From Soup to Nuts

When I start with storytelling, ideas just tumble out. Mr. Horvich's story of his first job, at Jewel Tea was a springboard for all kinds of memories, prompting me to return to Charms blog and indulge  myself with stories from the farm.

I was immediately reminded of brother Hoyt's first job at A&P in Rome, GA, before I was even born. Most of what I knew about that was what I read in Hoyt's memoir. Since I wasn't there for all of this story, facts may be somewhat rearranged. Hoyt worked at A&P, went off to WWII, and his plane was shot down in the Pacific. He came home with lumbar fractures, recovered, went back to the Army Air Corps, married Evelyn and went to work for Best Foods in Atlanta after the War. They eventually moved to Chicago, where after many years, he retired, some kind of Vice President.

I told all that to get to the part about Hellmann's Mayo. Best Foods had name changes and product changes but Hellmann's persists.  After the war, Hoyt was selling Best Foods products: Mayonnaise, Nucoa margarine, Shinola shoe polish and salad dressing are the ones I remember. Sometimes at Christmas every family got a box of  mayonnaise and salad dressing. I can't remember if shoe polish was included.

The most elegant item my playhouse ever boasted was a poster featuring Hellmann's. Hoyt came by to visit and gave me the lithographed posterboard. It was titled "From Soup to Nuts" and had recipes,   only one of which we ever tried, the part about nuts. 

It was a simple recipe: take raw shelled peanuts, roll them in Hellmann's Mayonnaise and roast them in the oven at 350 degrees until the papery husks start to pop and the nuts are brown. They come out roasted and greasy. (The recipe didn't mention the greasy part, it just said to drain them on brown paper.) Back then we didn't buy paper towels, but we did have Kraft paper grocery bags, made locally from local pine trees.

We didn't grow peanuts. Our neighbor to the east, Mr. Dock Moates, grew a little patch of peanuts when he plated the rest of his vegetable garden. He grew popcorn, too.


I can't recall any of the other recipes on my poster, which featured that pretty Blue Ribbon of Excellence and lots of yellow in the background. The Touch Quilt I worked on today has a blue background with a yellow umbrella applique in progress and lots of ribbons.

We used mayonnaise in making sandwiches and as salad dressing for chicken and potato salads and Pear Salad, my favorite. I used to wish for company because Mama always made Pear Salad but never just for regular dinner.

People in the Mill village put mayonnaise in their cornbread. I can't remember about prices in those days, but I suspect it was a cheaper way of putting in egg and shortening. Mama didn't put egg in her cornbread. Ruth did. We used lard, lots of lard. When soybeans grew on our land, we never thought of them as something to eat, at least I didn't. They were a soft market commodity just as wheat and cotton were.

Uncle Carl, Grandpa Billy and Daddy Mack, in the 1930s. A lot of food grew on their farms.

I did think of wheat as something to eat. Freshly ground whole wheat flour does not keep for very long. When Daddy took wheat to Stiver's Mill in Rome, he used to bring home what Mama called graham flour. Biscuits were brown speckled as long as the flour lasted without turning rancid. We didn't consider how much healthier whole wheat was, just that they were tasty.

 I was just reading that Best Foods uses soybean oil in their mayonnaise. I wonder what oil they used in the 1940s? Was it soybean then, too? Did they change to corn oil when the company was bought out by CPC? Does anybody besides me think about various oils used in cooking?