It’s an old and powerful sentiment, repeated in word and song through the ages: There’s no place like home. Stephen Foster knew it, Dorothy Gale knew it, and so did Thomas Wolfe, even if he didn’t believe you could go back again.
While nutritionists may decry it, most of the world sees food and love through the same tinted, sometimes slightly of out focus lens. More often than not, that love is expressed through home cooking. Someone takes the time and care to prepare a favorite dish that makes you feel special and wanted, usually safe, but above all, loved. That’s what comfort food is all about. It’s a powerful psychology that forges the bonds of contentment through food, encompassing the primal need of freedom from want, nourishment through sickness, and celebration of plentiful times. It may not be practiced everyday, but it is certainly evident during any food themed holiday, or at any loved child’s homecoming.
So I arrived in Missouri, to my childhood hometown of Columbia. It had been a long drive from Erie, PA and John and I had shifted into “free mode” around St. Louis. “Free mode” is the code phrase we adopted early in our marriage for those frustrating times, like moving days or interminable road trips, when we’re tired and cranky and snap at each other, not really believing that the other is stupid, careless, asinine, or any other epithet borne of a frustrating situation. During free mode anything said is instantly forgiven and forgotten; it is understood that it’s the situation, not each other, making us angry. We’ve had entire free weekends; once we had nearly a free year. It was John’s creation and, along with “How ‘bout those Indians?” our safe place to cool off during arguments, it’s mighty effective.
Driving through St. Louis is a miserable path when nearing the end of the journey home. Too many cars, too few lanes, crumbling infrastructure, and it spreads from the Missouri-Illinois line to the western exurb of Warrenton. Of course, we hit it at rush hour, not that it matters much. Driving St. Louis is unpleasant anytime. It’s too bad, really. St. Louis has much to enjoy, if it weren’t such a pain to get around. Commuter rail, anyone?
We finally pulled into Mom’s driveway, tired and over wound from thirteen hours in the car. We opened the door and, fatigue be damned, my olfactory, with its vigorous and lasting memory, shifted into overdrive.
Mom had cooked all the John-and-Brenda-Are-Coming classics, and every one of them homemade, from scratch, down home good. Mom has a way with pork chops (an entrée I eat nowhere else) that I have never been able to replicate. Hers are always more tender and succulent. The green beans were southern style with shell out beans and smoky pot liquor. She mashes potatoes with the little nubs of potato I prefer over the whipped smooth variety, and she makes cornbread- golden brown, savory cornbread with the gritty bite that comes from baking in a cast iron skillet, with none of the “it-might-as-well-be-dessert “ sweetness so common up north.
Then there was The Pie. Mamma bakes an incredible pie, something else I’ve never been able to match, and I’m no culinary slouch. But this wasn’t just pie; it was gooseberry pie, my favorite of all pies, tarts or tatins. The one pie that shoves all dieting aside, for it is a rare and wonderful find. It’s worth skipping the next meal or another workout.
I have loved the mouth-puckering gooseberry since I was little child, when I used to pick them with my neighbor, old Mr. Abbott. I used to collect eggs with old Mrs. Abbott, too, until I dropped an apron full of them and she was none too pleased. I was only four; maybe all my motor skills weren’t quite up to snuff.
Bob, my stepfather, persistent as a gold miner, visits all the local Missouri farm markets during the short gooseberry season, hoarding them in anticipation of my visits. Then he and Mom patiently go to the tedious work of de-stemming the pale green jewels before freezing the precious stash. When I’m coming home, Mom ignores the arthritis in her shoulders and rolls a scratch pie crust and even cuts and weaves a lattice top. The result has never been less than spectacular.
Gooseberry was my Grandpa Scruggs’ favorite pie too, so maybe I inherited a tart pastry gene from him. That gooseberry pie symbolized that I was home, I was safe, and above all, loved. Do I feel loved without the pie? Of course I do. But it is a tangible, unforgettable expression of time, caring, and consideration, readily shared with others in the loving circle. It means home and it means family.
