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---
title: "Essential Ingredients of Life: Food and Love"
lesson: Money and riches are not vital to happiness
---
When I was growing up in Lakeview, food was a simple affair, but it was
always there and I had no sense of any shortages. There was not a lot of
variety, but we had our favorites and my mother made them often.
One of the most favorite of all was chicken and noodles. Mom would mix
up a batch of flour and eggs and roll it out into a big round pie crust
shape. Then she would cut the noodle strips by hand with a knife. When
cooked, they always looked quite lumpy and irregular, unlike the pasta
noodles you can buy in the store. Then Mom made a thick broth of chicken
stock and chunks of chicken. This was thick like gravy, not like soup. I
assume she must have thickened this sauce with corn starch, but I didn't
pay much attention to the details when Mom was doing the cooking.
Although this was quite a cheap meal for the family, we always felt like
we were eating like kings when we ate this delicious home-made
delicacy.
Another favorite was deep-fried scones. My mother made some kind of
bread dough and proceeded to shape them like donuts. The family would
all sit around the table with an electric skillet in the center. It had
about an inch of vegetable oil in it and we were always warned to be
very careful not to get burned by the hot oil. Mom would add about four
or five of the donut shaped lumps of dough to the hot oil and we would
watch with fascination as they floated around in a sea of bubbles. The
dough turned golden brown on the bottom and then Mom would turn them
over to cook on the other side. Then she would place the hot scone on a
plate in front of each person. We would add butter and honey and consume
them with gusto as soon as they were cool enough to pick up. This cycle
was repeated as many times as our stomachs could handle. It was like
eating dessert for dinner and we never got tired of this meal.
A memory that has been burned into my brain by the repetition of the
ritual happened on Sunday evenings after we came home from evening
church. My mother always made a big pile of cinnamon toast. This was
done in the oven instead of a toaster. Mom would butter about a dozen
slices of bread and sprinkle on the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Then she
would put them on a large cookie sheet and put it under the broiler in
the oven until the butter began to bubble and the bread turned brown and
crispy. She would also make a big pot of hot cocoa to go with the
cinnamon toast. Then we would eat this yummy treat while we watched "The
Twentieth Century" with Walter Cronkite as the announcer. I remember
seeing a lot of footage of things blowing up. The stories seemed to be
mostly about battles that happened during World War II. We must have
watched other shows as well because I remember watching the Ed Sullivan
Show too. One of my favorite acts was about a puppet named Topo Gigio.
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At the end of the act, Ed would always kiss Topo on the cheek and make
him giggle with embarrassment. It was a magical time for a family of
little kids.
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We also ate a lot of venison in those days because we could rarely
afford to buy beef. My father would always go deer hunting every year
and it seems that he almost always brought home a deer. My mother wasn't
very fond of the taste of the deer meat, but the kids didn't know the
difference, so we thought it was quite good.
My final memory of good eating was breakfast. Mom always made a big pot
of cream of wheat. The box was not very politically correct.
{width="3.7604166666666665in"}
I remember adding lots of brown sugar and butter, then a little milk. I
always tried not to stir it too much so I could concentrate on the
puddles of butter and sugar first.
The point of this story is that our favorite foods were somewhat poor in
nutrition by today's standards. They were mostly cheap starches and
fats. However, there was no shortage of love in our little family. I
guess money and riches are not vital ingredients of happiness because I
remember those days as good times with great traditions.
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