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I dropped off to see my dad once, a number of years before he passed. We had not been close for some time, and I wasn't sure he would even want to see me. But I stopped to tell him I was in town, to give him the opportunity to say something. He had just come back from elk hunting, the elk he had taken were hanging in the garage ready to be washed down and processed.
I had just returned from Viet Nam and was visiting him for the first time in 3 years. He and I had had a fight, I left home (I was about to turn 18) and tried to make it on my own, but ended up in the US Navy. Between anger and the war It had taken that long for me to see him again.
At any rate, he just looked at me and said, "glad you're home" and began slicing fresh elk liver into a skillet with bacon fat and partly cooked onions.
We had that liver (very rare) and onions with uncle bens wild rice and a cold cold beer. After dinner I helped process the elk. We didn't talk much that night, neither of us were big on small talk, and he never would talk about stuff anyway. But we didn't fight after that.
The food was probably the most unexpected and unplanned I've ever had.......but I can still taste it 40 years later........
Now that I think back on this post, perhaps I should have included "meaningful" in the title.........
Location: Moved to town. Miss 'my' woods and critters.
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Goodpasture....warm story. Thank you so darn much for sharing that. I can just picture the setting and the quiet between the two of you as you shared something greater than words. Kshe is correct, meaningful would be appropriate in the title. Maybe one of the Mods would let you add it to your title.
Dad and I never really got close, but we maintained a decent relationship over the years. After I got out of the navy, I spent a couple of years traveling around the world, I ended up marrying a Canadian girl and lived in Ontario for almost a decade. After my first divorce I moved to Oklahoma. I saw dad on occasion during those times but I doubt in the 40 years since that night we didn't spend a total of a month in each others company.......until the end of his life when I stayed with him for about three months and chauffeured him around. At that point, we got pretty close, he got to know my son, and we finally developed a decent semi-normal relationship.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this to turn into a relationship or parenting thread. But I got to thinking that so often major events are accompanied by food of some sort. And I was wondering what event/food relationship stands out in your minds as being a seminal event.....where your life changed or where it took a different direction. I think it could be as simple as falling in love with hooters girl delivering the wings at a bar or the last meal served where things changed.......
At any rate, I have never had elk liver since that I didn't think of that evening when dad and I reconciled. I think some of it came from the fact that having been in combat, he finally recognized my independence....that I was no longer the "boy" he had thought me. Another part of it was that I think he was a bit lonely at that point in his life. Whatever the reason, it changed me at that point in time, from a somewhat angry and bitter son and opened a door that I had thought was closed.
Uncle lived next to a swamp. One day he invited us over for dinner. Said it was a roast with dark gravy made from the meat along with rice and other stuff. We asked why the meat was cut up so small and he said it was to get it to cook faster. The meat was dark and had a rich flavor. After we complimented him on the meal we asked him what kind of roast was it. He said it was some nutria rats he caught in his mink traps. Before you get all sour face keep in mind that nutria are actually very clean animals. They look closer to a beaver than a rat, they live in fresh water swamps, and they eat plants. I'd never have tried it willingly but it was pretty good. Currenty there's a bounty on nutria here in Louisiana. They come from south America and were brought here because of certain plants growing like crazy that aren't native here. Well, now we have the plants and the nutria growing like crazy. Their fur use to be prized for coats but the fur industry isn't what it use to be.
When I first moved to the south, I was staying with some friends, and we went out for the evening, returning at about midnight. They said "let's have breakfast" and immediately went into the kitchen and started cookng bacon and eggs and toast. I didn't know that was a southern tradition (at least in Louisiana), so it would certainly quality as an "unplanned meal".
Another was a bit more complicated. My GF and I were driving up throuth Montana early one January. I was plainning on driving all night, and on back roads, to when I went through Yaak, Montana, about 9 pm, I saw a beer sign in the only lit window in town, and pulled in to try to get a caffeinated drink. All heads turned of course, when a stranger walks into a bar in the middle of winter on a backroad town in Montana. It turns out that the owner of the place goes south every year for a month for the winter holidays, and just leaves the bar open for the locals to run. He was the cook, too, so there were no meals available when he was gone. But on those days, the local clientele just brings in pot luck---they pointed to a table in the corner and said, There it is, help yourself. Pot luck turned out to be big plates of things like moose and bear sausage and smoked salmon. That was unusual and unplanned.
By the way (they told me) they don't plow the road beyond here, so to get through to Canada, you have to go back around. No wonder they were surprised to see me "passing through".
My dad was serving in the Navy during Vietnam. There were times his ship would pull into a Pacific Island port. Said at this one port there was a street vender who was selling bar-b-que. Him and the guys got some BBQ from him for several days when one day one of the guys asked the vender what kind of meat were they eating. The vender said, "Ah, that monkey paw". Some of the guys got sick. I'm like my dad,...oh well, damage is already done and he kept eating.
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