When it’s smokin’ it's cookin’. When it’s black it’s done.
Mar 11 Written By Blake Ragghianti
My mother missed her calling. She could have been a chef. When she married my father in 1968 someone gave her the ubiquitous Betty Crocker Cookbook as a shower gift. Here in the United States, the Betty Crocker Cookbook, with its iconic, plaid cover, represented a sort-of right-of-passage, at least in the 1960s and 1970s. To this day the book is still found on the shelves of anyone from the Gen-X and back.
Up to the day she got married, my mother’s experience in the culinary arts was limited to making butter and onion sandwiches. “For the first couple of years,” she tells me “I burned most things, overcooked more, and badly seasoned the rest” she pauses “but we ate it anyway because we had to. I spent many nights crying over my inability to cook.”
But what started out as a paintful chore slowly grew into an interest, then a pleasure, and finally a passion. By the time my mother had made it over the hump of the learning curve, I was already a pre-teen. In those years and all the way through college the clanking of pots, the jingling of utensils, the gushing of the kitchen sink, the sizzling of the frying pan, all combined into an un-ending soundtrack to our daily lives. The house was never without some savory aroma - roasting garlic, melting butter, sauteèd onions…
Over the course of forty years or so, my mother became an expert. The Food Network channel was usually on and we watched numerous series and movies about food and cooking together. Her handwritten recipes (most originals on index cards in ziplock bags stuffed into a 1960s avocado green recipe box) were originally written in neat, clear script. Year upon year of combining elements of various recipe versions, trial and error, and thoughtful refinement led to notes that looked more like a hastily drafted Beethoven score rather than a recipe - lines crossed out and updated, ingredients removed, ingredients added, splatters of oil, the occasional wine ring. My mother’s kitchen, her natural domain and her wheelhouse has become a culinary lab that rarely puts out anything less than a grand success.
My father on the other hand is somehow capable of burning boiled water. He can make cereal by adding milk to a bowl, and has a magic ability to find friends and neighbors who eagerly invite him to dinner when my mother is ill, at work, or on the rare occasion, out of town. On the other hand, when it comes to cooking late-summer corn, potatoes, or meat on the open fire, he’s the best. He learned his culinary techniques in the army in the 50s and 60s and up at camp with the boys through trial and error. Around the same time his Captain taught him how to distill old-fashioned Italian raisin brandy. We still have the hand-drawn plans on how to make a moonshine still out of a pressure cooker, some copper pipe, and a metal Snyder’s Potato Chip can though that original family heirloom was stolen from us a few years ago.
Sitting around the bonfire at the hunting camp each fall he proudly threw steaks, potatoes and overnight-soaked corn still in the husk onto the coals and, as if saying it for the first time, would proclaim to all present - ‘When it’s smokin’ it’s cooking… when it’s black it’s done.”
My mother’s approach to cooking required measuring cups, multiple ovens, 6 burners, a well-stocked pantry and a mysterious sense of knowing just how much of what to add when… with and often without a recipe. My father’s technique only required a fire-pit, some meat and a buck knife. If he made a salad it involved opening bag of mixed lettuce and spilling in some olives, marinated Italian vegetables and too much Paul Newman dressing. Somehow, in their own way, the results of both were always equally delicious. Maybe it was the campfire and the camaraderie that made the camp food just as good as mom’s hard-earned culinary delights, or maybe it was the simplicity - the other side of the coin… meat with salt and pepper and fire smoke.
Mulling this over throughout the years I’ve learned that while the food itself might be fabulous, mediocre, or burnt, what really makes a meal memorable is this:
Good food, honestly earned and prepared and served to loved ones in good humor, gratitude, and humility.
You see, what matters is knowing the quality of your ingredients, where they came from, how they were cultivated and how they ended up on your table, and finally, who that food is for and why it is being served to them. What matters is that the end of each day brings an opportunity to set down the cares of the world, pick up a spatula, and burn a casserole while giggling together with a cold beer or a glass of wine. This is what they called “The Blessed Table” and I hope you have one as joyful as ours.
