I had three comfort foods growing up: poached eggs, condensed milk lemon pie, and my mother’s version of pimento cheese sandwiches. The eggs and pie I can have at times, though the memory is stronger than the present tasting. The pimento cheese sandwiches I’ve never even tried. For them to be their best, timing is everything. I need to have rolled my car down the driveway some winter night after a four and a half hour drive from Shreveport. Daddy would open the side screen porch door and take my suitcase while Mother would say, “Wash and sit, and all will be ready.”
The ingredients were always on hand. A jar of pimentos, some fresh white and wheat bread, a block of strong cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce. The cheese was grated on a rusty four sided grater I still use. All was combined in the smaller pink bowl of a blue, green, pink mixing bowl set. My daughter still has the bowl. Chop the pimento, add enough mayonnaise, a pinch of salt, and two shakes of the Worcestershire Sauce. (Rabbit chase: I’ve heard of another bottle of Tabasco. Has anyone ever replaced Worcestershire?) Smoosh that mixture with a spoon back until smooth. Make a three layer sandwich with the wheat bread in the center. Then the special secret. Trim off all the crusts; something done for no other sandwich. Put on a baking sheet and run under a broiler, turning once until cheese is soft and the bread crispy. The first bite with the combination of smell and taste makes everything wrong right again.
With the kitchen cleaned up, prepare the pimento jar for its second life. After a hot soapy water wash, place the jar and the lid in the kitchen window to air dry. The next morning put it in the pantry under the attic stairs with others to be ready for use. Tiny leftovers could help start a light lunch another day. The last scrapings from a larger jar would be more easily reached in a smaller container. Daddy needed a home for odd screws and nails. Bobbye pins didn’t need to be scattered on a dresser top. Options were infinite, and a solution was at hand.
Horrors, I could and did buy ready made pimento cheese for the few times I offered it to a marginally interested family. The nearest jar that size that I have for a “just in case” emergency held chopped garlic. Nowadays, to deal with left overs and times that we send bits home with some one else, we use plastic HEB and rubbermaid keepers. Their sizes vary and with that comes the challenge of matching lids to the bottoms. Yet, the recepticles help us save, freeze, share. In an age where a supermarket can always meet a lack, perhaps these containers remind us of a deep-seated compulsion not to be wasteful, a left over urge from the time that apples were in the attic and potatoes in the cellar to prepare for a winter ahead. In other words, plan ahead, be prepared.
You lazy fool, look at an ant. Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two. Nobody has to tell it what to do. All summer it stores up food; at harvest it stockpiles provisions.
Proverbs 6: 6-8
Let Me Tell Ya 