Nothing like a home-cooked meal
This week I received a package from my sister in Georgia. The package contained a few items left in my dad’s apartment after he died. Each item held a special place in my memory, as all of them were items he had saved or were a part of what represented his life.
One of the items she sent was a photo album that contained pictures from 1972, when I married my first husband. A picture of my childhood best friend, Candy, was in that album. In the picture, she was an adult, but the sight of her in that picture brought back some memories of us as children in the small town in Florida where we grew up.
Flooding into my memory were some special times we had together, but my thoughts traveled to how different things are now, as opposed to the times of the 1950s and early 1960s. Children played outside in the yard, and in other people’s yards. We stayed in the neighborhood, and just had to be home by supper time.
Suppertime, also known as dinner time in some families, was about the same time every evening. All the children went home to eat supper with their families, and I don’t remember anyone ever saying they were headed to McDonald’s, Round Table or Taco Bell to eat. Of course, those places weren’t around in the town where I lived, but we did have Emmett’s Drive-in, which was an A&W Root Beer hamburger joint. (If you watched the movie, American Graffiti, the Drive-in place was like Emmett’s.)
Going home to eat supper meant we would be eating a home-cooked meal. It might be fried chicken, or roast beef, with rice or potatoes, maybe some corn, or turnip greens. My mother liked to make corn bread or biscuits, so almost every meal had one of those two breads. She also always had some sort of dessert, like cake or pie. We didn’t drink sodas with our meals. We drank milk. Even iced tea was not always available for us kids. My parents both drank coffee, but they never allowed us to have coffee. It wasn’t good for children, so we never had it.
I don’t think anyone did a lot of overeating. We had servings that were appropriate for our needs, and we didn’t have a lot of extra food at our table that wouldn’t be eaten. Occasionally we had some leftovers, which was fine for us. We were used to eating leftovers.
So, when our family gathered together for our evening meal, we sat down, thanked God for our food and our many blessings, and we enjoyed a home-cooked meal. When the meal was over, we cleared the table. Each night, one of the kids took a turn to wash dishes. It was a routine.
Eating out was not an option for us, so we didn’t even miss the excitement of going to a fast-food place or a kid’s activity eating place, like children have today. Kids today have all kinds of eating places and parks that provide adventure as well as foods, but along with these great times come some pretty bad eating habits, for which many children suffer later with medical conditions.
Yes, there is nothing like a home-cooked meal that provides good nourishment and healthy digestion. I would have to say that I miss those times with my family as we sat around the dinner table, eating my mother’s home-cooked meals, and we as a family talked about what we did today at school or at play. That alone is a good memory.
— My love to all,
Nancy
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And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
— Deuteronomy 8:10
