My mother made wonderful fried chicken. Better than the colonels, and any one else's..These were free range chickens. My dad used to say that they grew chickens on the vine in Dinwiddie. Dinwiddie was mostly farms. We still own a farm there. Once these counties were connected by tobacco and now connected by a technology consortium.

I went to talk about technology but got reminded of family gatherings by the food. We specialized in potato salad, dandelion wine, pound cakes( cold oven pound cakes) apple pies, and fruit cobblers, slumps, grunts and roly poly desserts and homemade cranked ice creams.

My father called it fried chicken county. My grandmother soaked her chicken in buttermilk and fried them in seasoned flour. I am not sure why she used buttermilk, but I do because she did. She also made incredibly light biscuits.

The Visit
We went to lunch. I was instantly taken back to my summer childhood meal. There at "Ernies" In good taste and in abundance were the foods of the south, in a buffet. I usually hate buffets, but this time I joined the line.

In my family there were few written recipes. Each person made their best recipes and you learned by observing or helping. It helped that in the summers we picked the truck garden's bounty to sell, and to put, as my mother said, " summer in a jar!". She put up pickled peaches, cut corn, brunswick stew vegetables, stringbeans, watermelon pickles, beets, and jams. We hated it when we were kids..first we had to do duty in the field picking the stuff.

We blame Thomas Jefferson for many of the recipes that were proudly shown in the food that was available. A favorite of his was macaroni and cheese. There were things like black eye peas,corn pudding, Cressy salad, pineapple pudding, lima beans with corn, stewed tomatoes, beautiful fried chicken, pulled pork, okra soup, brunswick stew...there was much more.. I am just telling you what I picked. Did I forget the fried corn? Everyone ought to know how to do this recipe.

Fried Corn

Here's the way my family taught me how to cook "Fried Cream Corn", hope you like it!
Start with fresh corn on the cob, about 4-6 ears. White, small kernel corn is best or Silver Queen corn.
Shuck and clean the corn.
Using a sharp knife and wood cutting board, cut the corn from the cob. You need a sharp knife.
Position the corn ear on it's end and slice the corn, off the cob by pushing the knife down, along the ear. Don't try to cut ALL the tender little corn morsels off with each cut, cut a third or so, at a time. Rotate the ear as you remove more layers.
When you have cut all or most of the corn from the ear, using the knife's edge, scrape the ear to remove the last of the ear's remaining corn "stuff". Save all liquids.

Now, using an iron skillet heat about a tablespoon of bacon grease, for flavor and frying ability, to a pretty high temperature. Add all the corn stuff and fry up some corn.

Add bacon grease, coarse ground pepper and salt to taste.
Don't brown or burn the corn, just get it real hot, turn down the heat.
Now add some whole milk or cream. Depending on how creamy you want the corn, use cream or milk. Add, to create some "creamy stuff". Turn down the heat and cook for a while, like 15 minutes. Vary the cooking length to make the fresh and tender or cooked and creamy. It is best fresh, but harder, older corn needs the longer cooking.

The breads of Virginia were there too, spoon bread, cornbread, hush puppies and light rolls.

Spoon Bread

I loved this spoon bread with fish. Spots, croakers, and butterfish.

3/4 cup cornmeal, stone or water ground, if possible
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder

Combine cornmeal and salt in a mixing bowl.
Stirring constantly, gradually add boiling water, keeping smooth; stir in the melted butter.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs until thicken and pale in color.
Add milk and beat to combine.
Add milk and egg mixture to the cornmeal mixture with baking powder.
Beat with an electric hand-held mixer or whisk to blend.
Turn into a generously greased 8-inch square glass baking dish.
Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes, until firm.
Serve with plenty of butter.

Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Born in Salisbury, Maryland, loves cooking, collects and is a detective for good recipes, works in technology all over the world and collects recipes everywhere and good tastes.

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#3 and #4 are from my friend, Bonnie Bracey Sutton, who when she sent me the story from The Washington Post, made me realize that we all had special stories to share.
So thank-you to the Washington Post for inspiring this page and thank-you, Bonnie, for sending in your memories!