Food

Our cellar, a few years ago. 

We are overloaded with food these days. The gardens are  beyond productive, and today will be spent in the kitchen putting up tomatoes, peppers, squash, onions, and if there is time, yet more pickles.

All of this bounty got me thinking about my childhood and also about my husband's childhood. Was food as plentiful for us when we were children at home? I put the question to Larry.

"Did you ever in your life has as much food as we have now?"

"Never," he replied.

"What was it like when you were a kid? Were there times when the next meal was in doubt?"

He thought about that, and then said yes, there was a day he recalled when they ate their dinner, but wondered, "Well, what are we going to do tomorrow for food?" He thought his mother must have borrowed some money from his grandfather to tide them over.

Food was not abundant in his childhood. They had enough, usually, but not like we have today with a cellar, freezer, and cupboards full of goodness. Sometimes they got commodities from the government, those staple foods that were packaged in very plain packages and distributed at some central distribution spot, usually once a month to those in need. Larry remembered people going to pick up their food with wheelbarrows, wagons or whatever they could wheel away. The coal camps had many boom and bust periods, so there were times when miners and their families got pretty hard up. Then there were strikes, and other times when a man was injured and the paychecks stopped--because there was no disability check or insurance back in those times.

Some people grew gardens, others had cows, chickens and/or pigs, and men also went hunting but in the mid-1950's there were no deer as they had been hunted out during the Depression, so small game was all that was available. Fishing was another source of food, and some people knew what wild plants and mushrooms were edible. Still, even with all of their efforts, food was  never something taken for granted.

My childhood was different. I grew up in a small town, surrounded by neighbors in a genteel middle-class neighborhood. We were not so genteel with 13 children, and bumped the bottom of middle-class pretty hard. But food was not scarce usually. I do recall one week when Mom was very worried about what we would eat, and one afternoon I remember her crying because she had nothing to make for dinner. All of us were hunting the house over for any change we could find, searching in pockets and drawers and in the copper mugs that stood on each end of the mantels. (I still have those mugs and think of that desperate day every time I look at them.) We managed to scrounge up enough to buy a loaf of bread, and I believe Mom borrowed a dozen eggs from a neighbor, so that was dinner. I don't remember what happened the next day. Maybe it was payday.

But other than that one time, there was always food. There were jars of canned food in the pantry, a huge chest freezer full, and a cabinet in the kitchen filled with spices and other cooking necessities as well as some shelves with bread, cereal, and other dry foods. We grew a garden in the summer, there was an herb garden in the front yard, fruit trees and grape vines all around the house. Mrs. Earhart brought 12 dozen eggs every week, and in the fall she'd bring scrapple, sausage and other pork if Mom could afford it. The neighbors had fruit too, and often shared it with us, and Mr. Lonas always shared a bottle of his homemade grape wine ("juice," he'd label it, and wink when he handed it to Mom). We picked blackberries every summer in the vacant lot at the end of the street, big canner-pots full of them for cobblers and jams.

I don't think I realized back then that I should have been grateful for the security of knowing there would be food on the table. Not that we could eat all we wanted; Mom kind of rationed it in a way. We knew not to ask for seconds unless it was offered. At dinnertime, Mom measured out our portions onto our plates as we stood in line. There were few sweets to be had, and pop and chips were a rare treat. But we ate well.

I didn't know back in those days about coal camps and Appalachia, and only vaguely knew about poor people. These weren't part of my reality.  While we weren't poor, we did not have nearly as much as other families in our area. We had no extended family close by, and even if we did my father would not have asked for help unless desperate. He also would not allow Mom to get commodities even though we certainly qualified. She did get them though--the lady who ran the distributions sometimes came by afterward with a trunkful for us, and Mom must have hidden them somehow from Dad.

When I hear Larry's stories, I realize how blessed I was. But even though times were often hard he never thought of his family as poor. In fact, they often had more than their neighbors because his family was small compared to most--four children as opposed to eight or ten or more like many families in the coal camp. He also had extended family in the camp, so even if rations were short at home, there were aunts and uncles and grandparents and older cousns who were good for a meal or even an extended stay.

Such different upbringings, and yet here we are today, doing pretty much what my parents did, stocking up and putting food by. It's hard work for sure, and the rewards are not something I can count in dollars. But then, dollars can't give the same satisfaction as looking in the cellar and seeing those rows of shining jars.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.