Years ago, my mother repeated an urban legend about newlyweds. The husband and wife were in the kitchen putting together a meal when he asked, “Why do you always cut an end off the roast before you cook it?”
She thought for a minute and said, “I don’t know. My mother always did it.”
This prompted a call to her mother and the same question.
“I have no idea,” she said. “My mother always did it, so I did it, too.”
Of course, it was time to call Grandma, who laughed and said, “I don’t know why you do it, but a large family called for a large roast. My pan was too small for it to lay flat, so I cut the roast into two pieces.”
We cackled over that story because we knew that even if it was fabricated, there was a kernel of truth in it. There are probably countless things we do without knowing why–we’re just emulating our role models.
Of all the houses my family lived in, and all the holidays we celebrated together, there is one tradition that I still keep. For some reason, before we sit down at a full table with friends and family for any celebration, I feel compelled to take a photo of the table. Sometimes there are people in the photo; sometimes not. But I’m pretty sure there’s not a turkey that ever hit the table (or a ham that hit the floor, Guinness) that didn’t get its Kodak moment. My mother always said she wanted to “make memories” for us, but I also think that a child who’d known poverty and a newlywed who’d known hunger probably came to see a full table as a victory and something to celebrate in and of itself.
This is probably Thanksgiving in Georgia when I was seven; I’m taking my cue from there being only four plates on the table, so possibly my father was in Korea. That china is long gone–Debby knows where!–but I still have some of the crystal stemware you can see on the china cabinet (and of course, still have the china cabinet in my own dining room). The menu: turkey and cornbread dressing, peas and potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, turnip greens, cranberry sauce, pecan pie (I am not a pie eater), and what looks like carrot cake or some kind of spice cake–which I do NOT eat and never would again after throwing up school cafeteria spice cake in first grade.
Edit: My brother David recognized the dining room in this photo as different from the one above. Same table and chairs, but not the same state and city–and I’d have been much younger in that second photo than when the top one was taken. My parents are getting ready for a Christmas party. The table is arranged so that people can move around it getting cookies and egg nog which Daddy is ladling into a cup for the picture. Beyond him is the living room with the tree and presents and the ALL IMPORTANT TV (at least to my siblings, if you recall this post). I’m fine with those cookies and fruit, but that appears to be a coconut cake, Debby’s favorite, at the far end of the table.
There it is: photographic proof that my favorite dessert in the world, chocolate cake, or at least yellow cake with chocolate frosting, is NOWHERE to be seen on two different important holidays. Nobody needs to be telling me the baby was “the favorite” anymore.
Still, the baby will continue to take photos of our repasts “just like Mother” did, because I like making memories with the people I love, too. There will be chocolate cake.
Taking pictures of the family table, holiday or otherwise, must be a generational thing. My father, born 1910, did the same as your mother. I have untold years of photographic proof of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthday, and any other special day feasts in my collection. He would even take a picture of his breakfast plate, like the time I gave him a fresh duck egg from a friend’s farm. The reasons behind his picture taking were very similar to what you think were your mother’s. And, yes, I picked up where he left off. (It’s also fun to see how tables and food have evolved through the years.)
And now with Instagram filters, a whole new generation can not only photograph their feasts, but make their pictures look as yellowed and fuzzy as ours are by accident and age. Ha!
I know we took pictures of all the family holiday dinners. I just can’t find them anywhere.
I wonder what happened to them? Did your mother ever purge the photos? Because I’ve purged a lot of my photos of places. Because is there really a reason for two dozen poor-quality shots of a desert scene from a car window?
My biodad’s favorite cake was chocolate cake … he lived with his mother and the only real food they had was the food they grew in her garden. She was divorced and my Papa was fighting to get the kids and didn’t pass on the bucks … so on the weekends they would go and visit him and his new wife … and have the best dinners and go back to turnips during the week. It was a really bad situation. Anyway, the first time he had chocolate cake was at another boy’s birthday party and he thought it was the best thing he had ever tasted…
And what did I inherit from my Dad? As much as I love bananas, I don’t eat the end, because it will give me polio.
bananas, I don’t eat the end, because it will give me polio
I’ve never heard that superstition. I can only eat half a banana before the texture and taste make me start gagging. Fortunately, Tom and Tim are willing to half them with me.
Oh yes, it was a very popular belief when polio was spreading in the 40’s and 50’s.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=19490806&id=ta0fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-9YEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5960,4343579
I’m never going to be able to stop looking at all the OTHER things on that link. Rat terrier puppies–$2. Mrs. Anna Yeargeans had hot fat spilled on her while cooking and had to go to the hospital! Eight-room brick house on large lot with garage: $5500.
I know, perhaps that is one of those “periodic ” female weakness things that could be cured by Lydia E Pinkham’s vegetable compound. Page 14 are the wedding announcements … such details!
i love that the carrot/spice cake has NOT been saved for after dinner!!!
Through no fault of mine, I can assure you!
The family table photo thing makes perfect sense.
But the roast story reminded me of llama dung. Engineers like to remember that in WWII great effort was spent trying to get the dung past U-boat barricades. Specifications required all leather be treated with llama dung. What everyone forgot was why. New saddles quickly made would spook the horses, and llama dung fixed that. The solution had outlived the problem.
I did not know this tale. Wacky engineers.