Faded Paper

 

 

A couple of days before Thanksgiving I joined several thousand people for the Feast of Thanksgiving. We all set side by side in a giant events center and ate a Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and dressing with all the trimmings. The food was good but it was just not the same as the food I share with my family on Thanksgiving day.
Ever one has several cook books but those hand writer recipes that my Mother stuck between the pages of her cook books have long since faded. Mother was a great cook in the southern tradition. Every Thanksgiving she made cornbread dressing that was best eaten with a spoon. No matter where I am when I eat dressing that dish always takes me back home. When I see it on my plate I feel as though my family is setting next to me but it never taste the same or is as special as the times Mom made it. Just the taste and texture of dressing evokes both mood and an image of Mom. I can remember asking her about some of her recipes, her guidelines were vague. Don't over stir or mix,season to taste, use a generous helping, add flour as needed, she could look at a dish and know how much of this and how much of that it needed. How did she know that?
As much as I love dressing she could have fed me her famous wennee and wennee gravy on Thanksgiving, it would have been ok with me but if the truth were known she was the only one who really liked that dish. I used to think she invented the dish because surely her mother did mot pass that recipe down.
I could try 1000 times to duplicate some of Mom's recipes but I will never be able to cook like her. Something are best left alone. Just as those pieces of paper have faded, over time so do the memories. This is why family's still gather on Thanksgiving day. The recipes from our past are the links to our cherished memories.