When I was a kid...Part IX
When I was a kid I used to visit my grandmother in South Carolina every summer. Anybody else parents send them down south for the summer vacation? It seems like a black family tradition.
By the way, where did the southern families send their kids for the summer?
But I digress, I have 11 aunts and uncles and every one of them sent their kids to my grandmas house each summer. Now my grandma was still working, so during the day the older kids had to watch us young'ns. This was a recipe for disaster.
When my grandma left for work the last thing she'd say is, "don't touch anything in that fridge."
Now, there wasn't much to eat in the kitchen but that's where the best food was!
My grandma took precautions. She knew we'd be sneaky so she left only a few items in the cabinets that she thought we wouldn't touch. She was wrong.
She left stuff like corn still in the husk, a bag of coconut, a bag of sugar, and a gigantic jar of O'Boy syrup. We got creative. We'd toast some bread and sprinkle sugar on it for breakfast. Or we'd pour syrup on it. For lunch we cut the kernels off the corn and fried it until it was damn near burnt. Then we sprinkled mad salt on it...
Now the bag of coconut was tricky. My grandma needed that for her cakes. I was the only one that like coconut so I put a tiny hole in the bag and would pinch coconut out of it all day long. I don't think she ever caught on.
But the sad thing is when she'd come home and cook dinner. She had to stretch the meal so that everybody could eat so if she cooked hot dogs for instance, everybody could only get one or two hotdogs.
Because it was so many of us we all had this thing about eating in each others face. So, I made it my business to be the last one eating. In order to accomplish this, I'd first eat the crust off the bread with the mustard and ketchup smeared on it. Then I nibbled off the skin of the hotdog. It looked disgusting but I didn't care. After that I put the remains of the hotdog back into the crust-less bread and eat it in front of everybody's face.
I was the champion at eating slow. Now I hold the title of eating fast because if I don't, one of the kids will damn sure snatch the food off my plate.
And to make sure I had more juice than everybody else I'd mix it with water.
Maybe that's why no one likes me....
By the way, where did the southern families send their kids for the summer?
But I digress, I have 11 aunts and uncles and every one of them sent their kids to my grandmas house each summer. Now my grandma was still working, so during the day the older kids had to watch us young'ns. This was a recipe for disaster.
When my grandma left for work the last thing she'd say is, "don't touch anything in that fridge."
Now, there wasn't much to eat in the kitchen but that's where the best food was!
My grandma took precautions. She knew we'd be sneaky so she left only a few items in the cabinets that she thought we wouldn't touch. She was wrong.
She left stuff like corn still in the husk, a bag of coconut, a bag of sugar, and a gigantic jar of O'Boy syrup. We got creative. We'd toast some bread and sprinkle sugar on it for breakfast. Or we'd pour syrup on it. For lunch we cut the kernels off the corn and fried it until it was damn near burnt. Then we sprinkled mad salt on it...
Now the bag of coconut was tricky. My grandma needed that for her cakes. I was the only one that like coconut so I put a tiny hole in the bag and would pinch coconut out of it all day long. I don't think she ever caught on.
But the sad thing is when she'd come home and cook dinner. She had to stretch the meal so that everybody could eat so if she cooked hot dogs for instance, everybody could only get one or two hotdogs.
Because it was so many of us we all had this thing about eating in each others face. So, I made it my business to be the last one eating. In order to accomplish this, I'd first eat the crust off the bread with the mustard and ketchup smeared on it. Then I nibbled off the skin of the hotdog. It looked disgusting but I didn't care. After that I put the remains of the hotdog back into the crust-less bread and eat it in front of everybody's face.
I was the champion at eating slow. Now I hold the title of eating fast because if I don't, one of the kids will damn sure snatch the food off my plate.
And to make sure I had more juice than everybody else I'd mix it with water.
Maybe that's why no one likes me....
posted by Mary at 4:33 PM
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