Just last week Tipper was talking about “Tater Soup” which brought back all kinds of childhood memories. Reading her post from the southern Appalachians had my nose and taste buds fooling my brain into thinking there really was cornbread in the oven and tater soup on the stove.

That’s what food memories are like, total immersion into the recesses of your brain. A smell caught in passing that can trigger the memories of meal long gone and the loved ones who cooked them for you. That food memory of tater soup and cornbread can be laid to my Grandma…My mother’s mother. I don’t really remember eating it all that often with my grandparents but I ate it enough to know that my mother’s recipe came from Grandma.

Tipper’s post triggered decades of memories and tastes and smells…The old country kitchen in Orchard where many of my childhood food memories were made…The small kitchen in the home where I grew up… The jars and jars of fig preserves under the counter. Made lovingly by Grandma in the hottest of summer heat and sent home with us every year to heap on buttered toast through the winter. Deer steaks fried in the pressure cooker for lunch along with the fresh vegetables from the garden out back…creamed squash…fried okra…green beans…creamed corn…Memories tumbling down through time.