Mama Lucy's Legacy

I knew Mama Lucy for 30 years. She loved to cook, and loved to see folks eat what she cooked.  During the time I knew her she cooked for her husband, her five children, and her five grand-children.  Before I knew her, she apparently cooked for most of southern Greenville County, (a great deal of it in large amounts).  Her children’s friends were always welcome at her table, and from what I hear tell, she and JW did a good bit of entertaining in the 60s and 70s.

After JW (or Wilton as she called him) died 10 years ago, she spent a fair amount of time at our house.  She’d come for a month or three, several times a year, while Alice “tweaked” her medicines and such.  And a fair amount of that time was spent sitting at our kitchen table doing crossword puzzles, looking out the back window at the birds and squirrels, and talking about food.  She didn’t cook too much then, but she still loved to talk about food, and she enjoyed watching cooking shows on TV, and Lord, how she loved to read cookbooks!  She would read cookbooks like most folks read novels.  She loved to get books on different cuisines, but she also loved Southern cooking, and especially Creole/Cajun (lately she had become somewhat enamored with John Besh!)

(A couple of things she did cook in big quantities in the last few years:  She once made me a huge pot of chicken stew and 100 biscuits to take to Lutheran Men.  After that, we’d often tease her to “come help us make a hundred biscuits!” And in 2005, she and her daughter Beth made several coolers full of beef stew to send to Biloxi for Katrina volunteers. She had heard they weren’t getting enough proteins for all the hard work they were doing!)

One of my favorite things was finding a new recipe, telling her about it (many times she’d heard of something similar) and then trying it out on her. Most of the time, she’d love it.  She didn’t particularly like lamb or salmon, so usually those recipes were out, and she very most assuredly did not like rosemary or sage in large quantities, which I do!  I would often tease her about that, saying things like “why don’t we put a couple of tablespoons of sage in this?”  or “You’ll like this Mama Lucy, it’s got loads of rosemary!”  Her answer would many times be “I …. Don’t ….think so, Mr. Philip!”

Here’s just few of the culinary treats Alice and I owe to Mama Lucy:

• Craig Claiborne’s tomato soup (I thought tomato soup was only from Campbell’s)
• Baklava (She only did this once, and then talked Alice into it!)
• Apricot whip
• Biscuit mix (5lbs of While Lilly Self Rising flour + a small can of Crisco=Voila! You've got biscuit mix! All you have to do is add buttermilk!)
• Crème puffs
• Barbecue hash  (which did not involve smoking the pork in any way, shape, or form, but was still wonderfully delicious!)
• Chicken stew (this absolutely had to be made with hens!)
• Dressing made without sage or meat (this was total against my German heritage!)
• Tomato Pie & Candied Sweet Potato (I never knew about these until about 10 years ago!)
• She was the first person I ever saw cook a Lobster
• Tomato Aspic & Pressed Chicken & Home-made Mayonnaise (apparently this was de rigueur for bridge club parties in the 60s!

Mama Lucy snuck out on us Friday afternoon. You know the Big Feast that Jesus says awaits us all in heaven? Well, she’s helping make the biscuits for it right now.  She taught me a lot, and I’m going to miss her.