Dinner for My Boyfriend

As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.

~Buddy Hackett

Bringing a boyfriend home to meet my mom could be cause for concern. Even after I was grown and living on my own, I still worried how someone I brought home would react to Mom’s eccentric ideas. She was unlike other mothers, and not everyone understood or appreciated her unconventional ways.

Reared by parents who emigrated from Transylvania, she was greatly influenced by the customs they brought from their homeland. Growing up dirt poor during the depression, in the Yuma desert, Mom learned the value of hard work and frugal living. Her old fashioned ways were many and she was determined to hang onto them whether we liked it or not.

A fan of organic gardening, long before it was popular, Mom grew fruits and vegetables in a large plot behind our house on our five-acre farm. No insecticide or pesticide ever touched her plants. She didn’t believe in being wasteful, either. Wormy and bird-pecked fruits and vegetables, that others might not find so appetizing, made it into the kitchen. She insisted that they could be salvaged, no matter how much had to be cut off to make them fit to consume.

Mom also raised animals for us to eat. While the men in the family butchered the larger animals, Mom had no trouble dealing with the chickens. All she needed was a stump and a hatchet. One chop and it was all over. Then the real work began.

The chickens were dunked in a pot of scalding water. Then we’d pluck the steaming hot feathers. The worst part for me was singeing the pinfeathers over crumpled newspaper. The smell was horrible and it seemed to take forever to get rid of the odor on my clothes.

Every part of the chicken that could be eaten was used. Gizzards, liver, and heart were either fried or cooked in soups. Chicken feet were considered a delicacy to our mom, no doubt a tradition brought over by her parents from the old country. She was the only one in our family who ate them, and after many years of adamantly refusing to take even a taste, she knew better than to try to give me one. Looking back, I’m sure she enjoyed my explosive reaction to her teasing, since it was obvious that she wanted to keep them all for herself. I can still envision her holding a chicken foot over her plate and gnawing on it.

A great cook, Mom made everything from scratch. She baked cakes and pies that always drew raves. Mom was also known for serving a variety of meats that some friends and family had never eaten before—and never planned to. Besides traditional meats most people were accustomed to eating, guinea, peacock, rabbit and goat meat were regularly on the menu at our house while squab, burro, and beef tongue and brains were served on occasion. No animal was completely safe on our farm.

Mom didn’t feel it necessary to tell her guests what she was serving unless they asked. She couldn’t wait to see the horrified expression on someone’s face when she offered them food they had never imagined eating. Returning guests with a squeamish stomach or sensitive conscience would not eat any meat Mom prepared, until it had been positively identified. When some unsuspecting newcomer came for dinner, they were sometimes unhappily surprised when they were told what they had already eaten.

So, when I took my new boyfriend to dinner at Mom’s house for the first time, I worried about what she would be serving. I could only hope that she had prepared something he would recognize and was willing to eat. When we got to the house, I was relieved to find out we were having chicken soup. Who doesn’t like chicken soup?

With the pot of hot soup already on the dining room table, we sat down to eat and Mom began serving the soup. True to her upbringing, Mom made certain her guest was served first and she poured a large ladle of soup into his bowl. Then . . . oh, no! Before I knew what was happening or could stop her, she added a special treat to his bowl. A chicken foot! Though my boyfriend was completely shocked and disgusted by the chicken foot in his soup, he did not say a word about it. But he didn’t eat much soup, either!

I sometimes wonder if the chicken foot in my boyfriend’s bowl was really just a test to find out what my boyfriend was made of, to determine if he would be able to adjust to our unique family traditions.

That boyfriend eventually became my husband, with no help from my mom. Over the years I’ve made countless pots of homemade chicken soup, just like my mom did, except I used chickens purchased from the grocery store, chickens with the feet already removed. But my husband was so traumatized by the chicken foot that, for twenty-eight years he refused to eat chicken soup, unless he knew for certain it came out of a can.

http://www.chickensoup.com/