Food used to be just ordinary, to me, a way of filling the belly, of eliminating hunger, of measuring the distance in a day, even, but now that I am older I realize that food is a way of communing with other people, and with the past. Ever since I heard the word "foodie" years ago I realized that it described me, but as I ponder it more I realize food is a powerful way to connect generations.
After my father died in 1996 I wrote about him a lot, trying to process my feelings. One of my poems talked about memories of him frying fish that tasted "of Crisco and pond," which I thought was pretty clever. (I have no idea where that poem is right now, nor does it matter.)
When I was small -- under 5 years old, I'm sure -- Dad taught me and my brother how to fish. We used cane poles and baited the hook with fat worms we bought from country stores that kept them in styrofoam cups filled with dirt, stored in old refrigerators. Then we would stand on the pond bank or the dock and drop in the line and watch the cork float on the surface. When the cork bobbed, a fish had the worm.
It was simple, but it taught me a lot about patience. You can't rush fishing. I sure wanted to.
After the fishing was over, I learned how to hold the wriggling fish without danger, then behead the fish, gut it and scale it and wash it off, because we always ate any fish big enough to be more than a bite or two. Mom would make up a cornmeal batter and the fish would be battered and fried in melted Crisco. At the table, Dad would proceed to peel the meat off the bones for me so there was no danger of me choking on a bone. He was very good at it.
I have fixed a lot of fish in my life but no fish has ever tasted as good as the fish I caught, cleaned, and Mom and Dad cooked.
As an adult, looking back, I realized only much later that Dad was continuing a tradition taught to him by his father.
My grandfather was born in Cordele, Georgia, in 1888. He was the oldest of a number of siblings and his father was a farmer who died when he was 12. There was no life insurance. Grandaddy had to go to work to support his mother and the kids, and he did it. He never graduated high school, but he kept the family together. He loved to fish.
I never knew my grandfather, but my skill at fishing was most likely from him, through Dad.
The photo above was made when Grandaddy was old, towards the end of his life, but he was proud of that fish.
Side story: When I was in my 40's I worked briefly for a sole practitioner, an attorney who let me be the office manager, paralegal, secretary, marketing manager, etc. A client came in one day and I sat in on the initial meeting. He was an old country fella, and he proudly showed us a photo on his phone of himself holding a fish. "That's a big mouth bass. Nice," I said. "Did you use bait or a lure?" He grinned at me, pleased. My boss was astonished. Later, the boss said "How did you know that?" I chuckled. "I was raised by a dad who loved fishing. I've caught bass, bream, bluegill, catfish. I could catch and clean them before I was 5 years old." He just stared at me like I was an alien. He was from New York City and I'm sure he had never fished in his life.
I was proud of my fishing knowledge.
My father worked a lot when I was growing up, and there were days when he left before breakfast and didn't get home until after I was in bed. However, on weekends he became our chief caregiver and Bruce and I learned a lot from him.
Dad always made breakfast on the weekends. Usually he fixed sausage patties and made a huge omelet. Years later we referred to them as leathery. They were cooked to that consistency, and often had other ingredients -- cheese, crumbled bacon, perhaps onions and/or green peppers. Nobody liked those omelets but we ate them because we didn't want to hurt Dad's feelings.
Skip ahead to a time when I am in my early twenties and Mom and Dad and I attend a fancy brunch at a restaurant and I watch a real chef make an omelet. This was long before Food Network showed us how real chefs cook. I was astonished to see an omelet cooked over a high heat on a special pan, and plated when it was still fluffy and soft. That was not my dad's omelet. I tried one. It was delicious.
Funny thing is, I felt a bit disloyal, loving that delicious omelet. I now make the same kind of omelets, completely unlike Dad's leathery creations.
I can't travel back in time to be that barefoot kid catching and cleaning fish. The old formica table at the lake cabin is gone. The cabin may or may not be there, at the end of a gravel road, on Douglas Lake. Surely the old wooden dock -- decrepit when we bought the cabin in 1972 -- is gone.
My memories of the cabin are clear, though. It was a place where we connected as a family, and Dad always said those weekends at the lake were the happiest times of his life.
Every once in a while I pick up dinner for myself and Mother from Captain D's. They offer a country style fried fish option, a filet of fish fried in cornmeal batter. I never get it. It would not be the same as the fish from my childhood. I always think of Dad when I eat fish, though.
above, me and Bruce at Douglas Lake
