CAST IRON CULINARY SCHOOL by Dawn Kyle
Donalson With all this talk of family values these days, I started
thinking about one of my prize possessions, my mother's cornbread recipe. There, on
the faded and stained index card, lies the secret to the stability of my family. My
mother could flat ass cook, a fact given testament by the big, strong kids she
raised. But she also threw in something intangible and mysterious that bound our
family together like the eggs held the cornmeal in suspension. She sifted in her
constancy. On the good days and the wretched
days, Mama held the soul of our South Texas family together with her patience and her
cooking. Those seemed to be the same thing. In some strange way, she
demonstrated her inner depth with the way she always strove for balance
and nutrition with her meals. We knew she'd offer something
wonderful to break the long, hot days. While my father worked in the chicken houses
or in the blistering milo and cotton fields, she was weaving his wild game and garden
vegetables into delicacies. Though she had been a vocalist and historian, she wasn't
down at the music or history club meetings. She was in the kitchen. The house
always smelled delectable, inviting. Elizabeth Marshall Donalson had
learned to cook on a woodstove at her aunt's house in Devine, Texas, in the late 1920's.
She said food tasted best that way. I always knew that she was a cook beyond
compare because she could cook on any stove and figure how to regulate the heat
and cooking time in her head. I thought of her
abilities recently when Steve Goodson of Lone Star Quarterly showed me his
cast iron dutch oven at our staff meeting in Llano. I mused that knowing how to cook
on a woodstove or open fire wasn't a bad skill to have in case the world as we know it
were to shift like my mother's did in family tragedy, the Great Depression and the War to
End All Wars (we hope). For now, I use my kitchen knowledge to cook healthy Earth
Mother food. I'm in a private war against processed food. I guess I show a bit of Mama's
pioneering spirit when I transform Eisenhower era recipes into ones
with natural ingredients like olive oil, sea salt and spelt flour. It is a bit of a
risk to change a recipe because baking is a chemical reaction made less predictable
with experimentation. I check the oven window a lot. Mother didn't always have an oven
window. She just knew. She'd cooked since she was 13 when the death
of her Missouri father brought her back to her mother's family in Texas. She'd
been the pampered daughter of a wealthy lawyer and banker. She became a
hardworking teenager with a knack for culinary alchemy. I think cooking
saved her. When everything else went wrong, Mama
could come forth with something perfect and beautiful and nourishing. She
created order in an imperfect world. Cooking was also a way for her to
teach certain life skills to the younger members of the family. I learned about
showing respect for someone with master level skills from her. I did the dishes
while she cooked. This ability to be someone's student has served me very well as I
studied with journalists, healers and shamans from many traditional paths. While she cooked and I scrubbed, she
told me about cooking and life. She told me why you get the cast iron
skillet hot before you put the cornbread batter in. Cornbread is a quick bread,
so ingredients need to be cold and the pan hot to cause a speedy and dramatic
reaction. I've applied this principle of opposites to writing and to romance. She'd warm to her subject while she
lifted oatmeal cookies from the baking sheet with a spatula: "Always use the
best and freshest ingredients". I can sometimes feel her in my memories as I
shop for items that once came from my father's garden. I read labels in the store,
putting back jars and boxes if the lists on the back sound like Dow Chemical. "Remember with seasonings that
you can always add, but you can't take away", she'd lecture. Sigh, I've always
been heavy handed in life. I like spice. "Don't overwork the dough!
It makes bread tough." Sigh again. I tend to overwork everything,
which is why my editor friends wait until my correcting seizures are over before
they read the final rewrite. It is a good thing my mother started my cooking
education early, when I was about 11. I think she knew my passionate but
sincere temperament would need to marinate. She believed in presentation, showing
me to use a fork to carve lovely slashes in the pie crusts. I learned from her that
little things do matter, so why not take the time to julienne the carrots? Learn when to let go and when to tend
to details. Big lesson there. And, if all efforts fail and the dish
flops, eat it anyway if possible because there's no need to waste animals or plants and
the time put into bringing them to the table. Hot sauce or vinegar help in such
moments. If extra company shows up or if the
men worked hard that day, make sure there's a staple like cornbread or biscuits to extend
the meat and vegetables so everyone leaves the table satisfied.
Collaborate. Roll with the punches. Fix your mistakes when you can. Show
generosity even in meager times. I've shared my
mother's recipes and her advice with my nieces and nephews, some of whom barely knew
her. The others were often at her table. We all were shaped by
her, even Melina, who grew up with her Greek family in San Diego and never met
Elizabeth. My mother's presence was like the
cornbread that accompanied so many of her meals. She was a quiet complimentary force
to my outgoing father and her strong willed children and grandchildren. But I always
remember that a body can make a meal out of just cornbread. In Texas, when the going gets tough,
the tough have cornbread...and maybe some beans and onions. And Texas women are the
backbone of the culture, holding us all together with the family virtues they learned
while the steam rolled and the oil sizzled. ELIZABETH'S CORNBREAD Sift together into mixing bowl: 3/4 cup yellow corn meal Add the following to dry ingredients and beat
together 1 egg Pour cornbread mixture into a hot cast iron
skillet greased with 2 tablespoons cooking oil. Cut into pie wedge pieces. Split pieces
horizontally and Milk is a good beverage to accompany
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