It’s about scale. I think Mom acquired her sense of scale from her Mom, Mommie Soph. If you get something… get a lot of it — you can never tell if the store might run out. If you cook something… make a lot — you can count on a recipe “for 8” won’t come close to getting the job done… that is, feeding eight and providing the necessary snacking reserves.
Everything in life springs from this concept of scale.
Two illustrations come quickly to mind. One time on the Tonight Show, hosted by Johnny Carson in those days, it was mentioned, in jest, that there was a toilet paper shortage sweeping across America. Mom did not take it in jest… rather she hurried down the next morning in the Ford Country Squire to the Big Buy (this was in the day before Costco, BJs & Sam’s Club) and she crammed the station wagon with two huge cartons of toilet paper taken directly from from the loading docks… she told the floor manager that she was buying the TP for a motel. And of course she was sure to get the “insiders” price.
Mom had to be sure that she had enough for the family… the entire family. What happens if someone gets diarrhea? (God forbid) Well, Mom was taking no chances. She bought enough to cover the Statue of Liberty in paper. I think it was five years before she had to buy another roll of toilet paper.
Second illustration… food recipes could never be trusted as it pertained to portion size. The only way a recipe for four served four was if it was a bad recipe… and if it was a bad recipe, it probably could serve eight. Who would want to eat it?
But recipes do provide a gauge on which to go by. A recipe for four could simply be doubled to get to its true serving size. Fine. But how do you arrive at the correct number of ears of sweet corn to cook? Mom’s technique was to carefully record “eating experience”… she assigned a number to each person based on their high water mark — the most sweet corn eaten on one occasion. So at age 15, when I had the metabolism of a humming bird, just for grins, I tucked into ten ear of corn, and from that point on ten became my number. When Mom went shopping for family cook outs, I was counted in for ten… every time.
When I got married, Mom gave Ellen a pot to cook corn in. Never mind that the pot covered all four burners of our first kitchen… or that we had to fill the pot in the bathtub because it couldn’t fit under the faucet in the kitchen sink… or that that when we cooked our four ear of corn in the pot, they looked like atolls in the South Pacific.
You see… it’s about scale.
It’s a shame that Mom never got to experience the glory of shopping in Costco. That store was built for her… it approached her concept of scale… tubs of peanut butter, not jars. Cup of Soups by the case, produce and fruit, fruit of Margie’s quality… and in quantities that went beyond the pale.
Mom’s only problem in shopping at Costco would be finding a car to cart the stuff home. The Country Squire wouldn’t do.
When it comes to Costco I am small potatoes. But on our return trip from Boston, Sandy and I put into the Costco in Waterbury. Sandy had agreed to make some fresh fruit salad (something that I adore). And since no one beats Costco on fruit, not Stew Leonard’s, not even Margie’s in its hay day… Costco was our place to provision out.
We puttered thru the aisles ’til we got to the fruit zone. Then I made quick work of the selection: three cantaloupes, two personal sized watermelons (the geneticist who came up with the personal sized watermelon should get a Nobel Prize), a humongous container of plump black cherries, an equally humongous container of red flame grapes (the kind that crunch when you bite into them), a bigger container of monster strawberries, an unearthly quantity of rock hard dark purple plums (with yellow flesh… my favorite), one pineapple, a sensible container of those funny looking saucer shaped white flesh peaches and a box of soft and tasty apricots (that would be too ripe for the salad).
$60 in fruit. But did we have fruit!
The next day Sandy added a few gala apples to our supply… and then she went about chopping, slicing, cutting, scooping and pitting… careful not to make pieces too small (this was done at my request). Pitting the cherries was a bonus… I would have been content to spit them out as necessary.
When all was said and done, using about a third of our larder, Sandy had made enough fruit salad to fill a pot… A pot? A pot big enough to cook sweet corn in!
The fruit salad was outright delicious. Exceptional fruit, wonderfully ripe, a melding of flavors, generously cut pieces… It doesn’t get better!!
And made in the right scale!
Oh, Mom would have been proud…