Cut from the same cloth

In times of economic crisis, I take solace in simple things, like my browsing through some of my favorite cookbooks. Food has that inherint ability to comfort, even if your just reading about it. Especially when you stumble upon an old gem like the Holy Trinity Parish cookbook compliled by the good women of Luxemburg, Iowa.

This spiral-bound compilation is one that survived the many moves that eventually brought me to Alabama. And in it, is a treasure of honest, farm-house recipes that no nothing of cornbread or okra. What you will find sandwhiched between the hand-drawn Smurf dividers (those little blue guys were all the rage when this book hit the presses) are clues to a time gone by, when LaCreme gave Cool Whip a serious run for their money, Jello was the miracle dessert, and women still had the grit to prepare steaming pots of sauerkraut they would tend to for weeks before they were ready to be stored for the year, pork blood sausage, and my personal favorite: Tripe. The first ingredient: two pig heads. The first sentence in the directions: Cook heads until done. You are thinking--how creepy. I'm thinking, wow...what a woman.

I'd like to think I'm cut from the same cloth. Able to prepare a meal for my family no matter what the pantry presents. These ladies didn't bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. Many of them; however, did kill the bacon and eventually manage to get the thing into the pan. They came from a time when housemaking was still considered honorable, even desirable. I long for that. If we had never been fed the lies that motherhood was a bore compared to the exciting world of corporate manuevering, I like to think I could be proud of who I am--a mommy and a wife. But I grew up listening to songs like "My Mom's a Feminist"--no joke. My mom actually brought me back a vinyl 45 featuring this song from a NOW rally she attended in the organization's heydey. I thought stay-at-home moms were repressed and unfulfilled. I wish I would have known some of the ladies who wrote the cookbook that I now consider my recipe bible.

They were not ashamed of the thread-bare aprons they wore day in and day out or their work-worn hands. Their recipes speak volumes about their confidence in the kitchen. They assume that those reading their recipes will know the difference between a dash and a pinch, how to use a cookie press without providing detailed instructions, and that you just ought to know how many apples you'll need to can 7-quart jars. Could they even imagine a time, when most of their treasured knowledge would be lost or buried under by years and years of disuse?

I like to think that perhaps the economic depression sure to come will help return homemaking to its rightful place--an honored and terribly neccessary profession.