Fried Potatoes at the Farm

No telling what the season was, fried potatoes were a sure hit. You could smell them frying clear to the den of the Diamond R, and some days, clear to the patio which was built on the east end, right on the wall of the den. That meant the aroma would travel from kitchen, telephone room, middle bedroom provided the door was open to that room and on into the den. Mmmm, Mmmmm, Mmmmm the aroma was quite delectable and one could hardly wait to eat those fried potatoes.

There was nothing like having a little bit of crisp and softened pulp of either a regular potato or the red or sometimes called new potatoes. Then when it was served with dinner, you could put salt, pepper, and sometimes garlic salt to season them. Some folks would drown them in catsup, but in my opinion, it sure drowned the whole taste of a good fried up potato! There were other times when an onion was sliced up and fried too, sure gave a mouthwatering flavor. Home grown vegetables sure were handy to cook up with a meal. The flavoring was more pure than the store bought kinds.

Sunday dinners were more like what a lot of folks call lunch. Grandma and some of the Aunts sure would cook up some real fine meals. My all time favorite is roast beef, mashed potatoes, lumpy milk gravy with pepper sprinkled on it, or the natural roast beef gravy, boiled and sliced yellow squash or zucchini, fresh red tomatoes sliced, green beans boiled with some fresh bacon, sometimes corn on the cob, or okra fried or boiled, pickled okra and pickled beets, bread or homemade bread, with tea for the older folks and water or Kool-Aid for us kids.

Now, mind you, I certainly had some allergies that interfered with that tasty food, like milk, so only on an occasion, I would try that lumpy gravy and it sure was tops! Especially with pepper sprinkled on it. And I had an allergy with tomatoes too, but they were so good anyway with table salt sprinkled on them, fresh from Grandpa’s garden. Afterwards, I’d get a rather annoying rash running up my arms from the elbows that sure itched something awful. Later on in life, the tomato allergy turned into stomach distress. And as for milk, my poor little stomach system just couldn’t digest milk, so when ingested…. well let’s just say that the bathroom better be available, cause I would be heading toward if I could make it in time.

Why we always called it Grandpa’s garden and not Grandma’s too, I really don’t know. Maybe cause most of the time we would be with Grandpa in the garden, helping hoe, rake, water, pick, check on growth, or just at his side when he would tend to the duties of a garden. Grandpa taught us many things about gardening, where to step, what to watch out for like snakes and wasps, and bugs on vegetables or the fruit trees or berry-bearing bushes.

A lot of times, he would use straw or hay for mulch. He sure could whistle too. Many times he would be whistling away, sometimes it would be as clear as a mini-flute carrying some kind of a tune, unknown to me of course, and sometimes he would do a kind of a whispery whistle. I guess that was his way of thinking while he was working, especially when it was the whispery kind. I know Grandma was with him sometimes in the garden too, but mostly are the memories of her when she would be in the kitchen making such delicious food for us to eat.

Some days now, especially in the summer, I would wonder how she did it, working over a hot stove or oven. They didn’t have central air nor did they have central heat. Later on in my years, when I was introduced to clearing the dishes from the table and into the dish washing all dishes, utensils, pots, pans and having to dry and put them away…. I knew it had to have been something awful. You would just sweat so much washing those dishes and the water was so hot for washing and rinsing.

You’d be so sweaty and uncomfortable, sometimes wet from the sweat going down your back, and I had long hair too! Thank goodness it was braided either in one pony tail or two braids. Grandma would have her hair braided and always pinned up into a bun. She would wear cotton dresses, or calico dresses, and an apron. You don’t see many folks wearing an apron, a long apron like she did in her day. Sometimes one of the aunts would help with the cooking, or sometimes my dad would help too. He could make a really delicious sour-dough loaf of bread or rolls.

Grandma was busy a lot of times, before and after meals too. She would make pickled okra, bread, preparing dough for maybe a pie or more bread, snapping beans for a meal, slicing cucumbers and onions for the vinegary water that they sat in, making jam and jelly, thawing out meat for the next meal or for the next day. She would dry corn and meat too.

I sure loved dry corn, and when I found it in the jars, I sure helped myself to plenty of it. Of course, you would have to be very quiet and sneaky getting into those bell glass jars. There were times when we would be asked what happened to the corn, it would seem that the jar amount would be dwindling, and of course, who would admit to that? Now-a-days, you can’t find that kind of dried corn much anymore, the store brand is sweet and takes away from the home-grown flavor.

I’ve been told of other cousins of mine helping with grandma and her drying of things too. One of them, when she was young, was helping keep the flies off the drying of meat. Grandma would lay out a cheese cloth or cotton tea-towels across the top of the back porch roof, and lay out strips of meat. She would do the same for drying out corn. But, one day, Grandma went to check on the progress of the keeping flies off the meat process, to find that the huge amount had ended up in my cousin’s belly. Dried meat is just as tasty as dried corn, and it was hard to keep it from staying plentiful!

That would be the same for helping pick blackberries off the bushes in the garden. Grandpa would instruct us many times not to eat them without washing them first or not eating too much. But who could resist from putting a few in your mouth when they were so ripe, bulging with flavor, and smelled so sweet? I remember having a lot of belly aches after eating those unclean blackberries. Grandpa had lots of peach trees too, and some apple trees. That same principle of eating before washing the fruit applied to those also. He would show us how to pick a peach, when it was ripe, watch out for bugs or worms and such. So, as usual, we would sneak into the garden, and pick lots of delicious peaches that would satisfy our bellies at the time, but then be sick later. Some lessons were purposefully never learned.

But, those days at the Diamond R in which we all refer to as ‘the farm’ was full of lots of good and not so good memories. The meals prepared, the family get-togethers, laughter, crying, grandkids helping with the grandparents and with aunts and uncles and plenty of cousins to do chores with. And as far as eating fried potatoes, well, nothing was like eating them at the farm! And believe me, there were not any leftovers either, because if no one wanted to finish them off at the meal, sooner or later, someone would come in and eat the rest. And most times, no one knew who ate them up!

Hey-Gyah Ahm-Boy-Taw

~until we meet again or

until I see you again~~

Kiowa Nation

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