So I was taking my typical post-Thanksgiving break to ponder some of the larger questions of life, our existence and the meaning of it all. Some of you might call it a nap, but just because my eyes were closed doesn't make that accurate. The snoring may have called that into question.
But somewhere in my pondering, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of guilt. It seems that, for some time, I may have been unfair to my mother.
And while I may admit that on a cosmic scale, being unfair to one's mother may not be the absolute worst thing a person can do, well, I'm from a part of the country where it's pretty darn close. Though I have to admit it's likely my mother never knew I was being unfair to her. And if she did know, it's likely that, as with most mothers, she'd have said "There, there, dear, that's fine. I know you didn't mean it. Here's a cookie and a hug."
Or something like that. Which is pretty much both peak mother and would do absolutely nothing to make me feel less guilty (also peak mother). But hey, who's going to pass up a cookie and a hug?
Obviously some of my guilt is made worse because my mother is no longer with us, so I can't correct any misconceptions or set any records straight. So the best I can do is just admit that, for much of my life, I have either insinuated or downright said out loud (though not in her presence) that my mother wasn't a particularly good cook.
Let's be clear, I wasn't wrong. It's just that it wasn't necessarily her fault.
The fact that I came to this realization after Thanksgiving is only slightly coincidental and driven by two things. One, my children can have no such opinion about their mother, who is a wonderful, creative cook and whose efforts have broken many of my own terrible eating habits. And two, green bean casserole.
If you've spent much time in the South, you've had green bean casserole. It's a pretty unappetizing-looking dish -- cream of mushroom soup, green beans and those strange onions that come in a can -- that's basically brown and olive drab and finds its way to the table on holidays, for some reason.
My wife doesn't eat green bean casserole. I doubt she likes making it, given as she is into making food that is good, good for you and good looking. And no, even at its best, green bean casserole is not Instagram-worthy.
She makes it because, well, our kids have come to believe green bean casserole is as much a part of Thanksgiving as turkey and stuffing. And because it's not that hard to make and the children will eat it. Which turns green bean casserole from an elective to a requirement.
How this all comes back to my mother is that, for most of her life she both served as a chef for her family and had to deal in requirements, not electives. She learned to cook from her mother, who had to feed a large family of large boys at the height of the Great Depression and with ingredients that were largely what was left after the good produce was sold to keep the lights on.
Later, my mother had to provide meals for a husband and three children, including two boys who were constantly in some state of a growth spurt, on an Air Force serviceman's salary. And while serving in our Armed Forces has many intrinsic rewards, the financials ones weren't necessarily as impressive.
So, in short, she did the best she could. Which meant lots of pasta and lots of rice, sometimes in the same dish. Which fit the times, or as culinary historians (and I'm sure those people exist) call them, the "Casserole Years" of American History. But it set a fairly low bar for me when it came to culinary expectations.
Thanksgiving has come and gone and with it a series of incredibly well-prepared dishes featuring ingredients my mother probably wouldn't have recognized and certainly not used. Dishes that will become or are already the stuff of memory for my children.
And while our current Thanksgivings and those of my childhood are certainly separated by time and culinary achievement, they do have much in common. Family, togetherness, joy, laughter and memory-making. And green bean casserole. Because moms will always give them what they want. And do the best they can.