Fried Taters and Onions

I love food! I think you know that for a fact and nothing can generate a memory like food. We have had the privilege of eating at some of the most wonderful places one could imagine. One of my favorites was The Carnivore, in Nairobi. Swords of fire roasted exotic meats in an all you can format, Wow! Another very nostalgic place for me is “Lotos”; a place that defines “hole in the wall” there in Morogoro. Cheap, fast and greasy; what else could a guy want?

I guess nothing brings nostalgia like the food you were raised eating. The food of mountain people is often interesting, and a definite link to my (our) personal history. When I tell people what we sometimes ate growing up that shake their head in disbelief and say no way.

One day a gentleman came by the house with an opossum clinging to his bicycle rack. Man was that possum angry, and scared. He had been caught in this man’s rabbit gum (trap). Dad bought him (the possum) and kept him in a 55 gallon barrel for a few weeks so he could fatten him up. We ate him one night for supper with roasted vegetables.

I could come up with a rather long list of critters I have eaten over the years. Everything from elk to warthog all are a delicacy to somebody. One delicacy we had growing up on the farm was when we would slaughter a hog. Nothing went to waste! Pork rinds came from the skin, the feet were pickled, the fat “rendered” to use in cooking. Everything was processed somehow, someway to get the most out of the hog. We didn’t just go for the ham, bacon and sausage the real treat came the morning of the slaughter when breakfast would be hog brains and eggs, biscuits and gravy. I know you are think.. yum, yum right now.

I have often told you that we grew up poor and I have even shown you the little white house on Price Street. One night my brother Clarence and I were hungry. Dad was in the hospital for cancer treatment and Mom was with him. We both loved (still do) bread. We had this habit of making bread and eating it with butter for a snack. This particular night, we were making our bread and when we opened the bottom of the oven to get a pan a huge rat jumped out at me, he had to be at least 8 inches long. I jumped back and slammed the drawer shut and caught that rat. His head was halfway out and he was making this squeaky noise trying to get loose. We were all excited (scared at first) so I ran to get this golf club I had found at a nearby golf course. Being kids, well you can guess what that rats head was used for… it was a little messy. Afterward, we cleaned it up, made our bread and had our snack. No we didn’t eat the rat.. just in case you are wondering.

But for me, the real memories come when I think about the time I got to spend with my Mom and Dad alone on the porch eating a biscuit with tomato, or breaking beans in the summer. I will tell you this, there is never a time that I eat or make fried potatoes and onions, pinto beans, cream corn or fried okra that my mind doesn’t make a lap around those precious times. In my minds eye, I can still (40+ years later) taste the wonder of a fresh slice of tomato from the garden stuffed into a day old biscuit or crumbling cornbread into a big bowl of pinto beans and onions. I have eaten in some fine restaurants, eaten exotic foods on several continents… but there is nothing better than the simple things.