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Page Two of Margaret Cullison's My Mother's Cookbook: More Summer Fare

A few of the women in our town cultivated large gardens and raised chickens in their backyards. Selling produce and chickens provided them with extra money to feed their own families, and my mother knew the best sources for this special summer-time fare. Free range chickens in the truest sense of the word, the birds roamed freely in the yard, scavenging the ground and sometimes pecking at our heels.

I remember seeing our neighbor, a retired farmer’s wife who had moved into town, chop the head off a chicken because Mom had bought a live chicken but didn’t have the heart to kill it. The event was far more emotional for us than for the neighbor who was accustomed to slaughtering livestock.

We feasted regularly on chickens sacrificed in this manner while I was growing up. Mom often fixed chicken salad, either for potluck picnics or for a light summer supper, as salads were popular in our family. Easy to put together, this cool salad tastes better than heavier fare on hot summer evenings.

Chicken Salad

        1 three to four-pound stewing chicken
        1 stalk of celery with leaves, chopped
        1/2 onion, chopped

Lightly salt the chicken and put in a pot with celery and onion. Partially cover chicken with water and the pot with a lid, slightly ajar. Simmer until chicken is tender. Lift it from pot, saving broth for other uses. When cooled, remove chicken from bones and cut into bite-size pieces. Refrigerate until ready to make the salad.

Mom’s Note: One hen yields about 2 ½ to 3 cups chicken.

Assemble the salad an hour or so before the meal to allow seasonings to blend.

        1 cup celery, chopped fine
        ½ mild onion, grated or chopped fine
        1 small can chopped water chestnuts
        3/4 to 1 cup mayonnaise
        1 tablespoon lemon juice
        ½ teaspoon salt
        Dash of pepper
        ½ cup chopped almonds or pecans

Variations:

Add two tablespoons light cream to the mayonnaise for a creamier dressing.
Use two chopped hard boiled eggs instead of water chestnuts. Use chopped, pimento-stuffed green olives instead of nuts.

Mix the chicken with other chopped ingredients, except the nuts, if used. Add lemon juice to mayonnaise, tasting for tartness, and stir into the other ingredients. Cover bottom of serving dish with lettuce, add chicken mixture and garnish with nuts. If using olives or egg, they also may be used for garnish. Serves six.

Fried chicken was a staple for picnics and Sunday dinners in the Midwest. Health-conscious people avoid the cholesterol in dark meat and skin of fowl these days, but Mom never worried about eating rich foods. She always wanted the chicken wings, not to leave the more meaty pieces for her family. She simply preferred the skin and morsels of fat in the wings.

The summer after I graduated from high school my boyfriend, another couple and I planned to go on a Sunday picnic. Our destination was a small lake north of Harlan. Large bodies of water are scarce in Iowa unless you drive north, closer to Minnesota where lakes abound. I liked to swim and be near water so felt mildly deprived as a teenager because of this lack in my home state. Proof that there weren’t many things I actually did lack in those years!

I worked that summer at a women’s clothing store to save money for my college wardrobe. The stores on the downtown square were open late on Saturdays, the day farmers came to town to shop. After those long Saturdays, I was usually ready to take it easy on Sunday mornings.

But that Sunday I got up early to prepare fried chicken for our picnic. I’d never made it before so needed guidance from my mother. The morning started out hot and, by the time the chicken was ready, so were the kitchen, Mom and me. She was probably glad to end that cooking lesson and see me out the door for the day.

        Mom’s Fried Chicken
       1 three to four pound cut-up frying chicken
       ½ cup flour
       Butter

Wash chicken and salt lightly. Shake the pieces individually in a paper sack containing the flour. In a large skillet, melt some butter and brown the chicken pieces, without crowding them. Add more butter as needed. Brown the chicken on all sides and transfer to a roasting pan with trivet. When all the chicken pieces are browned and arranged in a single layer in the pan, pour remaining juices from skillet over it.

Cover and bake for one hour at 350 degrees, removing the lid for the last 10 minutes for a crisper crust. Serves four.

Mom’s Note: Gravy can be made in the baking pan.

Our backyard fireplace was finally torn down about the same time the screened-in porches came off. The porches had been added by my grandfather at the turn of the 20th Century. Like the fireplace, they symbolized our early childhood. On them we played during the day and slept on cots on hot summer nights. We spent hours on the front porch with our grandmother Buddy while she recalled stories of her own childhood. She told us how she found her dog, Tray, by the railroad tracks near her house dead from poison and, in yet another story, how her prized yellow shoes got ruined in the mud when she walked to school on the first day.

By the mid-1950s, Dad wanted to give the house a more modern look. After the porches and fireplace were gone, a fresh coat of grey paint brightened the house. A friend said it looked like a battleship, and the house did loom larger without the porches to break its height. Wall-mounted air conditioners were installed, providing relief from the summer heat.

All those changes occurred as my brothers and I moved towards adulthood. We had graduated from high school and left home for college. From then on the family home was a place to visit for us instead of to inhabit in the way children live in a house, unaware of what they’re leaving behind as they yearn to grow up.

Recipes are from the collection of Anna May Cullison.

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