Chicken’s Good Enough For Me

Everyone conceded that my Mamaw, Estelle Cumbie, was the best cook in Wood County. That’s how she caught my Papaw, Guy.

Well, maybe she caught him because she was darned good looking, but her cooking helped. Hers wasn’t fancy gourmet cooking; it was just down-home Southern style, flavored with a LOT of bacon grease.

Like most Texas women of her day, she thought that bacon grease was the fifth major food group. It was “the nectar of the gods.” She kept a jar of bacon grease on the back of the stove, and used it to flavor everything. “I swan” she even used it one time when she didn’t have butter to bake a cake, and it was the best cake I ever tasted!

Everything she cooked was delicious, but her prize dish was fried chicken. She didn’t use “eleven herbs and spices,” but she could make the toughest old bird tasty and tender.

Estelle knew that pride was a sin, but she couldn’t help but crow about her fried chicken. When a revival was held at the Baptist Church, she brought that fried chicken to the suppers, so she could watch every other woman turn green with envy. All the men lined up for a chance to eat her cooking, and it put every other woman to shame.

When the Great Depression came along, fried chicken was a luxury reserved only for special company. Chickens and their eggs were a valuable commodity that could be traded for coffee, flour, sugar, and sundries that the farm didn’t provide. They weren’t eaten on a regular basis; squirrels, rabbits, and fish from the creek provided the meat for everyday meals.

However, special company was coming for dinner. Estelle’s “rich sister,” Pearl, and her family were coming in from Dallas. So were Estelle’s favorite brother, Doc, and his wife, Mildred. Everyday fare wasn’t good enough for them! Estelle had to prepare a meal that would impress them.

Though she could little afford it, Estelle wrung the necks of two of her precious birds and took them out to the well house to pluck and section them. She figured that with two chickens, there would be just enough meat for each adult at the table to have two pieces. If she had to do so, she could eat the necks (they were her favorite part of the bird, anyway).

Her menu for the feast was carefully planned. She made certain to prepare enough fresh vegetables so that the table didn’t look skimpy. There was fried okra, sliced tomatoes, boiled mustard greens, sweet corn-on-the-cob, cantaloupe, mashed potatoes and cream gravy, snap peas, made-from-scratch biscuits, cornbread, and iced tea. The centerpiece, of course, was the platter of golden fried chicken. For dessert, there was fresh peach cobbler and hand-churned vanilla ice cream.

When her guests arrived, Estelle proudly led them to the table and seated them. It was a fine meal before them, and Estelle was elated that she had done such a good job. As soon as they had said grace and picked up their forks, they heard a truck honking. A cloud of dust came up the lane, and a pickup truck barreled into the yard. Out of it tumbled Guy’s Cajun cousin, Antone Bertrand — with all his brood of young’uns!

Estelle was a good hostess … guests would never be turned away from her table. But, Antone was a big man who ate like there was no tomorrow. His kids did, too. Hastily, she dashed to the well house and brought back jars of green beans and pickled beets. She heated the beans and boiled more corn; then she brought it all to the table.

Extra places were set at the table, and they all sat down again. Once again, they said grace (because it might not have “taken” the first time around, and you can never be too thankful). Estelle eyed the table and realized her feast didn’t seem quite so bountiful with all the unexpected guests. She was more than a bit nervous that there would be enough to go around.

Estelle passed the platter of chicken down the table, but when it reached Antone that platter stopped right there. Estelle’s eyes grew as big around as sausages, as she watched him pull two legs from the platter. He then grabbed a chicken breast and two thighs and transferred them to his plate. He was eyeing a wing, and Estelle decided she had to stop him before he took it all.

Quickly she rose and handed him a plate of corn, saying, “Here, Antone, don’t you want to try some of this sweet corn and some of those mashed potatoes?”

Oblivious to her concern, Antone smiled a gold-toothed grin that would have charmed the socks off of an alligator. He replied, “Naw, Chér, chicken’s good enough for me.” He put two wings on his plate.

Needless to say, not everyone at the table got a taste of Estelle’s fried chicken that day. And from that day to this, there has been a special code phrase in my family. If a person is being a pig about food, to bring them back in line all anyone has to say is, “Naw, Chér, chicken’s good enough for me.”

It stops us in our tracks every time.

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. “Shelly, God Wants You To Fry”
2. Not A Kernel Of Truth
3. Only The Good Friday: Mmm MMM Good Tomato Soup
4. Thursday Thirteen # 8—My Last Meal Before I Die-et
5. A Wild Kid’s Festival in Galveston

Tagged as: bacon, cooking, Memories, Storytelling