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Mary Lou’s Family Can Cook
by Jane Riley
“Can we do it now?” Mary Lou shook the shoulders of the two sleeping bodies.
“Go back to bed, sweetheart.” Mama read the alarm clock. “It’s 2 o’clock in the morning.”
Mary Lou was a tiny girl, no more than 4, when she went on the camping trip. She had 2 pony tails, rosy cheeks, and freckles.
After carefully rigging their equipment--poles, lines, sinkers, hooks, and corks--several friends, neighbors, and uncles loaded their families into trucks. They took cane poles, earthworms, wieners, Nehis, sardines, cold fried chicken, blankets, and pillows in the people-filled trucks down along the gentle rolling hills of the Powells’ place. They were invited to camp out on the sandy banks of the curved creek that flowed through Old Man Powell’s land before emptying into Cohay Creek.
They set up camp in a clearing where the sandy banks dropped low and the water ran gently. After a half day of delight, Mary Lou turned into a restless, sunburned, chigger-bitten whiner. She and her cousins walked from one group of fisher-persons to another.
“Come here, littlun.” Pa couldn’t suppress his twisted grin. “I’ll help you catch your first fish.”
Even though she could feel the pole moving and see the line going all over the little pool of water, she played along with him because she wanted to believe him.
“Be careful, littlun’.”
Her father placed her hands firmly on the cane pole. “Look at that bobber. It went all the way under. Now come on and pull your fish out. Pull hard! No, not too hard. Gentle.”
It was the most beautiful fish in the world--a huge bream with red-orange sides. Pa strung him onto a forked stick for her.
“Stay away from people who are being quiet and still, baby. Don’t upset any serious fishermen. The fish can tell when you’re walking on the bank,” Mama said.
Being careful not to go too close to the grouches the rest of the day, she carried the fish around and showed him to the people who were laughing and talking. Periodically she would dip him into the water to get a drink, but eventually he became stiff. She did not comprehend or accept the fact that her fish was dead.
That night Mama put Mary Lou and her older sister Ruth, along with two of their cousins, to bed in a pickup truck with sides on it and went off holding hands with Pa to a secluded spot where he had parked. Mama would sleep with him after dancing horizontally in the back of their flat-bedded 1937 Chevrolet truck.
Mary Lou thought the world was a wonderful place. As she lay there she found 3 things amazing: the scratchy brown-striped blanket under her that her part-Indian grandmother made using a spinning wheel, loom, and black walnut shell dye to fashion the fleece she sheared from her own sheep into wool; the endless stars telling secret stories to her from above as they all talked at once; and most of all her magnificent fish lying on the running board of the pickup truck, the biggest bream anyone had ever caught.
The next morning the fish was gone. Pa said, “The bream started missing his mommy during the night. I took him back to her.”
Fried Bream
First, it is necessary to catch a good mess of fish. Don’t let the youngun’s scare the fish away stomping on the banks. Nobody but Lillie has ever been able to make noise and catch fish. She slapped the water with her cane pole and the fish felt so guilty they gobbled down her hook, or maybe they wanted to be pulled out of the water in order to find out why Lillie and Myrtle were laughing.
To catch a good mess of bream, you will need a wasp nest. Remove the grubs carefully because some of them will turn into full grown wasps before your very eyes and fly up into your face and sting the fire out of you.
Earthworms work pretty well too. Dig under an old board in rich soil and fill a can half full of dirt and worms. Everybody has to bait his own hook.
Clean the fish. Cut off their heads and fins, and then gut them. It’s all right to leave the tails on them though. Scale them carefully and wash them in the edge of the creek.
Dip them in cornmeal with flour--about 3 parts cornmeal and 1 part flour with salt and black pepper.
(Mary Lou has been living in Louisiana for several years and she thinks it is necessary to add some red pepper or some Tony’s--that’s short for Tony Chachere’s. Remember that Tony’s already has salt and black pepper in it. There is also a potassium chloride version. Also check the index for seasoning mixes. Consult your physician about sodium and potassium intake.)
People usually deep fry fish now, but Pa liked his fish pan fried in an iron skillet. To filet bream is an obscene waste of good fish meat. It’s impossible to avoid all the bones though. The solution is to fry the fish crispy brown so that the bones become too crunchy to choke you on the way down.
Serve fried bream with sweet tea, lemon wedges, ketchup, hush puppies or fried corn pone, cole slaw, sliced tomatoes, and green onions. You might also enjoy some peppers and pickles. Corn on the cob--Pa called that roastin’ ears--would be a nice touch too. Some fried Irish potatoes would go well too, but you have to cook them first if you plan to use the same grease. Also they take longer to cook than most people expect.
Native Mississippian Jane Riley, author of Solomon’s Porch, shares the excerpt above from her new book, FLAVORED WITH LOVE, MARY LOU'S FAMILY CAN COOK.
Jane writes: “Last year at my family's reunion everybody was telling whoppers and eating all kinds of good food. While sitting there enjoying the food and fellowship, I had two ideas. One was to write a book of recipes, mostly acquired from my family, and the other was to write a book of stories--just anecdotes instead of real short stories--about my family. The two ideas merged and FLAVORED WITH LOVE is the result.”
FLAVORED WITH LOVE is a happy, user-friendly cookbook (300 pages), containing tall tales, family secrets, and four poems mixed with about 240 recipes reflecting a variety of cooking styles. There are Italian, Cajun, and country recipes included.
Flavored With Love
The book may be purchased by sending $14.95 plus $3.00 for shipping (and for Louisiana residents, sales tax of $1.27) to Blue
Moon Books, 1305 Robinette Drive, Ruston, LA 71270.
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