At the Farm Gate: Meals Blanket Us in Comfort
By Joanie Stiers
Mom made even the best of days better when she set a pot of homemade beef stew with dumplings in the middle of the table.
This repurposed meal of my childhood rated more delicious than the roast beef supper she prepared the night before. The aroma hugged you upon walking in the door. And to this day, this main course dishes out as much happiness to my soul as beefy vegetable goodness to my taste buds.
Comfort foods seem magical, and as a parent, I attempt to replicate the magic with Swedish meatballs, pizza casserole and fresh-baked rolls with home-preserved jams. Certain foods make us feel good as they satisfy our needs, and the farm women and church ladies before me set flavor standards and meal-time priorities that we embrace.
Throughout the winter, we find fulfillment in family-recipe cinnamon rolls and homemade meals of chicken noodle soup, chicken pesto pasta, burgundy pork tenderloin, pulled beef and meatloaf with farm-raised beef from the freezer. Every cool-weather holiday includes my mother-in-law’s dressing recipe, and at family parties, I attempt to mimic my late aunt’s deviled eggs, given we own hens that supply the main ingredient.
My adulthood favorite home-cooked meal of chicken pot pie makes the menu once per year on a quiet Saturday. After the meal that took most of the day to prepare, I scrape every bit of residue from my personal ramekin with a spoon. While a decibel less annoying than fingernails on a chalkboard, I figure it’s more polite than licking the bowl.
At Christmas, a cousin met requests for my late aunt’s raspberry dessert. A neighbor’s recipe for pizza strombolis has evolved into an interactive, meal-making memory for our family on Christmas Eve. And with Midwestern tradition, our farm family places Granny’s four-layer “salad” next to the lettuce salad in the potluck line because it contains Jell-O. The “salad” also has whipped topping; nonetheless, we enjoy it with the main course and still leave room for dessert.
During the fall harvest, the anticipation of a hot evening meal is real. Mom’s field-side meal deliveries stop combines, trucks and tractors temporarily for the operators to grab their daily dose on a long workday. Mom prepares her classics like barbecued meatballs and taco casserole. She adds a sweet treat often credited to a church lady’s recipe in one of the United Methodist cookbooks, further proof that legacies live on through the foods that comfort us.
About the author: Joanie Stiers farms with her family in West Central Illinois, where they raise corn, soybeans, hay, beef cattle, backyard chickens and farmkids.