Jessie’s grandmother was named Opal, but everyone knew her simply as Miss Mother. As her name suggests, she was known for the care and time she put into rocking grandbabies to sleep and rocking them awake again. Sometimes, in the early morning when drowsiness still has a hold on Jessie, she pours a cup of coffee and says that she needs Miss Mother to rock her awake. It’s funny how much of childhood seeps into adult life, and how our memories as children were full of color and wonder. Our memories of Miss Mother will include her always-clean house, her ox-like strength, and her amazing cooking, but when we discovered her old, handwritten recipe for Brunswick Stew, we knew we had found another hint of that childlike fascination once again.
Miss Mother’s stew recipe calls for “1 pig head” and “1 hen,” straightforward-yet-complicated ingredients that sent us, as members of the drive-thru generation, through a loop. We enlarged Miss Mother’s handwriting and her blue ballpoint pen recipe and transformed a recipe-keepsake into irreplaceable art.
Her recipe reminds us that our childlike wonder is still intact and that memories of Miss Mother are alive every time we walk into the kitchen.
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