JOY ALONG THE WAY: LONGER THE DAY, DEEPER THE COLD

In the cold, deep, winter days when the rivers and creeks were frozen and icicles fringed all the roofs, there was nothing more welcome and satisfying than to step into the warm kitchen after our long walk from school.

Mama would examine our fingers, nose and toes for frostbite then huddle us in warm quilts up close to the fireplace, mugs of hot chocolate in hand. The kitchen range would be going at top speed, some of the lids red hot and the teakettle blowing a swift stream of steam into the air. Our hot chocolate may have been all cream for we had lots of cows and dairy products were no problem for us.

There would be the good aroma of ham frying, potatoes boiling and biscuits baking, plus all the other good things that buttressed us against the winter.

On Saturdays and Sundays I helped make the supper meal. This consisted mostly of being dispatched to the outside cellar to bring up needed supplies such as milk and potatoes. The milk would have already been meted out and setting in a bucket on the round table in the center of the cellar. The potatoes, which we raised by the multi-bushels, were stored in a bin behind the lower cellar door. It was dim there and I didn't linger long.

After picking out enough potatoes for supper, I would sometimes bring up a jar of canned peaches or berries in hope that someone would make a pie or cobbler.

By cold deep winter the harvested potatoes became shriveled and it was necessary to let them soak in water for a little while so that they would swell enough to be easily peeled. I did that peeling too, being careful to peel as thin as I could. Not that we were potato poor, but the old saying roundabout was that a good housewife peeled potatoes thin. Some day, I thought I might become a housewife.

Mama nor Grandma would let me slice the ham, which was kept in the cold pantry after being brought in from the smokehouse. "The knife is too sharp," they explained. But I did get to curl off the lard that was used in the biscuits or possible pie shell. I could take a big spoon, begin at one side of the five gallon lard can and bring the spoon across, letting the lard curl up before the spoon. When the big curl was all the way across, without breaking, I learned that was enough to do any supper baking that was to be done.

It was considered that I was strong enough to mash the potatoes, then beat them furiously until they looked like a miniature white cloud. A spoonful of butter always topped the center of this "cloud." "Who fixed these potatoes?" Dad would ask in a complimentary voice, helping himself to a big second serving. I would blush with pride.

I could make a good pie crust too, although somewhere along the way, I've lost my touch there. I think it is because of the lard. "Don't touch the lard. It is full of cholesterol," they say. I'm waiting for that dreary pronouncement to be reversed as so many cooking and eating habits have been. If I'm ever asked what I want for a last meal in case I've done anything grossly wicked you may be assured I'll ask for some sort of pie with the shell made of lard. I may gain a reprieve while the powers that be hunt for someone who knows how to do it.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.