MEMORIES OF MAMMA'S COOKING

WARNING, WARNING !!

EAT before reading this !

Mamma had a way with food that gets me salivating just thinking of all the wonderful meals and baked goods she made over the years.

She made a Dutch Apple cake that I have never found in any bakery anywhere, nor any recipe book. Don't know what kind of cake it was, possibly something like a coffee cake, then she layered slice after slice of apples, thinly cut, over the whole thing, and sprinkled sugar and cinnamon, and put some bits of butter here and there, like those pie-crust cookies I mentioned before, and baked it. Mmm-mmm, good ! The aroma was heavenly !

I never much cared for bread pudding, but she made a chocolate one, with raisins that was absolutely delicious ! I ate that, but never anyone else's.

Loved her custard, too. Mamma had this big crockery bowl, sort of a light yellow color with two or three brown stripes around the top, in which she mixed, then baked her custard. Perfect every time . My custard sometimes turns out like hers, with the sweet juice at the bottom, that I always enjoyed and do to this day.

That same bowl was used to make Mamma's homemade Boston baked beans, with a chunk of salt pork in them, that we all liked, as I've mentioned before. Hers was better than the canned variety.

She sometimes would make a bowl of those beans especially for our cousin, Herb. He was crazy about them.

That bowl was also used for Shepherd's pie, a lamb stew with a biscuit crust. Yummy.

Pal often was treated to a whole bowl of rice pudding with raisins, just for him.

She made it for the family, too, but when it was designated for Pal, we didn't get any of it.

That bowl had many purposes . She'd beat eggs in it with an egg beater, a sort of pre-cursor to the hand-held electric mixer. Egg beaters ran by manual power, turning the handle faster and faster, if you were beating egg-whites for meringue, or whipping up some heavy cream .

Pie crust was mixed in it, then rolled out on a floured board. Mamma's pie crust was perfect, too, flaky and delicious.

Cakes were mixed in there, too, no cake mixes in a box. they hadn't been thought of, until some time after I'd had Linda, at least, because, I, too, made all my cakes from scratch . I don't recall just when cake mixes were invented.

Everything that had to do with baking was started from that one crockery bowl.

I used to sit in the kitchen whenever I could, to watch Mamma cook and bake. Loved to watch her peel apples all in one piece, and there was always a little apple left on the peel, that I got to nibble, sometimes my siblings, too, if they were present. They seldom were, being that the girls were older and off doing whatever it was that they did, perhaps when they worked, and Paul was always out with his friends. I was always the homebody, so I reaped the rewards and benefits of being there when Mamma was getting food ready.

I loved raw potatoes, and got an occasional piece of uncooked spaghetti to chew on. How I ever

could have liked uncooked spaghetti is beyond me. Just a weird kid, I guess !

Mamma made Toll House cookies that were scrumptious ! Mine have never turned out like hers . Dang ! She would put the spoonsful of cookie dough on the cookie sheet, then take a drinking glass, put a dampened dish towel over the bottom, and flatten the cookies. they always turned out great. Mine have always spread out, and didn't look or taste quite like hers. She used the Nestle's morsels, and the recipe on the package, as did I, but she had better luck. Or maybe she just had a way with it that made the cookies turn out better than mine ever did.

Mamma would buy stewing hens for her chicken fricasee. That was a sort of soup, but better than plain soup. The broth was thickened some. With the added yumminess of dumplings !

Sometimes she would buy Capons, a different type of chicken, and she'd roast those, and serve them with potatoes, mashed, or new potatoes, boiled in their jackets, then peeled at the table, and maybe creamed corn, and green beans.

Mamma always gave Paul and I the raw chicken legs, because we liked to play with them. There was no flesh on them, though. We'd press our thumbs somewhere on the foot and the claws would then spread out, and we got a kick out of that. Dumb, but we liked running around, pretending to be monsters and trying to scare our sisters with the claws .

A summer meal we always enjoyed was Mamma's Shrimp Louie, or sometimes it was made with tuna. She would layer a large platter with iceberg lettuce leaves, then tomato slices, overlapping, then cucumber slices, then hard-boiled egg slices, then canned shrimp, broken into smaller pieces with her fingers, to stretch further than just leaving the shrimp whole. She must have used two or three cans for all of us, and sometimes Pal. We'd have bread and butter to go with it. Oh, yes, salt and pepper, and then mixed with mayo on our plates. Soooooo good !!

Daddy and Betty loved steamed clams, so sometimes Mamma would make a heaping platter of those for them. I never cared for those, neither did anyone else. Yuck ! I don't know for sure if she used the ones we kids dug up from the sand at the beach, where, as we walked along, a little squirt of water would alert us to where the clam was, and we would dig there, and sure enough, there was at least one clam ! Think we brought them home, and, as I said, don't know if those were the ones Mamma steamed, but I kinda think they were.

She'd make a pan of baked lima beans for Phyllis . Double yuck !!

Some of my favorites were baked macaroni and cheese, baked pork chops, with mustard, salt and pepper and a slice of onion on each one. I still make mine that way. Mamma always used center cut pork chops, and I usually do, too. Bone in .

Paul had steak fairly often, and he was spoiled, being the only boy. Sometimes, while the rest of us had hot dogs, there he'd be, gnawing on a lovely piece of steak. I don't remember getting upset about that, though. I enjoyed beans, brown bread, and hot dogs.

Don't recall if Anne had a favorite dish, but probably.

Mamma made a mean leg of lamb ! She'd rub seasoned flour all over the outside of it, and that lamb was sooo tasty. She'd often serve mint jelly with it, too. Delicious !

Mamma's steamed pudding was special. I never knew everything that went into it, but I saw her use raisins, and maybe, mincemeat, that she bought in a jar, made by Nonesuch, a brand in those days. She also put either real meat, or suet, something like that, in addition to the regular ingredients, like flour, salt, whatever. When it was all mixed, she would spoon it into an empty,

clean Brown bread can, then tie a piece of cheesecloth around the whole thing, wrap string around it and suspend it somehow over a large pot of boiling water. It took a long time to cook, and when it was done, and cooled enough to remove from the can, it had molded itself into the shape of the can. She'd then slice it and put a piece on each of our saucers, and spoon a white, sweet sauce that she called 'hard sauce' over the pudding. Yum-yum-yummy !!! I'm not sure if that was for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, but that's the only time she made it all year. so it was a really special treat !

Think I'll end on that delicious note. Are you sufficiently hungry by now ? I was smart, and

ate my macaroni and cheese, and a large milkshake before starting this. Just reminiscing about

Mamma's wonderful cooking makes me hungry for some of the great meals she made.

Okay, go and eat now, and hope whatever you have is a tenth as good as my Mamma's food

was !

Blessings to all of you.

D