Meal Time~Part 2

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

I’ve mentioned in other posts that daddy was a deer hunter in the winter.  We ate a lot of venison in my growing-up years.  You must understand…MOST people who work in church-related work don’t make a lot of money.  Therefore, the meat daddy provided through his hunting kept our family going.

The deer in the New Mexico mountains feasted on the good stuff – pine nuts.  The meat was always sweet, whereas the deer in Texas usually had their meals on milkweed, which gave it a bitter taste.  The Texas venison had to be marinated in milk or something else to get rid of that taste.  But we didn’t have to do that in New Mexico.  Again, there was no waste to the deer.  We had steaks, roasts, and hamburger-style meat (ground venison).  With the ground venison, mother would make chili.  She had a great recipe for that, but I’ve never been able to duplicate her chili.  I’ve tried several times, with regular ground beef, but it just doesn’t taste the same.  The flavor of the venison was unique to the chili, I guess.

There was one time, while Fred and I were living in Texas, that a friend had bagged his deer, but wanted another, so he gave us that first one.  Since we had helped daddy butcher his deer before, we knew how to butcher this one – which we did.  A good friend let us store the venison in their freezer – taking out what we wanted when we wanted it.  One Thanksgiving, we took out a “ham” and had it smoked by a bbq restaurant in town. It was really good eating!

At Thanksgiving and Christmas, mother would make a cranberry salad as a side dish.  She mixed the chopped cranberries with chopped walnuts or pecans, orange, and other items, in a gelatin, put it all in small forms, then let it “jell.”  It had a sweet taste that countered the tart cranberries, and was quite good.

After Fred and I had been married for a few years, I tried my hand at roasting a turkey.

Credit Google Search

I set to work on the “dressing or stuffing.” Unfortunately, I cannot – to this day – remember what kind of  stuffing mother made.  Since daddy was from Louisiana, I suspect that she made a cornbread dressing (with chopped onions and chopped celery), but I don’t remember.  I’ve asked my brother, Bill, and he can’t remember, either. So, I learned to make a bread dressing, New England style, from Fred’s mother.  We all like it – including our daughters.  If we are at a family meal where cornbread dressing is served, they always ask me to also make a dish of bread dressing for them.   It has become their favorite.

I remember there was a time when mother would make bread from scratch.  It smelled soooooo good baking, that I could hardly wait for it come out of the oven! I would cut it almost immediately – which was hard to do without squishing it – and slather it with butter and eat it right away.

Credit Google Search and Pinterest

She complained so often that we hardly had left any for the sandwiches she wanted to make.  Fortunately, it was a good-natured complaining.  But she was a working woman, and probably didn’t have time to make bread very often.  I’ve tried my hand at it, and while I love the fresh bread taste, it’s a lot of work. But it’s a fun memory.

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years.

Tags: Family Time