Kitchen Memories
“Yuck, I got my hair stuck in it again!” I looked back and saw the yellow fly sticker swinging back and forth from the middle of the kitchen ceiling with the dead and mostly dead black flies stuck, unable to free themselves. I gingerly felt my hair to be sure none were there and reminded myself again to duck next time.
That was the Sugar Hill farm kitchen in the early 1960s. It’s hard to imagine today hanging one of those nasty things in our kitchen, but back then, it was a necessity. The farm animals and crops drew lots of flies. Plus, with no storm windows, we placed expandable screens in the windows, which didn’t always close tightly against the windowsills and sides, allowing somewhat easy access by those little black wretches (as my brother called them) into the house.
The old farmhouse was built in ~1906, and as per the times, had no electricity, running water, nor indoor bathroom. Electricity arrived for the first time in the late 1930s and by the end of the 40s, water and
indoor plumbing were in place. By the time my brother and I came along in the early 1950s, we were spoiled by all these modern luxuries!
We did witness one new fangled home improvement in the kitchen. When I was four or five, we got our first automatic washing machine. I can still remember standing on my tiptoes watching in wonder as it filled, agitated and spun.
Of course, our main focus in that old kitchen centered on food. We ate breakfast, lunch, and supper every day at home except for lunches at school, and except Friday nights when we went to town to get groceries and sometimes a burger and fries (for ~30 cents) at Ruth Brown’s Chattaway Restaurant. After eating, my brother cousins, and I played on the sidewalk outside after dark while the adults nursed coffees and sodas inside.
At home, my mother fixed big hearty meals. Most everything came fresh from our garden, orchard, or pond (beans, beets, corn, carrots, peas, cabbage, peppers, squash, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, watermelon, tomatoes, apples, peaches) or from hundreds of quarts of canned goods she prepared each summer and fall.
Our meats came fresh too – deer, squirrel, rabbit, chicken, beef, grouse, pheasant, turkey, pork, and fish. Add to this, homemade bread, rolls, or baking powder biscuits dripping with real butter and homemade strawberry or blackberry jam. Finish up with hot, bubbling apple, cherry, blackberry, or huckleberry pies made from fruit picked on the farm or on the local mountain or sometimes hand-cranked ice cream with milk straight from the cow.
My favorite kitchen food memory though happened one late afternoon when my mother was making spaghetti sauce for supper. She started it and then realized that she didn’t have any salt so she sent me to the barn to get a cup full. She added it to the sauce and let it simmer. A while later she tasted it and added some more salt and left it to simmer. A bit later she tried it again and added more salt, but this time with an inkling that all was not well. She sent me back to the barn to get the bag of salt. Sure enough – Epsom salt! I don’t remember, but we might have eaten baloney sandwiches for supper!
- So many good memories …
