Cast Iron Love

What would you grab in the mad dash of an emergency? Earthquake, fire ...whatever. Pictures of course. the kids, the pets. The usual right? I would include cast iron skillets. Yep. You read that right. Both weapon and culinary necessity no kitchen should be without. Think about it - in an emergency you could totally protect your family AND cook dinner with one of those bad boys. I'm lucky enough to own several, each one belonging to a family member. One from my Mimi and one from my Papa Frank. My mom uses a cast iron skillet every time she cooks and nothing tastes as good as bacon fried in cast iron but I am in NO hurry to have one of her skillets.
Today, Fat Tuesday I'll make a batch of gumbo in Papa's skillet. My hands will go where his once were. It'll almost be like holding his hand again. I'll try to make it taste half as good as his and probably fail miserably but I know he's with me cheering me on. "Go 'head now yungin', add some of this, some of that...don't let it stick sugar, you have to mind the bottom'. He never gave a proper lesson or wrote down a recipe for me but if I was lucky he'd let me sit in the kitchen and watch. He'd yak about the ingredients, how to choose the most ripe this or most tender piece of that. He'd walk back and forth between the stove top and the camel cigarette smoldering on the table chattering away, inevitably yelling at my Mama Jo if the cornbread didn't rise and anyone in earshot would scold him for it. Cooking was the most consistent way my Papa showed his love. Any excuse to throw a shindig and gather all his people together around the table. A true Southern gentleman, being invited to his table was a privilege and never a disappointment. This skillet probably made cousin Andy's favorite pineapple upside down cake. I'm sure it was used in the gravy cook off between Pops and Aunt Deana. Big "after a party" breakfasts of fried (hangover) potatoes that I loved and eggs I wouldn't eat cooked early while George Jones played on the radio. I see and smell the whole room in my mind. That's the beauty of common household items. They're links to our past. Tangible, functional pieces of our personal history.
Mimi's collection of cast iron was a source of pride and she had a piece for every purpose. The corn shaped pan that went along with my sweet Grandpas famous fish fry, the flat griddle with the shiny spot in the center for the pancakes she'd make whenever we slept over. I never wanted to learn to cook. I wasn't even going to have a kitchen in my future house, just a microwave and a mini fridge. What I DID want to do was to always be in Mimi's presence. Sneaky genius that she was, she kept me in the kitchen and slid little lessons about cooking into the conversation. She'd ask about my day or school and slide in the best way to convert measurements into a chat about how I hated my math teacher. "Now Missy fractions are easy, see the way half a cup of buttermilk becomes one cup when I pour in double"? I thought I was just visiting with my Mimi but I was actually learning how to make biscuits. I know how to cook things I never read a recipe for thanks to her constant chatter and patience. Food and the common items used to cook it were a thing of value. Maybe it was something from my grandparents generation - the Depression babies. Food was more than just what you put in your body to survive. It was literally love on a plate. If only those skillets could speak. It wasn't always easy for my grandparents to put food on the table while they were raising their kids but by the time the grand kids came along money was less tight and they got to cook for pleasure more often. They had more patience for us than they had for my parents in the mad dash to just to get dinner on the table. I relate...I am always hurrying to complete the task. The skillet and the memories tell me to slow down, ask the kids to help, slide in between the conversation of "Who's next album is dropping this week and who's eyebrows were on fleek today" the recipe. Tell the story through the food like my Grandparents did. Today I look at this simple piece of metal on my stove top and I know that whether it was stretching a meal out of necessity or making a treasured family "secret" recipe my grandparents did it with love and a cast iron skillet.