First Published on 05/13/2015
I’ll never forget a meal I once ate years ago when I was a working surveyor. Mr. Nathan Wilkins had called me to his place atop Big Ridge, South of Needmore in Hardy County. I arranged to meet him there around 10:00 A.M. one Summer morning to look over a small tract he wanted to cut off his home place for sale.
We tramped and talked and agreed to rough locations for lines. Near noon by the time we finished, I headed for my truck and the lunch I’d packed early that morning. Nothing doing. Mr. Wilkins insisted I come with him to the house. He was adamant his wife planned to feed me and dinner was ready. Still worried I was imposing, I followed dutifully, washed up and slid into my indicated chair at her dining room table.
Mrs. Wilkins commenced to carry food. A platter of fried pork, bowls of succotash, apple sauce, green beans, boiled potatoes and kraut were almost piled around me.
Best I could tell, everything was fresh prepared, nothing left over from prior meals. Good Lord where is the thrashing or haying crew she obviously prepared all this food for? Nobody showed up but me.
Nathan nibbled a little than sat with a half smile watching me. Mrs. Wilkins bustled, brought and inquired? I don’t remember what all or how much I ate that day. I do think I left there with a wonderfully painfully full stomach and an older couple happy because they’d been the cause of it.
I thought about those folks and that meal a couple of weeks ago when I wrote an Unbased Opinion suggesting changes in McDonalds restaurants. McDonalds began with simple solid burgers and fries. I think their poor fortunes lately have been fueled by their switch to “prissy” specialty sandwiches.
I occasionally watch Food Net- work with my friend, Mary Wicks. My personal favorite show is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives starring Guy Fieri. D,D & D generally features preparation of finger foods from plain working folks’ restaurants. Lots of meat and juicy enhancements that convince me I’d never be able to hold seconds.
Wall Street Journal has week- end articles about various “cui- sines” from around the world. This past weekend they featured food prepared by Peruvian chefs. All sorts of exotic ingredients get turned into mostly prissy little gobs of color for those who believe presentation counts for more than flavor.
There’s cuisines and then there is real food. Food which, as Pap used to say, “sticks to a man’s ribs”. Fuel for a day’s work. Food that will hold you till more’s available, no matter when it shows up. So often my thoughts return to that oil cloth table covering are those solid dishes filled with home cooked food almost piled around me.
I remember Pap getting up from the dinner table at home one occasion for a quick trip to Mom’s try cupboard. He reappeared with a can of sardines in hand and proceeded to open them. Pap did willingly sit at table without meat and Mom had been too busy prepare any that day. I never member her being too busy again after that.
I get tickled at vegetarians and vegans sticking to their vegetable diets. Diets limited to only the foods human stomachs can process efficiently. Only sane way to feed the masses of human population is to use most prevalent vegetation, grass and leaves. Only way to make good use of that forage is to eat the cow, sheep or goat which first processed them. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your first name, Mrs. Wilkins but oh do I remember how you fed me. Thank you.
