Coffee with Cream

I am enjoying a cup of hot coffee with whipping cream. I remember a taste of coffee when I was a teenager that I have not been able to repeat. I thought something was wrong with the coffee, until I discovered using whipping cream gave me the flavor I had stored in my memory. I recall being at a ball game, in Kentucky, with friends and the chill in the air gave me a need for something warm. I tasted my friend's coffee with cream (at that time I was not a coffee drinker) and that taste lingered over many years. So many things have changed over the years.

First off, these days I would not be tasting things from someone else's cup. The fear of germs does not allow us to be so cavalier in our behavior. Today things are not as simple as back then. When one used cream in their coffee, it was actual cream, the kind that came to the top of the milk when it settled. Watered down was not part of the process then. Today cream is not really cream. It is part cream, part milk - there we get half and half. I don't want watered down; I want the real thing, that taste that has lingered over the ages.

I recall having a cup of hot cocoa. It makes my mouth water just thinking of that pot of hot cocoa simmering on the old wood stove. It was made with real milk, not the watered down, no fat, no taste blue stuff that is supposed to be healthy for you. I query - how EVER did our ancestors live! Why, today it is unthinkable to use what God gave us. We have to doctor it up or tone it down for the sake of our longevity.

One cannot enjoy lard, it is bad for you. One should not eat red meat, it will clog up the veins. One should never use real butter, only margarine will do. It is a wonder I am living. I was watching a TV program about a mother giving birth having had no ultra sound, no prenatal vitamins and without the monthly to weekly visit to the doctor. Well folks. My mother had none of this. I in fact was born in a log cabin, not a hospital, no doctor was present, only a neighbor posing as a midwife.

For just shy of 97 years my mother cooked with pure lard. It was in the beans that were a staple at two meals for as long as I can remember. She actually FRIED potatoes in that same lard, lard that came from frying bacon. O, what a taste! I am beginning to feel hungry. She made biscuits from scratch, using real milk with a bit of cream in it. She greased the pan with pure lard and brushed it over the top of the unbaked biscuits.

Another staple was the twice-a-day cornbread which was generously covered with butter. It too was made with milk - buttermilk which came from churning butter. O, the taste! This too had lard as a lubricant in the bottom of the baking pan. She used a bit extra so the cornbread would yield a crusty brown crust. How dare she feed us all such horrid things. If she was trying to kill us off, it didn't work! Here I am, the younger of the quartet that lived on the farm, age 72, still living as are all but one of my siblings. He died as a result of war, not of bad eating habits.

As for meat, we ate the meat we had available, unaware it might be bad for us. I guess not having a lot of meat is what saved us all from certain premature death. We ate freshly killed chicken that flopped around on the ground without a head as blood came pouring out. Imagine what animal rights people would do with that one! The bunny rabbits that hopped across the fields often lost their life via a gun held by my dad. It was then placed in a pouch on the back of his hutting jacket to be carried home to process it for the skillet. I never watched that as it was a 'man thing' the skinning of wild game. I have eaten squirrel, pheasant, and little birds of some sort. I was never one to dwell on how it came to the table. I was just glad that it did.

On the farm we didn't butcher the cow, we fed it, milked it, and used the milk. Was it pasteurized? I am not sure that word had yet been invented. I spent many evenings carrying a lantern to the barn so mother could see while milking the cow. I wore boots to tromp through whatever gunk was in the area. You can use your imagination there. What we did, was milk the cow, strain the milk to free it from any 'oddities' that may have landed in the bucket when the cow raised her hoof to ward off a fly or something of that nature. When the milk had settled, the cream was skimmed from the top to be used to make butter. What was left from making butter became buttermilk. When the milk was skimmed it became cottage cheese. All of this without government inspectors with lengthy guidelines telling us how things had to be done. How ever did we survive!

I think I should ponder these things while the cornbread bakes, the potatoes brown up in the iron skillet in a sea of real lard and the brown beans simmer on the back burner. I might even say a prayer, thanking Him for the food He has provided. I have more faith in Him than in our elected leaders. Anyone hungry???