My Mother's Cookbook

By TAD BARTIMUS

Old family friends came for a visit and we ate what my dad used to call "real food," the stuff baby boomers were raised on before they discovered cholesterol and mutual funds.

Mary and Glen arrived fussing: "Don't you go to any trouble now, which way is the kitchen?" To prove I was a grownup I'd planned to serve ginger-steamed shrimp, endive and wild greens dressed in a raspberry vinaigrette, and pan-seared yellowfin tuna with curried baby carrots and beets. Instead, Mary fixed fried chicken, cole slaw and fruit Jell-O with Cool Whip.

The smell and taste of real food takes us back; potato salad (with eggs!) on the Fourth of July; tomatoes overripe and warm from the garden in high summer; baked apples on cold mornings; oyster stew (with cream!) on Christmas Eve.

I ate every finger-lickin' bite. So did my husband. It felt illicit, like a motel room in the afternoon. I couldn't remember the last time I'd tasted such grease on my lips. But what I could recall, with absolute clarity, were neighborhood picnics when the chicken tasted just like this. When Mary and Glen lived next door, when bees buzzed and we little kids ran around giggling so hard we fell down, when men in overalls and jeans faded by hard work sat in the shade talking baseball, when women in pedal-pushers sat around a red-checked tablecloth and talked about everybody who wasn't there.

The smell and taste of real food takes us back; potato salad (with eggs!) on the Fourth of July; tomatoes overripe and warm from the garden in high summer; baked apples on cold mornings; oyster stew (with cream!) on Christmas Eve. More than mere comfort food, these staples of American cuisine are mile markers just as surely as births, anniversaries and the first gray hair.

I had a millionaire friend who'd dined at the White House (you don't just eat at the White House), stayed at the real Ritz Hotel, and consumed his share of fois gras. Reminiscing about his wife of 50 years shortly after her death, he said that among the things he missed the most were his favorite foods she'd cooked, especially meat loaf. I made him one and he ate it at one sitting. With tears in his eyes, he told me it tasted just like his wife's. Perhaps. Most likely, it merely evoked good memories.

When I was growing up there were no pretentions at our house about food; baloney was baloney. It came on Wonder Bread. We weren't picky eaters. Mary and Glen still aren't. Making sandwiches, Mary held up two plastic-wrapped squares of cheese: "White or yellow?" "Yellow," Glen replied. So much for blue-veined Stilton, dill Havarti and baby Swiss. Sometimes life offers too many choices.

While the men fought over the TV clicker, Mary and I sat at the kitchen table trying to reconstruct recipes my mother never bothered to write down. How do you fix the steak with red sauce I always asked for on my birthday? "Honey, that's just round steak dredged in flour and salt and pepper, then fried hot with a can of tomato paste." Slumgullion? "Good old Depression food, just brown some hamburger, throw in a can of tomatoes and some elbow macaroni. Season to taste." What's the secret ingredient to Mom's tuna casserole my husband loves so much and I can't duplicate? "That's easy. Canned French-fried onion rings on top." Who knew?

Everybody has favorite family food stories; please share them, and your recipes, by sending them via e-mail to friends@tadbartimus.com or c/o The Women Syndicate, P.O. Box 728, Puunene, Hawaii 96784. But first, cook up your memory dish, eat it, lick your fingers, smack your lips and enjoy!

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