I didn't know we were poor when I was growing up. My sister and I had everything we needed and enough of what we wanted to be happy. It is only in looking back that I see things more like they probably were.

I could talk about clothing. For example, when we were little, Mom had a pattern that she used to make summer clothes for my sister and me. We wore the same outfit, a basic set of shorts and matching shirt, mine with short sleeves, hers sleeveless. Patti's were made of girly fabrics and mine had cars or planes. We had two pairs of shoes each. One was our school/Sunday best pair. The other was our play shoes, which were last year's school/Sunday best shoes. But, I don't want to talk about clothes.

I could talk about furniture, or, I should say the lack of it. We never owned any until I was in high school. We always rented furnished or got what the military provided in base housing. We had a redwood picnic table that served as our dining room table for most of my youth. In some of our houses, we actually sat on lawn chairs. But, I don't want to talk about furniture.

I could talk about cars. Dad believed in paying cash for them. That meant we only got them about every ten years. Our family of four drove everywhere in a black VW bug with red leather interior until I was ten. The 1968 Chevy Nova that replaced it was the family car until I was a sophomore in college. But, I don't want to talk about cars.

I want to talk about my favorite thing, food. My mother was a great cook who always put delicious food that stuck to your ribs on the table. She didn't have a lot of money to work with. That meant that sometimes we didn't eat what my wife would call "normal" food. But, we didn't realize that growing up. I still crave many of those frugal feeds from days gone by, but if I cooked them today, no one would eat them but me. Rachel would probably divorce me.

Our food wasn't all that different. We ate beef a lot, just not the cuts most people did. Mom served stewed kidneys, sliced tongue, beef heart, and beef skirts. You have probably eaten beef skirts, too. Now they call them fajitas and charge a fortune for them. Back then it was cheap. That was how Mom picked her meats at the store. If chicken necks were on sale for cheap, we enjoyed heaping piles of fried chicken necks or bowls of chicken neck stew.

If money was especially tight, Mom would make a dish she called Slumgolly. She would open up the fridge, take out all the veggies she had in there, and fry them up in a skillet, using bacon grease that she poured into a tin and saved every time she fried bacon. When they were cooked enough, she would crack a few eggs into it, sprinkle on some cheddar cheese and let it cook until the eggs were set. Believe me when I say, that was one of my favorite meals.

Sometimes we got really lucky, and Mom made hamburger pies. That was a tiny bit of ground beef mixed with stale bread, shaped into patties, and fried like hamburgers. We loved them! Of course, I know now that she did it to stretch the meat so we could all have a burger. I found her recipe and made some just a few weeks ago. My wife thought I was crazy. I kept telling her they were like little meat loaves. She didn't get it.

Another favorite of mine was hamburger stew. It was plain old beef stew, but Mom used a tiny bit of ground beef instead of stew meat. The stew was translucent and tasted mostly of potatoes, onions, and carrots. We ate it with buttered slices of bread, which we stuck down into it until they were gooey. I made that once, but nobody liked it much.

About once a week dinner was a pot of beans. Not the fancy navy bean soup my wife's family ate. This was just a big old pot of pinto beans. Everyone got a big bowl full of beans, a ham hock, and a whole onion which had cooked in the bean juice. If we were lucky, Mom would give us a huge piece of johnny cake to go with it. That was a kind of sweet corn bread. I have her recipe, but just never seem to make it or the beans. Sometimes, and we are talking rare events, Dad would serve me canned beans for lunch. He would just open a can and hand me a spoon. Then he would slice an onion to go with it. I don't remember why he was in charge of lunch on those occasions. I can't think of any reasons why Mom would be out of the house. I just remember that I liked Mom's beans and hated Dad's. Now, I enjoy eating a can of beans that way every once in a while. Go figure!

The best example of Mom's frugal but freaky culinary skills was Leftover Soup. I don't remember this as a little kid. It seems to have entered our cuisine around the time Dad bought mom a freezer when I was in my early teens. We probably didn't have room in the refrigerator freezer to save the ingredients. You see, Mom saved all kinds of stuff in two big Tupperware containers. She peeled her carrots and potatoes into them. She dumped leftovers into them. It didn't matter if it was stew, stuffing, or apple sauce- whatever was leftover went into those containers. Each different thing froze in its own layer waiting for something else to cover it up. Then, when the containers were full, Mom defrosted them and dumped them into her big soup pot. She added a little water and seasoning, put the lid on, and let it simmer for hours on top of the stove. The result was always a steaming hot pot of the most delicious soup you can imagine. There was no recipe for that, obviously. I have never tried to do it. We never have enough leftovers, but I would probably end up dead and buried in the back yard if I ever served it to Rachel. She just wouldn't get it.

Now, don't let me leave you thinking we always ate like paupers. When Mom had the means, she could produce some classy food. Her lasagne, spaghetti, sloppy joes, and chile were better than anyone's. Her Christmas treats were amazing and loved by family and friends alike. The thing is, it didn't matter what Mom served. It was all cooked with love and a God-given skill that only a handful of moms are blessed with. In all my years as head cook for my own household, I never had the successes she had. Most nights I either served a meal to a bunch of complaints, or had to apologize up front for the “mistake” I was about to serve. Nope, I am not a cook like Mom. When I go cheap, the results are horrendous!