For most of my life I called onions, “ungyons”. It’s a hillbilly word I think. Picked it up from my Ohio kin who came from West Virginia. This hereditary influence is also why I like my green beans cooked until they are “wilted”. That means at least an hour and a half. When we cook green beans, we cook a “mess” of beans. And believe you me when they are done cooking, they do look a mess. Now they still keep their shape mind, so don’t go imagining some lump of green biomass. But they taste wonderful. Mellow and deep flavored. Yummy.
Oh, I’ll eat them cooked other ways now that I’m older, but don’t give me some confused green bean that has been dunked in hot water for a minute and call that food. Either serve them raw, or cook ‘em, make up your mind.
Another hillbilly food is corn meal mush. I make mine immediately into Johnny cakes. Just slap spoonfuls of thick hot mush onto an oiled iron skillet and fry them till they’re golden brown and eat them with honey.
Oh my!
You can have visions of glory eating Johnny cakes. Oh my yes, the gates of heaven will open for you.
My mother always used to make beans and cornbread at least once a month when I was growing up. Now she liked pintos and my dad liked navy beans, so she would alternate back and forth. I never used to like beans much until I ate them at the school cafeteria.
Rose White made the best beans I ever ate. (Sorry Mom). And when we had beans, Rose would also make whole wheat rolls to go with them. I still remember that wonderful smell of baking bread wafting down the halls at 11:30 in the morning on Wednesdays. Ahhhh, is it lunch time yet? I don’t CARE about the First World War, or equilateral triangles, or diagramming sentences, I want hot rolls and beans thank you very much!
Food. What IS it about food? Besides the fact that it keeps you alive?
Shoot if all you wanted to do was stay alive you could eat gruel with vitamins in it, like those poor souls in the movie “Matrix”. But no, God gave us Johnny cakes and green beans and whole wheat rolls (not to mention chollent* with a little spoon or two of kishka) so we could have visions of heaven right here on earth. Wasn’t He kind to do that for us? He didn’t have to you know…We could have been like Pandas, and be sitting around eating bamboo all the live long day. (hmm….maybe if you cooked it for an hour and a half?. . . . . .nah.)
What’s for dinner at your house ?
*See entry for January 25,2003
PS Isn’t it just typical for me to be daydreaming about whole wheat rolls when they are definitely out of the question right now ?