Banana Pudding Feeding

Our dad worked at the steel mill. It was good, hard honest work, but due to the ups and downs in the demand for steel, there would be stretches of time when he would be laid off.  Laid off meant he didn’t go to work. Or if the union was on strike, he might have just his sub-pay to live on and he stood on the picket line.  It was during one of these times, sometime around 1965, we moved to a tiny house a small piece down the road from my Dad’s mom’s place in Louisa, Kentucky.  The name of the little town was Clifford.  I can’t remember the house very well, but I have many memories of living there. It was out in the country.  A place where you could garden and raise livestock, and a place to raise game chickens.

I’m sure moving was hard on mom and dad, but except for leaving a few friends behind in Flatwoods, I grew to become very content in Clifford.  I liked being out in the hills with a creek to play in and trees to climb.  I liked being close to Mamaw and I liked that we were all at home together.  Mamaw kept a garden and a few laying hens. Dad brought along some of his games, but he didn’t keep them in the henhouse.  He had his own pens for them.

The games were more aggressive than Mamaw’s laying hens.  The roosters especially liked to fight, mainly each other. It was a great place to raise chicks, and Dad would let the mother hens roam free with their broods during the day.  After one or two floggings we learned to give the mother hen and her chicks a wide berth.  I don’t think the flogging hurt that much.  It was just the idea of something chasing and hitting you.

We were never hungry or lacked for anything. There was always home-cooked something around. Sometimes Mom and Mamaw would get in cooking contests, or at least it seemed to me.  Both were good cooks, and we were at the age when we didn’t know we should never brag on one over the other.

There was a narrow path from our house to Mamaw’s. It went by the barn and through a fence gate. About the only stored in the barn was chicken feed and tools. On the other side of the path were the many pens with the game roosters.  Tall weeds grew up along the sides and there was a small ditch to cross.

One sunny spring morning I walked over the path to see Mamaw. All of us kids did this a lot. As long as we didn’t have any chores or work to do, we’d go back and forth between the houses.  Mamaw’s was a very good place to show up hungry.  She was always baking or cooking something.

When I stepped into her kitchen this day, I smelled something different.  It didn’t smell at all like her normal cobbler, or dumplings or biscuits. In fact it sort of had a foreign smell, and when I looked at the stove, I saw she was making banana pudding. I wasn’t very old, but I never remembered her ever making pudding. I would certainly have remembered since banana pudding was by far my favorite food.

I was curious, and skeptical that she knew what she was doing.  Maybe she was making it for me, and maybe she’d seen my mom make it and she decided to try it. I don’t know for sure, but she did seem glad to see me, and she offered me a bowl without me even having to ask.

The pudding was a darker yellow than I was used to. The first bite didn’t taste right, either. I think she made the pudding with the banana peels. She hated to see things wasted, so maybe she had decided to try pudding with the whole banana.  Or the bananas were too overripe.  No matter, it tasted funny.

I told her so. She looked surprised. I explained that Mom probably made the best pudding ever and in fact she had just made some the night before. Mamaw said that was nice, but didn’t I want to give her pudding a second try. I said no, but told her I would go and get some of Mom’s pudding so she could taste how banana pudding was supposed to taste.  She was agreeable.

I ran along the path back to our house. The bowl of pudding was there on the kitchen table, half empty. I picked up the entire bowl, and ran out the screen door heading back to Mamaw’s. I got to the barn, and heard that dreadful clucking noise of the mother hen. She had, at least, a dozen tiny yellow chicks, and they were all looking at me and the bowl. I couldn’t go forward, she was blocking my path, her wings hung low, and she was circling all around.

I tried to go back, but she cut me off. They wanted me to feed them. They wanted the banana pudding. I held tightly onto the bowl and tried to edge my way along the path.  The weeds were too high, and there could be a snake in there.  Frozen in fear, I could not move.

The hen rushed at my feet. I dropped the bowl and ran at full speed back to Mom’s house. As I ran, I heard the happy cheeping of the chicks as they ate my banana pudding.

I never told Mamaw why I never came back with the banana pudding. I sneaked back later and picked up the bowl. Not a banana slice or vanilla wafer remained. They had pecked it dry. I wonder if they would have been so keen for Mamaw’s pudding?