by Alden Davis
July 30, 2025
The gods were smiling upon me. I was hungering for fresh vegetables and fruit. Not the grocery store produce, picked green thousands of miles away and ripened by gas in a warehouse, but real, fresh off the vine or tree. That day two people gave me vegetables from their gardens. I had cherry tomatoes, large tomatoes, banana peppers, bell peppers and cucumbers. I made stuffed bell peppers for supper and ate the cherry tomatoes like candy. The next day brought even more bounty. My next-door neighbor brought another bag of cucumbers she had just picked from her garden. I did not even know she had a garden this year.
I could eat all the other produce, but I could not polish off all those cucumbers by myself. I thought of days gone by when I had made all sorts of pickles. Back then I was so proud of the products of my hard work. Pickles! What was stopping me from making pickles now? My recipe box reminded me that some pickles take two days and much effort, so I opted for refrigerator pickles.
Pickles 2009
Happily chopping the cucumbers and onions, I set the sugar, vinegar and spices on the range to boil. The delicious aroma of pickling spice wafted through the kitchen. I was instantly transported to my Grandmother’s kitchen in the 1940s. Granddaddy had built the kitchen/dining room onto the rear of their small house. The two spacious rooms had high ceilings and many windows. A large wooden table stood in the dining room, with plenty of room for times when the children and grandchildren visited. The kitchen had a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling on a bare cord. The sink sat below a window, flanked by Granddaddy’s little shaving table with his long leather razor strop hanging from the wall. A small iron wood-burning stove sat in the middle of the room and a kerosene cooking stove on one side. A wooden table stood on the back wall. That was where Grandmother lined up her canning jars to cool. On the other side was a flour cabinet. Have you ever seen one? It had a large flour bin with a sifter on the bottom. Grandmother kept a deep pan on the enamel shelf under the sifter. Sift down your flour, add milk, baking powder and salt – a pan of biscuits was on the way.
It was in that big old-fashioned kitchen that Grandmother taught me to cook. I never had a cooking lesson from her. I do not think she knew that she was teaching me. My best memories of her and her kitchen were formed when I was between six and fourteen. I watched her intently, eager to learn the mystery of her peach pie, her light and fluffy biscuits, her special pickles.
My mother did not care to cook. By the time I was eight, my father and I did nearly all the cooking. Unfortunately, Daddy’s idea of cooking stopped at the word “boil.” Canned, fried and boiled describes his time in the kitchen. But when we visited my grandparents, all manner of wonderful things appeared on the table. Banana cream pie, home-canned blackberries, chicken and dumplings – those are just a few of the things she cooked. Grandmother seldom used a recipe. I doubt she even owned a recipe book, but her food was so superior to our bland diet at home that I absorbed her meals and determined somewhere deep down in my subconscious, to one day cook like she did.
Grandmother had a special pickle recipe that made sweet, soft, spicy pickles. They were not crisp, more of a relish, but with whole slices, not chopped. Once, when I was perhaps nine, we drove from Florida to South Carolina to visit Grandmother and Granddaddy. I cannot remember what else was on the table, but I remember those pickles. I thought they were delicious and ate far more than my share. She saw that I liked them and sent a jar home with us. I watched to see where Mother stored that jar and at the first opportunity, I grabbed it and carried it to my room. I sat cross-legged on my bed with the jar of pickles and a spoon. Ate the whole pint and was not a bit sorry.
Grandmother was not the only one who taught me to cook. My best friend Audrey liked to make cakes. She made me my first birthday cake the year I turned fourteen. She once made me a cake shaped like a rabbit for Easter. It was from her that I learned that cakes from your own oven taste so much better than those from the grocery store. Her mother had that great wonder, a freezer. Wow! You could get fresh green beans right out of the freezer and not a can!
Then, there was my first mother-in-law. Like Grandmother, she seldom used a recipe. She was a country cook. Her specialties had their origin in Illinois where she was born. I especially remember her oatmeal meat loaf. At the time I was carrying a full course load in college and was working long hours to pay for my education. Late in the afternoon when I opened her back door, I could smell that meatloaf roasting. My tiredness vanished as I sat down to meat loaf, mashed potatoes and lima beans.
My second mother-in-law was a French-Canadian resident of Vermont. From her I learned about baked squash. She made a spicy dish from a huge yellow-green Hubbard Squash. I never tasted any other squash like it.
One of my outstanding memories of her is the day she and her daughter Ramona were making a cake. I wanted to help, but Ramona refused. She said they could manage it. I fought off hurt feelings until they set it on the table, turned to me and yelled, “Happy birthday!”
Long after I was grown and thought I had conquered cooking, my husband Robert took me down a new culinary path. I knew about upcountry South Carolina cooking, Florida cooking and Illinois and Vermont cooking, but now I learned about low country South Carolina cooking. It was a different world. I learned many ways to cook shrimp. I learned that rice should be served every day. Since all the Davis men were accomplished cooks, I learned about grilling a whole hog over charcoal, fresh venison roast and seafood stew.
Robert liked my homemade jellies and pickles. He even helped me can tomatoes. But most of all, he loved my cakes. Our first date happened to be on his birthday, and he had made himself a cake. Right then I resolved that if I still knew him in a year, I would make him a great chocolate cake. In fact, there was no other cake as far as Robert was concerned. Never mind angel food, lemon or any other cake. Only chocolate would do. I made him at least fifty chocolate cakes with homemade chocolate frosting.
All my life people taught me cooking skills. Grandmother, Robert, Audrey and so many others – thank you. Your lessons broadened my view of food preparation and made mealtimes an exciting venture. I am paying it forward. When my daughter was about ten, she and her friend Tammy loved to get in my kitchen and create. I had a cake mold shaped like an Easter egg and the two of them enjoyed decorating their Easter egg cakes. Much later when the girls were in their fifties, Tammy told me how much she loved cooking in my kitchen. She said it led her to a career as a chef. I can’t take the credit. It was due to the influence of my Grandmother, all those years ago.
