On Food and Holidays and Memories through Still-Remembered Voices
William Humphrey has a beautiful passage in THE ORDWAYS, his novel set in Red River County just north of us. He is reminiscing about the Civil War and the continuing validity and importance of the war… from the perspective of the 1930’s setting of the novel. That as long as there were the stories of the hardship from that time which the grandchildren knew having heard them on grandpa’s knee; that the war would remain alive; as told in those still-remembered voices. That the animosity for the North would not die as long as those grandchildren lived even though that War was 100 years before.
In the same chapter he explains that a southerner actually lives in three generations; his own and in those of his children and grandchildren because they know his stories which are known in those still remember ed voices.
I fear I don’t succeed enough in getting the still remembered voices concept across. Humphrey relies on it in the context of the American Civil War. My effort of late has been in food. One more effort to impart a sense of heritage and history in the nephews.
We had a marvelous Christmas meal. There were 16 guests at the table and I had given a great deal of thought to a number of the dishes. I did not manage to serve the Pauline (Nooney) Hicks cole slaw (a real effort; cabbage hand grated on the fine side of a box grater and seasoned delicately) and so it was not in the crystal dish always brought in my by Aunt Nooney as her offering for any family meal.
I did manage to peel the wax skins off the rutabagas and to cut up that terribly hard vegetable and to get it boiled and then mashed and seasoned with butter and cream and served in Aunt Mae’s bowl. What a labor of love; how did she ever succeed in processing those most difficult of vegetables. And I had the fordhook lima beans in a bowl which belonged to Aunt Virgie Beth Hughes. My brother Sid opined that Virgie preferred the small limas; I think differently. Fordhooks are expensive and are reserved for special occasions; she would have approved of their Christmas use. Fordhooks boiled till quite tender with butter and salt seasoning (and a touch of sugar) were the order of the day.
And so it went as all guests at the table endured a two hour feast as we described each of about 12 vegetables; why they were significant and who had grown them, savored them, or prepared them. We went through the explanation that the cream crowder peas picked at the garden of our friend Will Godwin were the same pea that my father loved so much. And served with my mother’s pear relish. And we explained who had owned what dish or serving piece. That relish was in a berry bowl dating from at least 1880 that had belonged to Grannie Ivey who has been dead since 1927. But I remember the voices of all her grandchildren who spoke with an amazing fondness for that tiny Scotch woman. One green eye and one blue eye; yes, southern intermarriage of cousins, this coming Christmas I’ll have her picture out at the table also.
We managed to break a 1950’s tea pitcher when one guest poured boiling hot steeped tea off the stove directly into the pitcher but that made for quite a good lesson as I explained to Daniel Hicks why you must be very careful about how you treat the heirlooms. We lost Aunt Ivey’s clear glass pitcher with the yellow daffodils. Now only two of the large glasses remain from the original set.
True, our family is most unusual in the fact that we had so many maiden aunts and all their things remain with us and we have had minimal disastrous fires and we haven’t left Franklin County and so there has been no Diaspora of the heirlooms which pretty much remain in use. But if you don’t use the items and tell the stories what value do they have. Next year I think I’ll bring down all the big portraits and position them around the dining room as we commemorate the food of these people.
I had to completely and for all time store away the pre-Civil War honey bowl compote of an ancestor – used to store honey before sugar was available – after I managed to drop it; I have the glued / repaired relic. We had cornbread made with buttermilk; just no side of honey. We had the Violet Bray persimmon pudding of which Dorothy Long said: “In the fall, after a hard frost, Daddy would go into the bottoms and pick the persimmons. Aunt Violet would make the pudding. It was the best stuff you ever put in your mouth.” And we had the pleasure of Robert Long at table to eat his family’s dish. Buy our Sweet Heritage cookbook and you’ll get that recipe.
We had the Margaret Mattinson fruitcake faithfully served at my family’s holiday table for at least 30 years – first made by my mother’s friend Margaret Mattinson, our town baker, and now prepared each year by her daughter Dr. Bettie Herring.
And we had enough guests at the table who could still tell tales of those family members – long dead – who prepared the specific foods and whose dishes we used. It was a marvelous day. I share the experience to urge you to share the stories. If you don’t pass on these still remembered stories in the still remembered voices, a chapter of life here cannot be recovered.
This week, Bill Holmes wrote of a recent Sunday visit to my family’s church, the West New Hope United Methodist Church, out on the Cherokee Trace. Bill said: “I visited the church which my father joined 96 years ago.” Bill saw the same sights and vistas his father would have seen from the same windows in the same building. And I have the pickled peach bowl which was taken for a Sunday after-church luncheon in October 1914 when my great-grandmother’s home burned while she was at the church. I have the bowl and I can serve the pickles.
You like to think that the grandchildren are listening; too often they don’t know to ask the questions until the time is past. It’s certainly true for me. So many questions. I did pretty good at asking but I still have regrets. I’m determined to make sure that some of the stories get passed on whether asked or not. If I tell them enough maybe the nephews will remember.
This year the logo for the Texas Historical Commission carries a strong message about our state: “Real places telling real stories.” Let’s live that motto in Franklin County.
