Around the Kitchen Table: In praise of toast

In our family there is usually a story attached to the foods we eat – not always a good story, but at least a memorable one. Growing up, our palates were not very expansive, leaning mostly towards Dad’s likes and what was available at the time.

We always had a garden with a wide variety – corn, peas, beans, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and watermelons, along with fruit from our orchard, blackberries from along our fencerows and the occasional good pecan crop. Raising our own beef and pork helped fill out our daily menu, along with the occasional rotisserie chicken from the Piggly Wiggly. In winter, we enjoyed the efforts of Mama’s long, hot summer days in the kitchen canning and preserving.

Dad was strictly a “meat and potatoes” man. He loved a tender steak or roast with sides of fresh peas or snap beans, new potatoes, corn on the cob and green onions and ripe tomatoes. Almost every meal Dad ate included toast – lightly browned and heavily buttered. (All that butter apparently didn’t hurt; he lived to be over 100!). To round out our meals, Mama usually had one of her homemade pies or cakes for dessert.

I didn’t question Dad’s love for toast. It was just part of his daily fare – breakfast and supper, and sometimes for an afternoon snack with pear preserves. Years later, when he was telling us about his time in the service, we found out the origins of his affection for toast.

Dad was in Hawaii in autumn 1944, training with the 5th Marine Division, when he was ordered aboard an LST headed for somewhere in the Pacific. The other 31st Navy Seabees followed later on a troop ship. From around Jan. 1, 1945 till Feb. 13, when they arrived in Saipan, Dad crossed the Pacific in a convoy of eight LSTs. It was “slow going,” he said. “They were able to do about seven or eight knots an hour, making for a long, miserable ride.”

He described the LSTs: “They didn’t have a name like the ships, just a number, and were about as big as a football field. The doors opened in the front, like the Higgins boats, so the LSTs could hit the beach and unload heavy equipment like tanks and such. The bunks were on either side of the LSTs and the deck was covered with equipment. Our bunks were on either side below deck, and the chow hall was at the stern, or aft. We were carrying a lot of ammunition. We only had two sub-chasers for protection. We were so slow; we were more or less sitting ducks. If an enemy torpedo had hit us with all that ammo aboard, we’d still be going up!

“Most of the time, we got along pretty good for being in such close quarters. There were about 30 or 40 of us, plus the crew. Of course, the crew thought they should always be rst in the chow line since we were just ‘along for the ride,’ but that didn’t go over too good with us when they started cutting in line. In the military, it’s a no-no to cut into a formed line – unless you were on duty, then you could go ahead of the rest.

“There got to be a hassle in the chow hall over fellas cutting in line, so they appointed me as the kind of MP [military police] of the chow line. It was my job to keep the line straight and under control. Some of the little fellas would bow up at me, but I’d just say, ‘To the end of the line or over the side!’”

Back then, Dad was over six feet tall and more than 200 pounds, so he didn’t have much trouble. “Our chief cook was an older fella, and he would let me come back to the galley and he’d make toast for me. That toast sure was good. We didn’t have toast growing up – we ate biscuits or cornbread for the most part, and so I enjoyed having that toast. It was a real treat.”

Most of our food stories are not as historical as Dad’s toast story, but a few are hysterical (or at least, they were to us as kids): Like the time my brother and I were making each other laugh and he snorted corn out his nose, or the time I choked on my mashed potatoes and steak and Dad had to turn me upside down by the legs and shake me … in front of the Farmers Insurance salesman. Or the time Mama snuck some contraband Spam in and fried it (Dad didn’t like it in the house – said it reminded him of that WWII military mystery meat), and afterward she tried to “fan” the smell out of the kitchen before Dad got home from work.

We laugh about the time my baby brother ended up face-planting in his mashed potatoes after falling sound asleep in his high chair.

Other food memories just bring us comfort, like a steaming slice of Mama’s cherry pie or her perfectly crispy fried chicken. Nothing today quite measures up to those childhood meals around that green Formica table so long ago.

I guess it’s supposed to be that way, but I keep searching for that feeling, that indescribable warmth that seemed to permeate our mealtimes.

Sometimes, when I catch a whiff of freshly toasted bread, I can almost see Dad with his butter-laden bread balanced on the edge of his plate and his smile as he bows his head to offer thanks.

I guess that is the best food memory of all – knowing who we have to thank for our many blessing of food and family, both then and now.

by Tamra M. Bolton