JOY ALONG THE WAY: SQUASH OR HOT CUCUMBERS? IT WAS GOOD

My neighbor, Mr. B., on his early morning walk, picks up my newspaper and puts it at the doorway. Quite often there is a little cellophane bag full of fresh garden produce accompanying it. So it was, recently, I picked up a bag, peered inside and said to myself, "Oh, new baby squash."

Later in the day I withdrew two of the squash, washed, dried, sliced and put them on to stew with salt, pepper, butter and thin slice of onion, marveling only a little at the crispness of the squash.

At lunch they were ready. Cornbread, a tomato from my big front-porch vine, deviled eggs and a mug of buttermilk completed the meal.

A few days later I saw Mr. B and told him about my mess of squash and how I had enjoyed it. "Squash?" he questioned. "I thought they were cucumbers."

There was a moment of silence as we both were trying to process someone's mistake. "Well, whatever, they were good," I said, to break the moment.

I hurried to the refrigerator to inspect the two remaining squash (?). I sliced one open, smelled it and ate a slice. They were cucumbers! Oh, my, an old farm girl making such a gross mistake!

Nevertheless, I still say the hot cucumbers weren't bad. Squash doesn't have a lot of flavor anyway, and mixed with buttered cornbread, tomato, egg and buttermilk, mistaken identification is quite possible.

This summertime food sets me to thinking of old farm noontime dinners. Early in the morning I was sent to the sweet corn patch with a two-gallon bucket into which went about 12 ears of corn. After taking them home I took the bucket to gather June apples, enough for seven people, then to the garden for suitable amounts of big, red, ripe tomatoes, along with green beans and a couple of large white onions. Such food! Fried country-cured ham was a given. I wonder what it would cost today at the grocery store or Farmer's Market. To me it seemed free for the gathering, although I'd helped water the growing tomato seedlings and later helped plant them, along with onion sets, and hoed endless rows of corn as it began to grow.

Added to the goodness of this food was the fact that all seven of us were in our familiar places around the table, ready to discuss the morning's happenings.

I try to copy that old menu and have it down pretty well. One thing bothered me for a long time. I couldn't duplicate that turned-in crust around the edges of the cornbread. Mama's cornbread always had this toasted, mealy crust all around the pan and to get a corner piece was a prize.

I asked a longtime friend if she remembered how this was accomplished. No help there. Finally I stumbled onto it. I can hear good cooks saying, "What took you so long?" I sprinkled a generous amount of cornmeal around the edges of the hot skillet and poured in the batter. Almost immediately this outer edge responded, rising up above the rest of the batter and curling inward, well coated with toasted cornmeal.

Any leftover cornbread in those early days went to the hounds, save for a piece or two since dad liked to crumble up cornbread into buttermilk for an after-supper-before-bedtime snack. I like that too, especially if there are some pieces with a toasted cornmeal crust.

REJOICE!

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