I would never have referred to Ma as a "trendsetter" or "being on the cutting edge" of anything, and I sure wouldn't think of her as a culinary pathfinder. Where she excelled was in getting us all comfortably full on a shoestring budget.
I can remember her sending one of us down to West Sioux Grocery (Linda, Lori, or me) with a pocket full of change and telling us to bring back some hamburger for supper. Shoot, the other girls were probably smarter than I was and knew exactly how much to ask the butcher behind the meat counter for, but I wasn't that bright. I'd pull the money out of my pocket, put it up on his glass case, and tell him I wanted that much worth of hamburger! Hamburger buns? Nah, who needed 'em? We just cut a slice of bread in half and then cut our burger patty in half. We'd doctor the bread up with ketchup, mustard, tomatoes and lettuce, and put both bits of cut up burger onto the bottom half then smoosh the top half of the bread on it. If we wanted to be fancy we could cut the halves in half and have cute little quarter burgers.
Ma would take that hamburger and manage to fry up enough burgers to feed 5 kids, a very large husband, and herself. We all left the table satisfied and happy. I wondered sometimes how she could take that little bit of hamburger meat and make enough burgers for all of us. I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I figured it out today. Here all this time Ma was making us sliders - yeah, those same little bits of burger on different breads that restaurants are now selling at 2 for 10 bucks!! Well played, Ma - well played!
I can remember her sending one of us down to West Sioux Grocery (Linda, Lori, or me) with a pocket full of change and telling us to bring back some hamburger for supper. Shoot, the other girls were probably smarter than I was and knew exactly how much to ask the butcher behind the meat counter for, but I wasn't that bright. I'd pull the money out of my pocket, put it up on his glass case, and tell him I wanted that much worth of hamburger! Hamburger buns? Nah, who needed 'em? We just cut a slice of bread in half and then cut our burger patty in half. We'd doctor the bread up with ketchup, mustard, tomatoes and lettuce, and put both bits of cut up burger onto the bottom half then smoosh the top half of the bread on it. If we wanted to be fancy we could cut the halves in half and have cute little quarter burgers.
Ma would take that hamburger and manage to fry up enough burgers to feed 5 kids, a very large husband, and herself. We all left the table satisfied and happy. I wondered sometimes how she could take that little bit of hamburger meat and make enough burgers for all of us. I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I figured it out today. Here all this time Ma was making us sliders - yeah, those same little bits of burger on different breads that restaurants are now selling at 2 for 10 bucks!! Well played, Ma - well played!
