Tantalizing Taste

Shrimp chowder. I enjoyed a marvelous bowl of that freshly-made soup with Thanksgiving dinner - a brand new culinary experience. Brings to mind my sister’s account of her first holiday meal with clam chowder. She kept wondering when the ham would appear. It didn’t. Has our brother has sampled any chowders? If so, considering his years as a trucker, it might have been from a can if he deviated from his usual shopping list and if such things can be packaged that way.

Surely our taste buds are more eTasducated now, but my comfort foods include those we ate growing up. Would it surprise you to know our favorite meals included white beans, fried potatoes and cornbread, with chocolate cake for dessert? Mom’s holiday hams and pineapple upside-down cakes made the days more festive, along with her potato salad and cole slaw, sometimes prepared with apples and raisins and not so much dressing. Her deviled egg recipe is still the best, though I’ve had enjoyed yummy variations. She perfected the extra-special once-a-year desserts that would appear wrapped tightly in the back of the fridge some time after Thanksgiving. Those recipes came from my paternal grandmother.

Both Mom and Dad were raised in the Bootheel, with lineages traceable to Appalachia considering the vocabulary we grew up hearing. We ate beans and pork, burgers/meatloaf/chicken, eggs and gravy, cornbread and white bread, pies and cakes, and yes, lots of things from grocery shelves and freezers that they probably ate fresh having grown up in rural settings.

If seafood was on the table, it was tuna salad. Fish? That would be salmon patties. Eating fried catfish meant eating out. Our Uncle Galen knew all the best places in driveable distances and it was always featured at summer gatherings. I don’t fry stuff often, unless it’s bacon and eggs, so I have my favorite places to order catfish, too. I bake salmon, but even thinking about baking catfish sounds fishy…and yucky.

Aromas from the neighborhoods I grew up in were strange. The Bootheel influence limited my samplings of Italian dishes common on The Hill in St. Louis. (Mom prepared Chef-Boy-Ardee pizza and spaghetti). One time a friend’s mom brought an artichoke out for us to eat in the backyard. I had never seen one! I’m not a fan. Now that I’ve had toasted ravioli, it can’t be beat outside of a Hill eatery. I ate my first shrimp on a date here - at Thompson’s Drive-In, if you recall that local hangout - and I’ve eaten plenty since. I love stuffed crab and I’ve had lobster now and then. I’ve enjoyed a meal of escargot, too! Trust me, I didn’t eat any of that at my parents’ table.

A favorite family outing was to Steak ‘n Shake for burgers, fries and chocolate malts, for everyone but Mom. She liked their chili mac. I’m adding that to my try-this list.

(For the 12/05/2024 PN)