When it’s cold outside, get warm inside

By Rick Houser – 

As the seasons change and the thermometer takes its annual trip downward, my tastes seems to change also. The thought of grilling out is fading into the sunset and fresh garden products take a seasonal hike. Three times in the past week I have stopped by Frisch’s and ordered a bowl of their vegetable soup. Frisch’s vegetable soup to me tastes the best of all the pre-prepared soups out there. I like a good bowl of soup to warm my insides.
When I was growing up cold weather meant Mom was at the stove crafting vegetable or chicken noodle soup that could not be found anywhere unless you went to another farm wife’s kitchen. I remember those commercial featuring the Campbell kids but I don’t ever recollect seeing a can of their soup in our house. The big question was why would I be looking for store bought anything when I was being served homemade. The answer of course was I wouldn’t be looking. Mom would put potatoes, carrots and peas, along with a little onion and a touch of celery, along with whatever she would find that she felt needed to be added to her soup. All of that brewing in a big stew pot for a long time allowed for each item’s flavor to combine, delivering a bowl of great tasting vegetable soup. That bowl of soup of course had to be hot and there always was a box of Zesta crackers to crumble into the soup. That was the finishing touch.
The same was true for chicken noodle soup except it took a little more work. Mom had to bake a chicken and most of the time she would make her own egg noodles and then remove the meat from the chicken and dice it into the newly made noodles and just like the vegetable soup, the chicken and the noodles would blend flavors to produce a taste that was well worth the wait. Again, it had to be served hot and with those same crackers. Please don’t let me make you think that we lived on soups alone, that is very far from the truth.
The truth was that our meals were made with many pots of soup beans. Even in soup beans we had some variety. We would have navy, pinto, or great northern beans, but what made them special were two side ingredients. Mom always added some ham or some cured jowl in with the beans and that seasoned those beans to where the kitchen had an aroma that if you weren’t hungry you would be. To complete this meal would be an iron skillet of corn bread. With some of that cornbread crumbled up in the beans instead of crackers and maybe a wedge of that cornbread covered with butter and maybe even some strawberry preserves on it, this awesome meal was complete.
Even though the soups and beans were a regular at our house, Mom wasn’t done adding to her selection of cold weather meals. She would make what she referred to as the “all in one” meal. She almost made it sound like her invention but I doubt she was the only cook from that era of stay at home wives who were way above average in their talents. The “all in one” consisted of a package of short ribs, then some sliced potatoes along with some carrots, a dab of onion and some celery and cabbage. The one ingredient that made this one so tasty was Mom’s flour dumplings. These were big and fluffy and of course when all of those ingredients brewed for a few hours or more the dumplings developed a flavor that I found to be out of this world, but from time to time and if she had the time, Mom would make egg dumplings. To me egg dumplings were a delicacy. Mom saw it as a way to add a little more variety.
Here is where I better stop and clear up a point. As a boy I was very picky with what I ate. I wanted nothing to do with celery or onions as an example, so Mom told me and my siblings that the pot contained many different items of which there was surely something I would be able to eat, so pick out what you will eat and leave what you won’t eat and you’ll be full at the end of the meal. Her rules were simple- she didn’t want to hear complaints from me. There was something in there she knew I liked. Eat it and get over it. The other rule was dip out what you want, but eat what you dip. Never did my parents make me dip out something I didn’t like and have to eat it. .
I haven’t mentioned chili because my Mom just wasn’t too good at making it, but we certainly did have a lot of good homemade meals designed to fill the belly and warm up our insides. I know those meals kept us warm on those cold days when we had to work outside. My wife has made these meals over the years but now that there are just the two of us now we find it easier to look for those Campbell kids and pick up a couple of cans. However, when she cooks up a pot of beans with ham in them along with some cornbread, she leaves those Campbell kids in the dust, so the best advice I have for the younger generation is to invest in a big stew pot and an iron skillet and learn how to use them. Along with some good meals they might leave you with some great memories.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you would like to read more of his writing he has two books for sale. “There are Places I Remember” and “Memories ARE From the Heart”. He can be reached at houser734@yahoo.com.