By Daphne D. Medina
I never realized that
a pot of pinto beans bubbling away on my stove in Spain could bring me to my
knees, barely able to breathe, sobbing on my kitchen floor. I never
realized that a loaf of buttermilk cornbread baked by my mother could rip my
heart into pieces as I cradled it in my arms on an international flight.
I never realized that two old mayonnaise jars filled with honey and
smuggled into my luggage would worry me so; what if the jars broke? What if a
TSA agent took them? My father had
given me that honey and told me the story of how he got it. He told me a story about the “Bee Man”
who collects it and sells it on the sly, far away from the prying eyes of ruinous
government food regulators. I
never realized how long and how far my family’s food and stories would follow
me, and I had never given much thought to just how all of these things together–-the
cooking, recipes, the memories of eating together, and the roller-coaster of emotions
attached to all of it–-was a sticky tangled web full of sounds and tastes and
textures and smells that continue to pull me into the bitter-sweetness that is
my family.
It has been six months
since I have tasted my mother’s cast-iron skillet cornbread. She has made
it ever since I can remember and she uses the same heavy, round skillet that
she has used for years. I think it
must be a family relic by now. When my brother and I were kids, dinner
often consisted of buttered slabs of hot cornbread alongside white beans doused
with vinegar and sprinkled with chopped onions, and stewed potatoes that were
so perfectly cooked and seasoned that even then I marveled at them. They melted in our mouths, and try and I
might, I have never been able to replicate them.
During the summers, there were always plates of thick-sliced,
blood-red tomatoes sprinkled with salt.
Usually, next to the tomatoes there would be a bowl of chunky cucumber
slices soaking in a vinegar bath.
Sometimes onion slices joined them. On those long, hot days, sitting at the kitchen table, I
could smell the lingering scent of fresh-turned garden earth and late-afternoon
sun on the vegetables. I suppose
looking back, that one might think we were poor, and that this was "poor food". “Beans
and Potatoes”, as my mother would sometimes say; but as kids, Rich and I did not know this, nor did we care.
We cleaned our plates and went for second helpings. We usually ate thirds
and fourths of that cornbread before we ran back outside to finish whatever
kid-games occupied us.
Mom’s cornbread-making
ritual is the same now as it was then; she places the heavy black pan in the
oven with some oil in it until it begins to give off those wavy tinges of hot
air, letting her know that it’s just this-side of too hot; “right before it starts
to smoke”, she says. She never measures the ingredients. Instead, she
throws seemingly random amounts of flour, cornmeal, and salt into another
family relic; a large red Tupperware bowl. She adds a cup or so of
buttermilk. When the skillet is screaming hot, she removes it from the
oven and pours a little of the hot oil from the skillet into the cornbread
batter. She has to stir it quickly
because the mixture sizzles and pops in protest. Then she pours the batter
into the skillet. This is the best
part–because it is so hot, the batter along the edges of the pan cooks almost
instantly–this gives an amazingly crunchy finish around the sides of the cooked
loaf. The finished bread is moist, slightly tart from the buttermilk,
crunchy, a little salty, and leaves just enough oily cornmeal crumbs on your
hands to make you forget good manners and lick your fingers after you eat a
piece. There is never any left over.
Six months ago, I left
Spain and flew across the Atlantic Ocean to attend my brother’s funeral. My family was lost in the void that
Rich unknowingly left behind. We
were lost in disbelief, shock, anger, regret, and the sheer uselessness of it
all. Friends’ well-meaning words of comfort fell on deaf ears. It seemed to me that
prayer was futile and God was a no-show as I watched my mother’s body shake
because her choking sobs were too great for it to do anything else. My father
stayed unusually busy and was unsure of what he was supposed to do, or say, or
feel around my mother and I.
Instead, he took on the role of being the bearer of terrible news to
those who did not yet know about my brother’s sudden passing, and he did this
many times in only a few days. He took all of the phone calls, and dealt
with insurance company questions about death certificates and life insurance
policies. His voice always
teetered on the edge of a stifled wail, purposely clipped and flat. He was distant from us and did not shed
many tears that we could see.
Then I remembered that Dad was the last one, the only one, to see my brother at
the hospital. The only one to identify his broken body, to hold
his hand, and say a final goodbye. I
know the memory of that must be a heavy one to bear.
During those first
dark days we were grasping for anything that seemed solid and familiar.
Like many Southern families, much of what was solid and familiar was
traditional Southern-fare that we grew up with; buttermilk cornbread, a pot of beans,
vanilla pound cake, Chess pie, fried chicken, mounds of pulled-pork, and sweet iced
tea. A neighbor brought over a coffee cake. It was not good and did not get eaten but no one was willing
to throw it out because she meant well.
Besides, it would have been disrespectful to do so. My mother made a giant
sour-cream cheesecake that was wonderfully tart and surprisingly light. She made the graham-cracker crust
herself, and added just enough cinnamon and salted butter to dance on your
tongue.
For some reason, on one of
those days, she decided to cook us breakfast. She said that she had woke up early, but I knew it was because
she hadn’t slept at all. I worried
about her and thought that she shouldn’t be cooking for us, but I then I
remembered that like most women in my family, cooking has always been a way to
occupy the mind, to soothe a troubled soul, and to find the tiniest sliver of
relief from a broken heart.
That morning, my husband and I awoke to a table
laden with plates of fluffy buttermilk biscuits, jars of golden-orange colored honey,
thick blackberry jam so dark that it was more “black” than “berry”, fried sausages, crispy, fatty bacon, and giant sunny-side up eggs with Van
Gogh-yellow centers. Mom sat at the breakfast table with us and cradled a
cup of coffee with both hands. She barely
touched the single buttered biscuit that lay on her plate. She made
attempts at normal conversation. In
that moment, sitting there in her bleached-white pajamas, looking more than a
little lost, she seemed to disappear. She did not eat. Her biscuit turned cold and the butter
hardened. She gave it to one of
the dogs. There was something vacant; and I understood then that a part of her had died with her son.
A week after the
funeral, and the day before I had to leave my parents’ home to go back to
Spain, I stood in my mother’s kitchen and watched her make cornbread. She
measured the ingredients as she went so that I could write them down. She
chided me and told me that she would expect me to make my own cornbread from
now on, without having to call her for the recipe as I have done every year for
the last dozen or so years. That
day, however, as I watched and scrawled my notes onto a paper napkin, I
understood that that moment was about more than simply the exchange of a
recipe. It was a gift from a mother to a daughter. It was my mother
passing something on to me that will live on in our family as long as there is
someone to place cornmeal and flour and salt into a bowl. It was about
keeping something alive and not losing it. We had already lost so much.
We made three batches that
day and when they were finished baking we wrapped two of them in many layers of
Saran wrap. I would carry those two back to Spain with me, cradled gently
in my carry-on bag, checking every couple of hours to make sure they hadn’t
been crushed. The third batch was devoured for dinner that night as we talked
about my brother. We smiled as we
remembered how much he had always loved my mom’s food, especially her
cornbread, but soon enough we grew quiet at the sobering reminder of an empty
chair at the table, and the thoughts of what difficulties were ahead for all of
us. After dinner my dad gave me two old jars full of newly harvested
honey from someone he called the “Bee Man”. Before I tasted that honey it
wasn’t always clear to me what people meant when they said they could “taste
the land” in something. Now I know what they mean. It was as if flowers
and sunsets had been captured and put into those jars. It is the best
honey I have ever tasted. I wrapped the jars in newspapers and clothes
and placed them in my luggage. I prayed they would not break or be stolen
during the journey. Those honey jars,
the cornbread, and the napkin with the recipe written on it became precious
cargo to me. They were part of a life that I was desperate to hang on to.
A life that I had never fully cherished until a piece of it had been ripped
away.
For me, some days
Rich’s death feels just like a paper cut; it lies there, quiet until you slice
into a fat lemon and its juices find their way into your severed flesh. Suddenly,
from where there was no pain, every nerve is alive and you are screaming in
agony. A cruel reminder that you are not whole. There is a piece of you that is
cut into, and out. Sometimes it’s that
pot of beans on the stove that is my “lemon”, and at other times it’s an old
photo, or even a smell. Every
holiday, every birthday, every visit home will be forever marked by my
brother’s absence. It is my hope,
however feeble, that over time those stories and those meals will help us to heal,
if only a little. It is my hope that they will help us to smile when we think
of my brother, instead of cry. And
while it may seem to others like an odd thing, this carrying on about some old
family recipe like cornbread, I like to think that it helps us to remember each
other, to remember where we come from, and above all, to remember my brother.
Mom’s
Cornbread:
1 1/4 cup Self-Rising Cornmeal Mix (she
uses Martha White brand)
1/4 cup self-rising flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Buttermilk (about a 3/4 to 1 cup–but
enough to get the batter to a pancake-like consistency).
4 Tbs. neutral oil such as canola
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the oil
into your skillet (should be cast-iron or another type that is oven safe!).
Let the skillet heat in the oven until right before it starts to get smoky.
You must watch for this stage carefully–you don’t want it to actually smoke-you
will see heat waves coming off the pan.
While the pan is heating up, mix all
remaining ingredients in a bowl. Add more buttermilk if necessary and
stir until just combined. Don’t over stir it or your cornbread will be
tough.
When the pan is hot, remove it from the
oven. Pour a little of the hot oil into your batter. It will sizzle
a bit. STIR.
Pour batter into the hot pan. Do not be
alarmed by the sizzling and popping. Place the pan back into the oven and bake
for about 25 minutes or until the top of the cornbread is golden brown.
Let it sit for about 5 minutes before you cut it.
