Mamaw didn’t make fried chicken for dinner.
I remember pot roast on weekends.
Hamburgers and dogs on the grill.
Ham and as many desserts as would fit on a table on Sundays.
Show up on a weeknight and it was fried Spam sandwiches.
American cheese and mustard on white bread.
But the only chicken I ever remember at her house was when someone else brought it.
Just a quick stop by KFC to pick up a bucket to add to all the other food during bigger family get together’s.
I don’t know if she didn’t like chicken.
I can’t remember her ever eating it.
Papaw was picky about what he ate, but that had more to do with a work related accident in his 20’s that knocked out a lot of his teeth and broke his jaw.
Eating some things was just more difficult for him.
I wonder if it was because they were depression era kids.
There would have been a lot of chicken in their younger lives.
Fried. Boiled. Roasted on a spit.
Probably not much baked, unless it was mixed in a big pot with vegetables from the garden, some flour thickened into a rue, maye a crust.
It had to be enough to feed her eleven brothers and sisters, plus her momma and daddy.
That’s how big her family was.
Hell, that would have been a whole flock of fried chickens to feed them.
Yeah, I bet that if there was Sunday chicken after church they stretched it as far as they could.
More carrots and potatoes than meat.
Papaw was a hunter and killed a couple of deer every year.
We had venison in November, but that was about it.
He fished a lot too, in a little jon boat he hauled behind his GMC pick up truck when the mood hit.
But we never had fish fries at her house.
I didn’t eat every meal with them, so they may have saved some food types and treats for just themselves, or during smaller gatherings.
And maybe I had some meals that were different that I just can’t recall because they aren’t associated with anything special in my mind.
Just dinner at Mamaw’s.
Except now, when I wish I could remember them all, the ones I do recall are special to me.
Thinking about pot roast while craving KFC.
And I haven’t even told you about breakfast yet.
Which she made every time we spent the night.
Scrambled eggs, crispy bacon and store bought biscuits.
She would pour a little oil in a thirty year old pan, and slip each biscuit around in it before she flipped it over.
Kept them from sticking on the bottom, made them extra crispy on top.
I’ve done it with oil, until I decided to really limit seed oils in my diet.
Then I did it with butter and it changed my life.
My other Grandma made homemade biscuit from scratch.
Catheads, she called them.
Cut from the dough with a large mouth mason jar, which to a little kid’s hand, was pretty big.
And especially with homemade preserves or jam or jelly.
Which both made and both served.
But neither made biscuits for dinners.
Mamaw made rolls from store bought packages, brushed with butter and sprinkled with a couple of dashes of salt.
I don’t remember dinners with my other Grandma, but that’s because there weren’t many of them, and most of them when I was too young to remember.
They were too far away, in both distance and mind.
Still, I’m glad to remember the Catheads, if not much else.
I think of her when I make homemade biscuits and think of Mamaw when I make store bought biscuits in her style.
And I’d really like a two piece original recipe this weekend with a couple of biscuits on the side.
Maybe start a new tradition to remember.
If I don’t forget.
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Love the sound of those biscuits