iBelin

The best days of my life were summers when my grandmother would come to visit from Baton Rouge for long periods of time. My cousins Connie and Karlean would come too. When I was very young they would come on the bus. I would always look for the hatbox in my grandmother’s hand because that was a sure sign she had brought a cake with her. Somehow she had rigged the box so the cake wouldn’t move. Around the cake sometimes would be teacakes or pecan cookies that had the texture of a dense cake and were browned just on the edges where there was a slight buttery crunch.

I was always surrounded by family in Summer when my grandmother visited. Stories and laughter were always a-plenty. Connie and Karlean, 10 years older than us, would tell stories about high school friends. Grandmama would tell stories about how she met and came to marry “Rev. Belin” (which is what she always called my grandfather who was 30 years her senior) after the love of her life, Ellis Pressley, died leaving her alone with my Aunt Mae Ellis. My father would tell us how he began to work in the 1930′s at age 7 or 8 on the back of an ice truck (much of this, I suspect, was to emphasize how, comparatively, we were living on “flowery beds of ease”) and was kicked off once while the truck was in motion by the evil “white man.” My mother often demurred from telling stories unless prompted by a direct question, but when she started, her eyes glistened while she talked about listening to her “Poppa” (which she called her grandfather) tell them stories from his rocker by the wood stove. Henry, Toni and I shared stories on various subjects too, but we were (and still are) at our best with bathroom humor, to Grandmama’s dismay.

The best family time seemed to always be spent in the kitchen. It was here the stories were told. I still see the pictures I created in my imagination of what Poppa’s “front room” must have looked like and the street where Grandmama was standing when she asked, “what’s old Rev. Belin looking at me for?” and my father as a little boy crying and hurt as he lay in the street behind the ice truck while the evil “white man” laughed. These pictures come back when smell greens cooking. Every time I hear the cornbread sizzle as it hits the grease heated to “smokin’” in the oven in a black skillet I am transported to another place in time. When I stew tomatoes down with way too much sugar to go along side my breakfast, I bring a wonderful time in my life into my present.

Last night, I cooked a pot of soup: stew beef with vegetables. I hoped and prayed I remembered how to do it like Mama does. It took the better part of the evening waiting on the beef to get tender. But later, when it had simmered long enough, I began to smell a familiar smell that signaled that the soup was done. Then, I heard my mother’s voice in my head say, “it’s time to make the bread.” And so I did.

Here’s how I made the soup (don’t ask for amounts, you just have to pray as you go):

Beef Vegetable Soup

Cornbread

• Put your oven on 400
• Pour your oil into a black skillet and put it in the oven until the oil is smoking
• Get some self-rising white cornmeal
• Add an egg
• Add some oil. Add some more.
• Add enough buttermilk to make it like pancake batter
• Open the oven, pull the rack toward you and pour the batter in the hot smokin’ grease. If it doesn’t sizzle, you screwed up and I wouldn’t eat that.
• Close the oven door and cook until the bread is good and brown. Don’t nobody want no high yella bread!
• When you take it out, we professionals just flip the bread into our hands and back into the skillet, those with tender hands flip onto a plate. This is so you can have that magical crunch of the edge of the bread. If you don’t flip it, it will get soggy.
• Slice it in wedges and eat it down off in your soup.

Be sure to come back on this page and thank me when you make this ’cause this is perfect for this time of year.






Posted on: October 16th, 2009 in: family, recipes, storytelling