A Mushy Story
A number of weeks ago when my mother was being released from the hospital for the second time, I wrote that she was eating well, she was taking initiative to exercise, and she was interested again in the events going on in the world around her. Then followed several bad weeks in which she lost more weight because of severe digestive upset. More than once she promptly threw up the pills she had just swallowed.
She apparently had a staph infection around the site where tubes had drained her chest cavity after the surgery. For this infection she was given a "big gun" antibiotic. The antibiotic seemed to upset her stomach. It got rid of the staph infection but presented her with a new problem: a clostridium overgrowth, which prolonged the digestive upset, for a different reason this time. Another antibiotic to knock back the clostridium, plus diligent use of yogurt and over-the-counter probiotics, gradually set things right again.
So now we're back to where we were when Mom left the hospital. She's eating well, taking exercise initiative, reading the paper, opening the front door at 5:30 AM to check on the new snow, sleeping in her own bed rather than in the hospital bed in the living room, and puttering around in the kitchen. Yesterday the cardiologist authorized the use again of the chi machine, which Mom had used faithfully for exercise before the heart problem was diagnosed. She's been itching to get back to that exercise. She talks about hoping to be able to go to Florida for the Beachy minister's meetings before Easter. She could visit her sister who lives there and she really likes attending the sessions.
We've all been smiling over one of the proofs that sick people often long for "comfort foods" they remember from childhood.
When Mom was hardly able to eat, my sister Carol tried to tempt her by suggesting she might like to try fried mush. No, she wasn't hungry for fried mush. But the following week, when Rhoda stayed with her for the night, at 4:00 AM Mom was awake and wanted to go to the kitchen with Rhoda to cook cornmeal mush. Rhoda suggested a compromise. She would put out the bread pans in which the cooked mush was to solidify in preparation for frying--this so that Mom would not forget to have Linda cook the mush later.
Since then, Mom has fried up a storm of mush. She likes it with syrup or tomato gravy. She thought the gravy I made was extra good. Later, from her chair where she sat to fry mush on the electric griddle, she directed Dad in the art of making tomato gravy, and that was good too. She also bargained with Lowell, who brought her liverwurst, in exchange for mush she had cooked for him.
The morning I ate with Mom and Dad I enjoyed the mush so much that I went home and cooked it that day for my family. Lois was going to make it for her family, after she had cooked a batch for Mom--in round two of the mush saga. So we're on our way to cementing the idea of mush-as- comfort-food in our family's minds also. Some of us had to eat it without liverwurst though. I served sausage with the tomato gravy instead, with syrup as an additional option.
I would love to know--and it's too late to ask my grandma--about how or when she served her family fried mush. I'll have to ask Mom about this, or maybe Aunt Fannie or Aunt Esther would know. Was it a common everyday breakfast dish, or was it cooked to tempt ailing appetites?
Who would have thought that fried mush was destined for a starring role in Mom's recovery drama? Surely not Grandma, who probably cooked it because it was economical and filling. But in doing so, she created a pleasant memory that could be brought out and put to good use in her 80-year-old daughter's journey to wellness. Thank God for that.
She apparently had a staph infection around the site where tubes had drained her chest cavity after the surgery. For this infection she was given a "big gun" antibiotic. The antibiotic seemed to upset her stomach. It got rid of the staph infection but presented her with a new problem: a clostridium overgrowth, which prolonged the digestive upset, for a different reason this time. Another antibiotic to knock back the clostridium, plus diligent use of yogurt and over-the-counter probiotics, gradually set things right again.
So now we're back to where we were when Mom left the hospital. She's eating well, taking exercise initiative, reading the paper, opening the front door at 5:30 AM to check on the new snow, sleeping in her own bed rather than in the hospital bed in the living room, and puttering around in the kitchen. Yesterday the cardiologist authorized the use again of the chi machine, which Mom had used faithfully for exercise before the heart problem was diagnosed. She's been itching to get back to that exercise. She talks about hoping to be able to go to Florida for the Beachy minister's meetings before Easter. She could visit her sister who lives there and she really likes attending the sessions.
We've all been smiling over one of the proofs that sick people often long for "comfort foods" they remember from childhood.
When Mom was hardly able to eat, my sister Carol tried to tempt her by suggesting she might like to try fried mush. No, she wasn't hungry for fried mush. But the following week, when Rhoda stayed with her for the night, at 4:00 AM Mom was awake and wanted to go to the kitchen with Rhoda to cook cornmeal mush. Rhoda suggested a compromise. She would put out the bread pans in which the cooked mush was to solidify in preparation for frying--this so that Mom would not forget to have Linda cook the mush later.
Since then, Mom has fried up a storm of mush. She likes it with syrup or tomato gravy. She thought the gravy I made was extra good. Later, from her chair where she sat to fry mush on the electric griddle, she directed Dad in the art of making tomato gravy, and that was good too. She also bargained with Lowell, who brought her liverwurst, in exchange for mush she had cooked for him.
The morning I ate with Mom and Dad I enjoyed the mush so much that I went home and cooked it that day for my family. Lois was going to make it for her family, after she had cooked a batch for Mom--in round two of the mush saga. So we're on our way to cementing the idea of mush-as- comfort-food in our family's minds also. Some of us had to eat it without liverwurst though. I served sausage with the tomato gravy instead, with syrup as an additional option.
I would love to know--and it's too late to ask my grandma--about how or when she served her family fried mush. I'll have to ask Mom about this, or maybe Aunt Fannie or Aunt Esther would know. Was it a common everyday breakfast dish, or was it cooked to tempt ailing appetites?
Who would have thought that fried mush was destined for a starring role in Mom's recovery drama? Surely not Grandma, who probably cooked it because it was economical and filling. But in doing so, she created a pleasant memory that could be brought out and put to good use in her 80-year-old daughter's journey to wellness. Thank God for that.
posted by Mrs. I at
6:32 AM
2 Comments:
I loved your mushy story!! Our whole family loves mush! Loncho and the children love it, I guess because it is real corn food. Our family at home often had mush in the fall. When those of us that worked at Kauffman's came home from work at 5:30 or so and it was already dark and we were so cold, nothing tasted quite as good as that hot mush! Mama would then put the rest in pans to have use for fried mush in the morning. I do know, though, that not everyone enjoys mush with the same type of sentimentality! I knew a man who worked at the same market I did when I was a girl and he once was telling me how he cannot stand the sight or smell of mush. He said that's all they ate--for I don't know how long when he was a boy! He said it was about all they could afford. I made quite an impression on me at the time--to think of only having that to eat! I could easily imagine getting tired of anything if that is all you would get to eat!
By
Anonymous, at 1/15/2009
I asked Mom herself about their mush traditions as she was growing up. Occasionally they would cook a pot of mush and eat it hot, with milk, at supper, and put the rest in pans to slice and fry for breakfast.
But in the current "mush season" we have skipped the mush and milk step. Perhaps the nostalgic phase of it for her was the fried mush.
Do you remember how we used to wish we could add sugar to mush and milk? Maybe she did too.
Linda Rose
By
Anonymous, at 1/16/2009
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