Long gone are the days of spending hours preparing the family meals. We’re all in too big a hurry now, so we buy precooked foods, frozen meals, or stuff that simply needs to be boiled in water. But every now and then I get the craving for something from my childhood.
Homemade biscuits top the list. Usually I purchase canned biscuits, but there comes a time when that just doesn’t cut it and I dig out the sifter, flour, milk, and lard. I still know the process well and always leave a huge mess to clean up as I knead the dough, but nothing beats those good old fashioned chunks of baked delights.
This also led me to realize that something else was missing – sorghum syrup. We always bought those cans of sorghum from Trade Day or Taco Bet that look like miniature paint cans. After the eggs, grits, sausage, gravy, and grits were consumed, we’d pry open the can of syrup to top off our breakfast with this dessert.
I was a sorghum syrup artist. I’d slap a glob of butter on my plate and pour the thick rich syrup over it. Using my fork, I’d twirl, dip, twist, and mix until it was an even blend of creamy yellow bliss. Then I’d gob a generous portion right on the edge of a homemade biscuit and stuff it in my watering mouth. Oh my.
Pintos and cornbread is another thing that I can only go so long without craving. And I just learned recently that you can buy pinto beans in a can and just heat them up. I’ve never tried that, however, and still buy the big plastic bag, sort through to remove the hardened and shriveled pieces, and then boil them for three hours.
Give me a plate of pintos mixed with crumbled cornbread with quartered onions on the side and a glass of cold buttermilk any day, and you can keep all the lobster and caviar you want. Of course my cornbread always plays a double role since I also crumble it up in my buttermilk.
Salmon patties were a regular at my house growing up and I didn’t even like them. But recently I found myself having a hankering for those as well, and even called my mom to get the recipe. I haven’t made them yet, but will soon.
It makes me wonder if it’s psychological. Is it really the foods I miss, or is it my childhood? I don’t know the answer. Know what else I don’t know? I don’t know what I’d give to have a bowl of Dad’s homemade chili again, or a serving of his French Toast.