Hoppin’ John, a Southern dish of African origin made with black-eyed peas, onions, bacon and rice, was a New Year’s tradition in my childhood home. My mom would make it in a big black skillet and toss a penny in right before serving. Whoever found the penny would supposedly have good luck for the whole year, assuming they didn’t accidentally swallow it before the luck had a chance to kick in. Truth be told, I didn’t like Hoppin’ John that much, but I loved the thrill of finding that bright copper coin.
This year in particular — no doubt because of stresses brought on by the pandemic — I’ve been feeling nostalgia’s powerful pull toward the flavors of my youth. I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother’s cooking. Her fried chicken was sublime, as were her biscuits, cornbread and yellow cake with coconut frosting. She was a master of cherry cheesecake, chewy cowboy bars with butterscotch chips, oxtail stew with dumplings, and pineapple sour cream pie. She made her own caramel from scratch, salty-sweet popcorn balls and sopapillas (a crispy Mexican treat) covered with cinnamon and sugar. She could whip up a triple-decker German chocolate cake or a pineapple upside-down cake in a jiffy. For special guests, she’d make apricot-glazed Cornish game hen with chilled asparagus vinaigrette. Once or twice she made chicken cacciatore and I begged her to make it every night for the next five years. (Perhaps this is why she generally kept me out of the kitchen.)
Some of her dinners I really, really didn’t like, such as her eggplant casserole or liver and onions or, on one infamous occasion, beef tongue. Some meals I tolerated but didn’t love, like her meatloaf and chicken enchiladas, but that was because I was self-centeredly unaware of the effort that had gone into making them. What I wouldn’t give now for a single bite of any of those things! Except the beef tongue. That’s a terrible thing to do to a child.
More often, I recall her basic but comforting foods: fluffy scrambled eggs, oatmeal with brown sugar and milk. Creamy mashed potatoes. Hot dogs slit down the middle, stuffed with cheddar cheese and roasted in the oven. Thick, crunchy slices of cinnamon toast with lots of sugar and butter. Golden grilled cheese sandwiches. Chicken with cream of mushroom soup, tuna casserole, hamburger stew.