Cooking with Mema

I love writing about my grandmothers. This afternoon, it felt like Mema was standing beside me, watching me make picnic sides for the bbq chicken I am grilling tonight.

When I was young, I knelt on a red kitchen stool with a back on it and two steps. I would watch Mema make her famous potato salad. I watched her make it many times; anyone having a picnic asked her to bring her potato salad.

I mainly observed, but she let me help decorate the top of the potato salad with slices of hard-boiled eggs and sliced pepper rings. I loved sprinkling to top with paprika too!

She would make 5 lbs of potato salad and serve it in a tin foil roasting pan so she wouldn’t worry about getting her pan back. 

When the potato salad got to where it was going, the Saran Wrap on top was smushed into the salad.

Everyone loved her potato salad. I knew how she made it, so I made the potato salad myself when I got older. My mother couldn’t get over my potato salad tasted just like Mema’s. 

Mema cut her potatoes into small cubes, and her celery and onion were diced very small. You never got a big bite of any one ingredient. She made the mayo dressing in a separate bowl and made sure it tasted right before folding it into the salad. It was all cohesively done, with every bite tasting the same. I think that’s why it was so good. This is how I teach people how to make potato, macaroni, tuna, and egg salads.

It was easy to duplicate since she loosely followed the Hellman’s Mayo recipe on the side of the jar. She had to adjust it since she was making larger quantities. She would taste it and add a little more if this or that. The secret ingredient to her potato salad was all the love she put into it.

Luckily, I had the taste in my food memory, and my palate could duplicate hers. I still look at the Hellman’s recipe to remind myself what’s what. Then I add a little bit more this and that, just like Mema did. Lots of love goes into my potato salad too.

I also watched her make deviled eggs, which are still my favorite. I duplicate hers whenever I make them. I made them for the kids at school when I was the food service director and cook. They would gobble them up within seconds and loved them. 

My baked beans were my creation when I was around 12 years old. Whenever my parents had a picnic or went to one they requested I make my beans. 

I knew even at 12 how I wanted them to taste and would adjust the ingredients until they were just right. Then I would add strips of bacon to the top and pop it into the oven. I knew the beans were done when it bubbled and the bacon was cooked.

After four decades of making baked beans, I figured something out. Instead of leaving the bacon in strips, today, I diced it and arranged it on top of the beans. 

After all these years, I solved the problem with the strips of bacon on top. There were a few slices of bacon, and someone always glommed them all before anyone else got any. Another issue with the whole strips was the bacon was always soggy underneath, even if the tops looked done. The bacon glom didn’t mind, though.

Now, each bite of the baked beans had small amounts of crispy bacon. This is so brilliant. I can’t believe how long it took me!

These picnic sides make me feel like I am 10 years old again and taste the same! The only thing I am sad about is that Mema isn’t here to have some with me.