My ethnic food
Was telling Jorge about a favorite "last meal", and heard myself saying "English peas"- those that are called "tiny green peas" or "sweet peas" in your freezer section of your super market.
Guess it's because growing up we also ate blackeyed, crowder, purple hulls, and likely some others I have forgot.
Funny that I liked English peas because they were canned and rather grey as I recall. Maybe now I like them so much because they are green and tasty. The others were always fresh, and "shelled" in a nice social way with others on the back porch. That's a "whole-nother" post- the shelling and peeling and visiting that went on when summer bounty of fruit and vegetables came in.
The rest of this "last meal" included fried chicken, mashed potatoes and cream gravy- flour browned in some of the grease and crunchy bits of the chicken skillet then thinned with milk. And I always make much more than can possibly be consumed at one meal, but that's part of the tradition, to have some nice left overs to enjoy as well.
I've been playing with Ancestry.com which I gave myself for Christmas. I trace the ancestry of this meal to my maternal grandmother. Their house was on a corner of town square, and was said she would see friends and relatives coming in- by wagon- across the square, and by the time they got to the house she would greet them, wringing a chicken's neck at the same time!
All those family stories could be a book rather than just another post.
Here she is, with my grandfather, sitting on their front porch.
Guess it's because growing up we also ate blackeyed, crowder, purple hulls, and likely some others I have forgot.
Funny that I liked English peas because they were canned and rather grey as I recall. Maybe now I like them so much because they are green and tasty. The others were always fresh, and "shelled" in a nice social way with others on the back porch. That's a "whole-nother" post- the shelling and peeling and visiting that went on when summer bounty of fruit and vegetables came in.
The rest of this "last meal" included fried chicken, mashed potatoes and cream gravy- flour browned in some of the grease and crunchy bits of the chicken skillet then thinned with milk. And I always make much more than can possibly be consumed at one meal, but that's part of the tradition, to have some nice left overs to enjoy as well.
I've been playing with Ancestry.com which I gave myself for Christmas. I trace the ancestry of this meal to my maternal grandmother. Their house was on a corner of town square, and was said she would see friends and relatives coming in- by wagon- across the square, and by the time they got to the house she would greet them, wringing a chicken's neck at the same time!
All those family stories could be a book rather than just another post.
Here she is, with my grandfather, sitting on their front porch.