The Grandma Factor

Every Sunday we would drive about 45 miles into the hills of Missouri arriving at my grandparents house. There was nothing fancy about their place but to this day I can tell you the exact floor plan and cite experiences in each room; the screened in porch, the tire swing hanging from the cedar tree, the cattle, swinging from a rope in that huge barn and fishing for perch with my very own cane pole. This was where I had the happiest days of my childhood. My country Grandma, after whom I'm named, was a pinch and stir cook. Every Sunday we stuffed ourselves with homegrown potatoes made into mashed potatoes liberally seasoned with fresh cream and butter and homemade yeast rolls. There was also fried chicken from the chickens she had raised, and chicken and homemade dumplings that we always ladled into the cratered mashed potatoes. We had fresh sliced tomatoes, homegrown greenbeans and corn on the cob, all from Grandma's garden. For dessert we always had cobbler or cake, something she had just whipped up especially for us kids. There were no limits on the amount of food we would pile on our plates. We would always happily eat ourselves into oblivion.

My city grandmother, Mema, was a quiet woman who lived in a two bedroom house with a man I now realize she did not love. I think she was a very sad woman. She was a nurse and that's about all I know about her. When we ate meals there they were mainly vegetables with very little seasoning, no bread, with a bowl of fruit if you wanted dessert. We did on occasion get to enjoy a bottle of Grapette pop which was a real treat.

Here's the epiphany: It slammed into my brain today that my eating habits were formed mainly from eating at Grandma's house. Since my mother was her daughter she also cooked and served similar meals. There was never a salad on the table, no one even knew about portions, and we stuffed our faces until we couldn't eat any more. Thinking back about Mema's table and the food she served, hers was most likely the more healthy of the two. And I'm just now learning that at age 60.