Saturday Thoughts...Memories and Food

 As I was frying potatoes recently I thought of how many of the special Memories we have are brought back by Food. When I fix something it often brings back Memories of family and friends. Something simple like strawberry jam and I am back in our kitchen when I was young helping Mom make strawberry jam in the heat and how much fun we had. Onion sandwiches were a favorite of my Dad’s and we both liked them and radishes from the garden. I see them in the store or at a Farmer’s Market and I am young again in the long hot summers of my childhood.

 Special Events are remembered with the food served. The church suppers always had at least one chocolate cake with white boiled icing. Once a year they did a fund raising supper and my Memory of it is the tart shells filled with creamed chicken which were usually gone before I got to them in the line.

 Popcorn was always a large part of events when I was growing up, popping corn to sell at the school football games, going to the movies and buying a box of popcorn maybe with butter, evenings and weekends playing cards or games with our parents and friends and always having popcorn. Walking the streets on Thursday nights when the stores were open and buying popcorn from the stand in the same block as the theatre. So good and you could smell it all over town. Oh, to be young again and have that long summer of my youth and teen years to look forward to.

Fried fish takes me back to the Saturdays we spent with Dad and Mom fishing in the river and then we would fry some of them over a fire on the sandbar and eat the fish and the picnic lunch that Mom had packed along. 

 I remember the first time I went to Minneapolis without my parents  because our Aunt took us out to eat and I had Chinese food at what became a favorite place to eat. When I was older and going to the State Basketball tournaments it will always be eating White Castle Hamburgers. 

  Food is such an importance part of our lives and hopefully the younger generations are making Memories with their meals also.