Creamed Corn

Creamed corn is disgusting. It was disgusting when I was seven years old and 40 years later my opinion has not changed.

The difference between now and then is I don’t have to eat creamed corn, hominy, or any other depraved vegetable. It is golden niblets for me, Green Giant all the way. Is that the sign I have made it in life? A great job, a house and name brand canned food.

It seems to be a common debate among older people about who was the poorest, as if it was a badge of honor.

“We were so poor we had to pick the corn out of the chicken manure,” proclaimed a relative once. Which instead of garnering my sympathy for his lack of food, it revealed to my young mind how creamed corn is really made.

The real dividing line amongst most Americans of my generation is food labels. If your label had Del Monte, Heinz, or a cartoon character from a television commercial on it, you were eating high brow cuisine. Betty Crocker, the Trix Rabbit, and the famed Italian Chef Boyardee were far outside the reach of my family, but that was not always the case.

My daddy was a coal miner and by the late 1970s that meant he made a good living. Even with a wife and 7 children to support we were living the American dream, which included a new trailer, food on the table and shoes on our feet.

He didn’t work at a large mine. It was a non-union truck mine, but the price of coal and the demand for workers was high enough that for a while, he was really bringing in the dough.

My memories of going to the grocery store in those days was quite an adventure. We looked forward to it all week.

“Go ahead and get what you want,” Daddy would announce to us. We raced through the grocery store filling up the buggy. It was like a scene from one of our later favorite game shows, SuperMarket Sweep. Candy, cakes, chips, anything our hearts desired.

In no time our buggy was loaded down with a graveyard hump piled on top. Daddy would walk to the register and pull out a large wad of cash to pay our bill. It seemed my Dad walked taller and straighter in those moments. Mommy said he looked like Elvis and sang like George Jones.

Our house was loud and lively then. Even with a house full of kids, it seemed like someone was always coming over or dropping by. Daddy had a way of attracting those in need and Mommy seemed to thrive with more people in the house, even as she complained about it. Years later, one of her greatest joys would come at Christmas time. After counting, she would call her friends to tell them how many people showed up to our house for dinner. A number that regularly reached into the mid twenties.

Then it all changed. Daddy’s back was broken in a mining accident and everything got quiet. Gone where the sleepovers, tag in the house and impromptu singalongs. He was suddenly home all the time, mostly hidden away in his room in bed, demanding silence.

The coal company fought compensation, so for nearly two years our family had little to no income. Instead of rushing through the aisles of the store with Daddy, Mommy would arrive home with brown paper bags filled with canned food purchased with food stamps.

As supper time approached, my two youngest brothers, my twin sister and myself would gather around mom.

“Let’s play a game,” she would announce as she reached into the bag and pulled out a can, a can with no label. Mom, trying to stretch her food stamps farther, would purchase grab bags of canned food, some of which were dented and most would be without labels, which would later explain her habit of buying out of date food and hoarding it.

“What’s in the can,” I asked.

“Well you see, that’s the game,” said Mommy. “We don’t know what’s in the can or what we are going to eat for supper. So let’s open some cans and see what surprise is inside. Who wants to open one?”

Of course we all squealed, “Me, Me, Me”, but even as a child I should have known Mommy would hand the can and can opener to Walter, her baby boy and her favorite.

In later years she would say, “I love all my children the same, but some I like more than others.” We all knew she was lying. She loved Walter the most, though we didn’t hold it against her because we all loved Walter the most too.

We would usually open three cans which often resulted in unusual meals. Most of the cans would be creamed corn, hominy, carrots, or mixed vegetables. Then, a miracle would happen and it would be a can of fruit cocktail. Never has anything tasted so sweet in my life than fruit cocktail from a dented mystery can.

Mommy would heat up the cans of food and feed us. She never took a bite until all of us were fed, a practice she continued even as she grew older and had grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come visit her.

We never got to go to the store and get what we wanted again. Even after Daddy received his Social Security Disability payments, money would always be tight. We graduated back to canned food with labels, but Tony the Tiger, Campbell’s Soup, Aunt Jemima and Lays Potato Chips would remain elusive for me even into adulthood.

Did we have any Grey Poupon? No, we didn’t even have French’s Mustard. What we did have was a Mommy who tried her best to keep us fed. I am pretty sure feeding creamed corn to a child is considered cruel and unusual punishment today.

I am not writing this story to garner sympathy or out of shame. Rather I am telling this story to remind myself that sometimes I don’t get what I want, but what I need. At that time, what I needed was a strong mother that would turn the bad times in our childhood into some of the fondest memories of my youth. I have to admit that I don’t get the same thrill out of opening a can of Fruit Cocktail today as I did then, but it does always bring a smile to my face.

Teresa Matney & Brian Shortridge

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