I was cleaning out the kitchen cabinets one evening this week. My refrigerator is just about empty since it's only me at the house for the time being. I found two cases of canned goods in the garage I was supposed to donate to charity last winter but now they've suffered through the summer heat and I have to throw them away. Inside my kitchen cabinets, I checked the dates on the cans to see if any are out of date. Most are; some expired back in 2005. Now my cabinets are empty.
Some of the canned food that I threw away came from when I moved into my house four years ago. They belonged to my mother. Somehow it didn't feel right just tossing away the cans she had bought with her social security check. Mama never liked to throw away anything. She kept the Country Crock butter containers to freeze the brunswick stew she made every year at Thanksgiving. Baby food jars held nails and screws and nuts. Dinner wasn't really planned; it was whatever cans Mama would open. We might have eggs, meatloaf, canned green beans, canned turnip greens, and canned candied yams for supper. Whatever was left over went into the refrigerator for the next day.
Growing up, Mama kept a can to hold the coins people paid her for sewing for them. That's how she made extra money. It never went to buy her something, usually it went on material to make our school clothes. She and my father grew up during the Depression and both had learned how to get by on little and to waste nothing. She sewed her own dresses and our shirts and shorts.
Mama also had a spit can. She dipped Society and Sweet Rose snuff when I was growing up. When snuff became too expensive for her, she switched to Beech Nut chewing tobacco. I really hated that spit can. Between her snuff and my dad's 'chaw', we were always knocking over somebody's spit can. Maybe that's why I never bothered with tobacco.
I didn't know it back then, but there were times we were struggling financially. Sometimes, the milk man would leave a quart of milk and two quarts of butter milk for Mama's biscuits; and sometimes we had powdered milk. We only had meat once a week growing up, with the exception of some fatback that seemed to go with anything. We had Kix and Cheerios growing up, but most often we followed my dad's lead and and ate chunks of loaf bread in milk with a little sugar sprinkled over the top. There was also rabbit and squirrel; sometimes pig tails and pigs feet (I never ate those). Once in awhile Mama would fry up a can of beef tripe. I didn't know what tripe was, but it was fun stretching it out like mozzarella cheese. About the only thing I refused to eat was chitlin's, and liver. Whatever we had to eat, I thought that everyone ate the same way so I never felt deprived or ashamed of our social standing.
I guess my mom was eco-friendly by nature. She learned from necessity, not from celebrities. In her latter years, my mom shrank from a size 14 to a size four. Her eyes clouded over and she couldn't see to read or sew anymore, but she could feel her way around the kitchen and find what she needed. She knew how far back in her cabinets she had hidden her purse, or a handsaw, the insurance policies, or the Claxton fruit cake.
Sometimes a simple can of Pocahontas Pure Corn Hominy can bring back memories. The older I get, the more memories I have. Hope I can hang on to my memories until I can once again see Mama and Daddy. Some day Laura will be cleaning out her old dad's cabinets. I hope she finds something to remember me by. Maybe a can of Pam olive oil shortening spray....
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