FOOD FOR THE MEMORIES
Leftovers, geology, and Charles Darwin
Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart.
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What do geology and my mother have in common? Let's just say more than you might think, and it has to do with leftover food. Growing up, leftovers were typically never an option, as we would devour all her cooking. My mom was an excellent cook, who -- even during the lean years -- could make a meatloaf sing. Her spaghetti sauce -- which she would simmer all day in a large, stained aluminum pot -- would disappear quicker than a good parking spot at a Razorback game. She could even make liver taste palpable after a good soak in milk and adding caramelized onions at the end. With three hungry kids and a husband, mealtime was typically a no-prisoner's affair. The leftovers came later, after my dad passed and when my brother, sister and I had left for school and beyond.
My mom remarried, and she and my stepdad enjoyed eating out several times a week. Being a child of the Depression, she would bring home any leftovers -- and trust me, there were always leftovers. Later she also became a volunteer at the local hospital three times a week, and they provided lunch -- all of which would be proudly taken home like some sort of medal at a soccer tournament. "I'll get two meals out of this" she would confide excitedly to me over the phone. On my visits home from college, I would open the refrigerator and typically be met by a pile of Styrofoam containers expertly stacked with the care of a large Jenga tower. Despite there being no marking whatsoever on the outside, my mom had an encyclopedic memory of not only what was inside of each, but also where it had come from. To make space for new members of the fridge, using some obscure form of natural selection that would probably make Charles Darwin proud, certain food would be wrapped in aluminum foil and consigned to the freezer. Now mind you, she never used freezer Ziplock bags or any of that nonsense -- nope, just a nice piece of aluminum foil would always do the job. And, in keeping with the existing system, absolutely no marking of any kind on what wonders lay within the shiny foil.
Now, this is where the geology comes into play. My mom's refrigerator was the type that had the freezer portion located on the bottom, and it featured one large pull-out basket to place things. In other words, to get to the bottom items in the freezer, you had to unload what was on top. You would open her freezer and be met by an array of foil parcels, which lay on top of other foil parcels, which ... Well, you get the idea. When you would pull that drawer out, it looked like some sort of geologic age experiment where different strata of the earth's core could be viewed. The items on the bottom seemed to be slowly decomposing with age or else about to turn into diamonds because of the weight coming from the top.
"Fix you something to eat," she would always ask when I would come in on a Friday night. (College was three hours away.) Sometimes, I would take a big bite and say, "This tastes funny! Is this from the freezer again?" I was not being ungrateful, but with no quality control going on with the food expiration date, I can testify that food tastes different over time. "That was wonderful chicken I had at Olive Garden," she would respond defensively. "Yeah," I would whine, "Two years ago!" Soon we reached a happy compromise -- if I would simply call her before I left campus, she would typically make one of her treasured family dishes. Talk about win-win, I had great food, and she would have some leftovers to store.
With the wisdom of time, I now realize she was simply doing what she had done her entire life: making sure there was always enough good food for her family to eat. Food for her was equated with love. Now why the heck didn't I ever give her a black Sharpie?
NAN Our Town on 04/26/2018