Christmas and Cooking Favorite Foods

What a busy time for all of us, holiday time, when we try to get together with all our friends, shop for everyone until pretty soon we are overwhelmed with too much to do.

I used to have writer friends over at Christmas, but this year I have run out of time. From now until I leave to be with my family, every waking hour is completely filled. 

I do look forward to our Christmas luncheon on Wednesday at Coffee with the Poets and Writers. We will have Open Mic and many of us can share our writing. We will bring food and it will be a great spread,I'm sure. 

Tomorrow, I will prepare my dishes for the luncheon. 
Tonight I found myself perusing old cookbooks, many of them fifty years old, and recipes I began collecting when I was a young wife. Among the pages of stained and worn covers were clippings from The Albany Herald newspaper with names of local people who shared their family favorites. 

Our local EMC newsletter contained a section for good southern recipes by south Georgia members. Many fine cooks lived in our rural community, and the recipes were all made "from scratch." 

Although I enjoyed reading cookbooks and often used the recipes, I did not cook as much as those who had children to feed every day. Barry was not a big eater and, unlike other men, he never asked what we were having for dinner or when we were going to eat. I was brought up to believe that my job, as a wife, was to make a well-balanced meal for us, with a meat, vegetables, potato and bread. He would have been just as happy with a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk.

Lois Robison Council

My role model was my mother who was an excellent cook, but she had plenty of practice. From the time she married at eighteen, she cooked for her husband. I imagine she learned from my grandmother. As our family grew, Mother cooked three big meals every day. 

I watched her make biscuits, amazed at how fast she could pinch off a piece of dough, roll it around in her palm for a few seconds, and toss it on a pan with each one lining up, touching, so they would rise to perfection in the hot oven. She used self-rising flour, buttermilk, and Crisco shortening, so simple, but so, so delicious when eaten with gravy, jelly, eggs or whatever was on the table. In summer I couldn't wait to break open a large biscuit, slather it with mayonnaise, and place a slice of fresh garden-grown tomato inside. That was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. I can taste it right now!

I tried to learn from watching Mother, and at one time I could make them pretty well, but the buttermilk I buy today is not the same and neither is the shortening. The best shortening for making biscuits was lard, but that was before animal fat got such a bad rap from all the health police.

It's good, I think, that I don't make biscuits because, like my mother, I would make them every day and eat more than I should. My sisters, brothers and I could each eat two or three during a meal. 

Do you have any recipes that were passed down from your mother or grandmother that you still use today? 
Do you remember any particular dishes cooked at your home that you miss having today?