Mince and Tatties

Mince and Tatties

(Word Count: 2332)

Words from the past; just three of them. It was a shock to see them on the blackboard menu, white scrawls looping around memories, tugging at her taste buds, wafting and dancing as they tried to harness fleeting aromas and flickering images.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be the same, not here in this remote village in the Scottish Highlands. Not here in this cozy wood paneled bar where logs blazed in the stone fireplace, the local muso strummed his guitar and the two barmen sang along with soulful tunes. It couldn’t be the same, wouldn’t be the same. At least, not the same as she’d been taught to make it.

Not here, so far from home, so far from her old life.

But, now, here it was in front of her: the pale, slightly greyish mince with a sprinkling of peas, carrots and onion swimming in a watery, grease-sheened broth. And, beside it, the compulsory mountain of buttery mashed potato. Her childhood on a plate. Mince and tatties.

The smell, that strongest of sensory triggers, struck her like a punch to the stomach, transporting her, erasing decades, releasing long-buried visions, like steam escaping when you take the lid off a saucepan. Images flittered in and out … the government housing, the kitchen, the chair she’d had to use to reach the stove, the battered saucepans, her mother’s handwritten cooking instructions.

She gulped involuntarily, but noisily, and wondered if anyone heard it or if they could hear the thump of her heart. She scolded herself: what silliness in a woman like her, a woman of a certain age, solo traveler, newly minted divorcee, self-described gastronomic explorer. The years between her two worlds evaporated; the decades between her 1960s childhood and her twenty-first century life disappeared. Memories, moistened with emotion, slid silently down her cheeks.

In the kitchen of her childhood, Maggie spread the handwritten pages across the kitchen counter. There seemed a lot of instructions for making beef rissoles, but that was her mum to a tee; she wouldn’t skimp on the slightest detail. Not that Maggie was about to complain: an eleven-year-old needed all the help she could get when she had to make tea for her family of six.

Using her finger to follow her mother’s perfect cursive script, she started gathering the ingredients and made a mental note that they were going to need more potatoes. That was a job for tomorrow. She’d make them stretch enough for tonight. Besides, she wasn’t that hungry anyway.

Outside, shouts and childish laughter echoed in the street. A rickety billy-kart trundled down the hill. Shoes scuffed against the bitumen and a ball bounced off the front wall. A pram rattled and squeaked along the pavement. A skipping rope kept time rhythmically thwap, thwap, thwap. Maggie filled the largest saucepan with water and added salt.

Use the big white bowl. Mix the onions with the mince. Add two eggs. (Crack them one at a time into a cup first to make sure they are okay.) Add two heaped spoons of tomato sauce and one heaped spoon of Worcestershire sauce (use the large spoon with the bone handle.) Add half a cup of plain flour and half a cup of bread crumbs, plus four shakes of pepper and three shakes of salt.

She dragged a chair to the stove, climbed up and emptied tinned peas into a saucepan.

Mix with your hands (make sure they’re clean.) Put some flour on a large plate. Make small balls of meat that fit in your hand. Roll in the flour. Keep the meatballs to the side until they are all ready, then put them in the heated dripping. Be careful of the spitting fat.

The potatoes were boiling and the rissoles were spitting noisily when her brothers and sisters poured boisterously and playfully through the front door; the clatter and chatter of boots and coats and hungry mouths.  The street lights had come on so it was time for everyone to be indoors. It was one of the few rules in their carefree life.

The evening mist was settling over the street covering it in a chilly veil. She could see the glow from neighborhood houses and she imagined cozy family scenarios behind the curtained windows. Her own mother would be well into her shift at the car factory and Maggie knew the rest of the family would all be asleep by the time she crept, hunched with fatigue, through the door just after midnight. It wasn’t just the long shift; there was also the travelling there and back. And, it was Monday so she’d have taken the bus to the hospital to visit their dad before going to work. It made for a long day in anyone’s books.

Maggie dished out the rissoles, mash and peas and tried to ignore the rumbling in her stomach. She wasn’t really that hungry and, besides, she had homework to do.

******

Tinned food was easier to prepare in her limited time after school, but it was hard work getting it home from the local shop. And, today’s load included potatoes and oranges. Maggie struggled up the last hill and lowered the bags to the ground. Stretching her arms and fingers to ease the ache, she was just about to pick up the bags for the last leg home when her two older brothers waved from the bottom of the street and signaled for her to wait.

Her eyes followed their progress as they ran up the hill. She wasn’t surprised that they weren’t even puffed when they reached her, probably because they’d just come from their after-school football training. They grabbed the shopping bags, swinging them as if they weighed nothing, and walked with her back down the street to their home. Maybe she could join a sports team too. She could fit it in if she was organized. Hockey? Netball maybe. It was just a fleeting thought. A silly thought.

******

Maggie lined up the tins of peas and tuna and, as usual, dreaded grappling with the wretched can opener.

She didn’t need the chair now; she could reach the stove easily. Heaving the heavy skillet onto the hotplate, she started to melt the dripping. She was making fish rissoles tonight. One of her dad’s favorites. He hadn’t returned to work since coming home from hospital, and even though no one talked about it, she could see he was getting sicker.

Mash the potatoes and then add in one egg (check it first in a cup). Open the tuna and drain it and tip onto a plate. Pick out the bones and cartilage and mix the tuna into the mashed potato. Make into small balls …

Hopefully tea would perk him up a bit. And, her mum would be home from work early tonight; she always had an earlier shift on Fridays. That should make him feel better too. As she opened the can of peas and poured it into a saucepan, she couldn’t know that it would be the last time she’d cook for him.

*****

Maggie stared longingly at the chocolate slice in her friend’s school lunch box and was hit by a pang of envy. Not for the food, as such, but for the story behind it. How she wished she had the sort of kitchen memories that her friends obviously had: they always seemed to be talking about cooking with their mothers and grandmothers, and about recipes handed down through generations, and about big boisterous family meals, and doing the shopping together or picking their vegies from their gardens. And, they were always coming to school with their homemade cakes and slices and biscuits; so much more exciting and enticing than her plain jam sandwiches.

In her dreams, these lucky ones attended what she’d nicknamed the ‘kitchen counter cooking school’. It was where cooking was taught at grandma’s elbow or while kneeling on a stool beside mum; where the uniform was a far-too-large apron, folded many times over and wrapped tightly under little arms. A school where young fingers, fumbling, learning, were sticky with dough, and faces were smudged with flour and smeared with batter. A classroom where gnarled, mismatched mounds of dough were lined up on a tray of otherwise perfect adult-made shapes; where taste tests were done with spoons of sauce or broth gently, lovingly dribbled into the mouths of little helpers. Her idea of perfect families, perfect childhoods.

She peeled the potatoes and stirred the beef mince. Tonight, it was savory mince. Or, mince and tatties as they called it.

When the mince is brown and cooked, add one can of peas, one can of diced carrots and one can of corn kernels. Stir in a half cup of tomato sauce …

*****

Maggie was tired, and she knew it would be a long night. She had a lot of homework to do, as well as study for tomorrow’s science test. But it would all have to wait. The shopping had taken longer than she expected and she was running late with the tea.

Use the scissors to cut the sausages into singles, cover with water and bring to the boil (not too rapid or they will split their skins.) Skim off the fat and scum from the top. The sausages will be cooked when they are a light grey colour and feel firm if you prod them with a fork. Empty the saucepan and put the sausages out on the chopping board. Use the black serrated knife to cut each sausage into thirds. Put them back in the saucepan with a quarter block of butter and four large spoons of plain flour …

Maybe she could invite Cheryl over after school one day next week and they could study together, do some prep for the math test. No, that wouldn’t work. It was way too noisy around the house until the young ones were in bed.

Maggie checked her mother’s instructions for curried sausages and measured out the curry powder, added the sultanas and cut green apple, and opened a can of peas.

*****

“Ah, Madame? Is everything OK? Can I get you something?” The waiter’s lilting brogue nudged her back to reality. “No, thank you. I’m fine.” She smiled up at him and at herself, because she knew she really was fine. She dived into the mince with gusto, sloshing it around in her mouth, savoring every spoonful. She wanted to devour it, revel in it.

Maggie was almost finished and, warmed by the hearty dish, the fire and her memories, she silently evaluated her culinary journey. She never did get to go to a kitchen counter cooking school, although there had been that wonderful baguette workshop in Paris and the authentic pasta cooking class that she found by accident in a small village in southern Italy. She didn’t have her own treasured family recipes that had been passed down through generations, but she’d honored the idea by writing a cookbook of recipes and dishes from her travels; recipes gathered from family-run village cafes and taverns; tips, tricks, dishes and family secrets generously passed on to her by shopkeepers, butchers, fishmongers and bakers in small-town shops or local markets around the world.

And, there was the cooking, itself. She’d had to learn to make filling meals with the cheapest, most basic and convenient ingredients, but it hadn’t dampened her enthusiasm for exploring the wonders of delis and supermarkets in every town or city she visited. Or, for savoring gastronomic creations in eateries as diverse as pop-up restaurants in suburban backyards, street food stalls and Michelin-starred establishments.

She hadn’t been part of crowded, multigenerational feasts where people shared not only food, but stories, laughter and secrets, but she had her own special memories. One of her favorites was her mother sitting quietly, alone in the kitchen late at night, her shift finished, her feet soaking in a bowl of water and salt, as she ate the tea that Maggie had kept warm on the stove.

Sure, there were lots of things she hadn’t had, but it was just like her parents had always said: life could be tough at times, but you had to tackle it head on, and always stay positive, because things usually improved in time, and the good times generally outweighed the bad. And, there had definitely been some bad times in her younger life, but she’d benefitted from things that weren’t on the menu for most people … her childhood cooking responsibilities had given her the basics early in life and whetted her appetite to learn more about food, cooking and the culinary traditions of the world … she’d learnt resilience and independence, and developed an enquiring, interested mind … and, it had made her a damned good cook.

Maggie stared at the last mouthfuls of mince and broth on her plate, and three lone peas stared back.

To make the lamb stew, add the chops to the saucepan with the onion, and simmer for about one hour. Add the peeled and chopped potatoes and return to the boil. When the potatoes are done (check with a fork) add the can of peas …

She huffed out a quiet half-laugh. Peas … how things change. The peas on her plate were far more vibrant than the pale green tinned variety of her childhood. But, all things were relative, and the ones in front of her now weren’t nearly as colorful and fresh as the ones she’d discovered in a small trattoria in northern Italy. She cringed inwardly at the memory of how she’d badgered the young Italian chef to divulge his secret for his brilliantly green pea risotto.

She finished her mince and sighed contentedly. Yes, she reflected, many things do change, often for the better, improving with time - just like her parents said. But luckily, there were some things that never changed, no matter how many years had passed. And a plate of mince and tatties was one of them.

The End