Biscuits and Gravy

The children are coming over with their children, and Ethyl busily prepares a feast for them—biscuits and white gravy, ham, creamed corn, green beans, sliced tomatoes, sweet iced tea, and a cobbler for dessert, peach most likely. Everything fresh and handmade, nothing from a box graces Ethyl’s table. The recipes have been handed down from mother to daughter for generations, measured in handfuls and pinches. The work requires slow and steady hands—shucking corn, snapping beans, slicing tomatoes, pealing and pitting peaches, and carefully balancing the ingredients for the perfect gravy consistency. Gravy has always been tricky for Ethyl, but Charles was a genius at it. Charles always said that Ethyl’s biscuits were perfect for his gravy, and he was right.

The extra-large ham bakes in the oven, braised with a little bit of Coca-Cola for sweetness. Ethyl can just begin to smell the warm, familiar scent of the pork as it browns. The meat will take about two and a half hours, so she grabs the green beans, washes them, and begins to snap them. Thankfully, these beans do not have strings, so all she needs to do is break them and snap off the ends. There is a gentle rhythm to her work, her hands remembering years of meals, hundreds of pans of beans, many happy stomachs worth of labor. Charles always loved green beans; it’s something they had in common, a love of summer vegetables fresh from the fields. When the beans are all snapped, she places them in a pot of water with some salt, pepper, and a bit of ham bone and sets them off to boil for an hour or so, until they are tender, the way the family likes them.

Now for the dozen or so ears of corn. Ethyl grabs each ear and removes it from the husk, careful to get as many of the silks as she can as she works. When the ears are clear of the husks, she takes them to the sink and washes them, scrubbing gently but swiftly to see if any silks are hidden between the kernels. After a quick dry, she cuts the knobby ends off the ears and then cuts the kernels off into the waiting pan in quick, downward strokes. Her confidence with a knife is born of years of working in a kitchen, preparing fresh vegetables for dinner, feeding her family. Charles always showed his appreciation for her efforts by cleaning his plate and complimenting every meal she ever cooked. Ethyl loved how he noticed, how he felt what she said through her hands as she cooked. After the kernels are removed from the cob, Ethyl again runs the knife down the now empty cob to release the juice, or the “cream”, from the cob, allowing it to run into the pan. She repeats this process with every cob until her pan is full of kernels and the creamy colored liquid. Ethyl adds salt and a heaping helping of butter to the pan and begins to cook the corn, stirring occasionally as needed.

With most of the main meal cooking, Ethyl begins to work on the peach cobbler. She selects the most perfectly ripe peaches, skins, and pits them. Ethyl slices the peaches and cooks them briefly with sugar and salt to create a warm, juicy filling for the cobbler. Then, she melts an unholy amount of butter in her cobbler baking dish, adds self-rising flour, sugar, and milk (added slowly to avoid lumps) to create a batter, and adds the peach filling on top. As she sets it to baking, she remembers how Charles loved her peach cobbler, particularly with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The look of ecstasy on his face as he ate it always made her smile. Ethyl loved making Charles happy, and he her.

Ethyl was 15 when she married Charles, and he was 17, common ages for marriage in their community at the time. Charles was the most handsome boy in the neighborhood. She never had eyes for anyone else. Ethyl followed Charles to military bases, to post-war housing, and to their dream home in the mountains. They had two beautiful children, six grandchildren, and the greats- and great-greats are still coming. They built a life and a home, traditions and habits, recipes and favorite foods. They were married for 52 and a half years when Charles died in his sleep of a heart attack. Ethyl thought the world stopped spinning that day.

The children, they are trying to keep some sense of normalcy for Ethyl. Dinners on Sundays, having her continue to cook for a big family, maybe she will not feel so bad. It works sometimes when she is busy, but as her hands move into autopilot she remembers—Charles bringing her the first ripe corn at harvest from their little field out back; Charles helping her plant tomatoes in their kitchen vegetable garden; Charles making gravy to go with her biscuits because she could never seem to get it quite right.

Ethyl sighs and wipes a floury hand across her brow. She grabs a bowl, some more flour, the Crisco, and some buttermilk to begin to make her biscuits. The kids will arrive in less than an hour. She does not need a recipe for this. Biscuit making is practically a genetic gift in her family, but each woman’s biscuits come out slightly differently. Flour, Crisco, and buttermilk are mixed by hand to the cook’s judgment. Her mother’s biscuits held together very well, good for dipping or making sandwiches. Ethyl’s biscuits crumble easily. Charles said they were perfect for smothering in gravy. Ethyl’s hands knead the dough gently, creating round hand-sized pats that she plops in the pan for baking. Half-way through the baking cycle, each biscuit will be flipped to avoid overcooking on the underside.

Ethyl remembers the first time she made biscuits for Charles. She worried that he would not like them, because they were so crumbly. Ethyl’s mother often mocked her biscuits for that characteristic. Her mother mocked many things Ethyl did. Still, Ethyl’s hands did the best they could, and her biscuits were soft, fluffy, and tasted delicious. They just did not hold together very well. Charles was as kind as he was handsome. That first meal, he saw her struggling with the gravy and offered to help. He learned how to make a white gravy at home from his mother—a little bit of bacon grease, some flour, some milk, and some salt and pepper. Charles always knew how to adjust the milk to get the gravy just right—savory and the perfect consistency. His gravy plus her biscuits were the best thing either one of them had ever eaten. Charles said so, and Ethyl wholeheartedly agreed. When Charles said Ethyl’s biscuits were the perfect gravy biscuits, Ethyl thought she might float right out the door. She treasured that comment for the rest of her life.

The timers begin to ding letting her know that the food was ready. Ethyl takes the ham out of the oven to let it cool. One of the boys will carve it for her, like Charles always did. She tests the green beans and the corn for tenderness and decides to give them both another five minutes. She removes the cobbler to let it cool while she puts the biscuits in. Ethyl begins to gather the ingredients for the gravy when she hears the doorbell. The kids are beginning to arrive.

“So good to see you, come in, come in!”

“Can we help?”

“Yes, please, can someone set the table?”

“Absolutely, Grandma, be right there!”

“Everything should be ready in about 10 minutes or so.”

“Great! We are starving!”

The hubbub of family life makes her happy, or as happy as she can be with the big gaping hole in her heart. Combinations of herself and Charles dash around the house, setting the table, carving the ham, putting ice in glasses, pouring tea. The life they created pulsing in those veins, now back under her roof, eating her food, for a time. She is both incredibly happy and deeply sad at the same time. Ethyl had never known that a person could feel both ends of the spectrum at once; it is perplexing. If only Charles was here; he would know exactly how to describe and explain it.

As the commotion in the kitchen clears, Ethyl tries to make the gravy. She mixes the bacon grease, the flour, and the milk, and as usual, the gravy will not cooperate. This time, it is far too thick, more like a paste than a gravy. Unnerved, she reaches for more milk to try to thin it out some, wishing that Charles was here to help. Unsure of herself, the glass slips and falls to the floor sending broken glass and milk everywhere. Her son immediately rushes in and finds her crying over spilled milk and a smoking pan of attempted gravy.

“Mom, are you hurt?”

“I miss him,” Ethyl sobs, “and I think I ruined the gravy.”

“Oh Mom, I miss him too.”

Ethyl’s son gently turns off the burner on the stove and grabs her into a giant bear hug, the same sort that Charles used to give. He holds her close and consoles her for as long as she needs. Ethyl’s daughter comes in, quietly cleans up the mess, and then joins in the hug.

“We all miss him, Mom. His gravy, his laughter, the way he looked at you, his nicknames for all of us. He loved you, Mom, and we love you too.”

Ethyl sniffles. “I hope I didn’t ruin dinner.”

“Of course not, Mom! Your cooking is the absolute best! With or without gravy. We can always eat your biscuits with butter. No worries.”

Ethyl’s children kiss her gently on the cheeks and help her up. Ethyl wipes her face on her apron to get presentable and then directs her children to carry the rest of the food into the dining room, where her grandchildren and great-grandchildren await. She smiles as their faces light up at the plates overloaded with food. Ethyl would never be accused of letting anyone go hungry in her house.

“Everyone ready to eat?”

“Yes, Grandma!”

“I’m starving!”

“Can’t wait!!”

“Are we having cobbler?”

“What about biscuits?”

“Yes, yes, you know I fixed your favorites!”

Ethyl’s ache lessens a little as she watches Charles’ twinkle appear in one grandchild’s eye as he eats a bite of corn, sees Charles’ look of determination on another child as she carefully butters a biscuit, and notices the look of ecstasy as yet another finally dives into the peach cobbler. Charles is everywhere during that meal, even though his gravy is not on the table. Seconds and thirds are requested and duly served. Stomachs are stuffed, and mouths are wiped. And every attendee sincerely praises Ethyl for her cooking, noticing without realizing exactly what her hands had said to each of them in the kitchen earlier that day.

The grandchildren begin the clean up so Ethyl will not have to do any further work. She is grateful for their help. She remembers nights with Charles, handwashing dishes at the sink before they could afford a dishwasher. She would wash, and he would dry. Charles liked to make her laugh by telling jokes or teasing her with the bubbles or the towel. Sometimes, he would boop her nose with a soap covered hand, leaving her nose covered in bubbles, causing her to sneeze. Other times, he would wrap the towel around her and pull her in for a kiss. Even after they got a dishwasher, he would help load. He always loved to make chores more playful, something fun to do together.

Ethyl feels a bit like biscuits without their blanket of gravy right now. Naked, vulnerable, unsure of herself, she is not sure how to operate in this new world, a world without Charles in it. Of course, the kids ate the biscuits with butter just fine, even though they crumbled, even though they were messy. There was not a single biscuit left. Ethyl herself only managed to get one, and she had to fight one of the grands for that one. Maybe biscuits without gravy are okay after all. Ethyl decides she will keep it in the dinner rotation: biscuits with butter, a new tradition. Charles probably would have liked it.