Umami

For some strange reason we’ve watched some cooking shows lately. Maybe because our boxer, Harley seems to enjoy them.

They throw around a lot of terms like umami. The only thing like that in my culinary education was my Mommy.

There were only two or three things I saw her use a recipe for. Her cooking was down home country with a couple of fancier dishes thrown in.

It was years before we had tacos at home and besides the hardshell tortilla, had burger, lettuce, tomato, and maybe some onion. No hot sauce other than tobasco and no peppers.

My older sister showed her how to make what she called enchiladas. They were basically tortillas, burger, canned chili, and cheese. Not a true enchilada but good and filling.

She was known for things like her pies and gravies. People would ask her secret for gravy and it was always it’s the drippings. I still hold to that theory. Of course if the drippings weren’t up to snuff there was always her hidden bottle of kitchen bouquet.

Mom could make almost anything taste good. She fried some eggplant one time at the urging of a co worker. She disliked it so much that years later she denied any memories of cooking it. Of course I reminded her several times.

The amount and variety of cookies and candies she made along with her pies on the holidays was spectacular. Her motto seemed to be no one goes away hungry.

I think she felt a little pride when one or the other of her kids put on a feed and invited her. I was looking at her favorite large cookspoon the other day. It looks to have once been silver plated but is mostly scratched up from years of use and washings. The amount of milk gravy and such that handled over the years would be staggering.

Miss her dearly. So here goes food network, I’ll take my Mommy over umami any day!

Strange subject but bye for now.

• Mom