Whether it’s for a young neighbor who’s having a difficult pregnancy or an elderly church member who broke his hip, food is a tangible way we can express our concern for another human being. While homemade macaroni and cheese can’t replace medicine, it can go a long way toward lifting someone’s spirits. At the very least, food from a friend allows the recipient to rest instead of worry about grocery shopping and cooking. And Southerners seem to have a sixth sense for knowing when it’s time to come calling.
Cora Lynn learned the hard way that canned vegetables don’t count. Her mother was out of town, so she had to fill in at the last minute to prepare a meal for the widow Olivia, the longtime piano teacher who was suffering from yet another bout of an undiagnosable malaise.
Turns out Cora Lynn’s mother forgot she had volunteered to take dinner on Tuesday and so she called Cora Lynn, frantic, from a sauna in Hot Springs where she had gone for a “girls’ getaway” with her roommates from college. Cora Lynn had no idea why those women thought they could get away with referring to themselves as “girls” now that every last one of them was past forty. But her mother promised her a gift certificate for her trouble, so Cora Lynn flipped through the small black three-ring binder that her mother kept on the kitchen counter, the one with recipes from dead relatives, and got to work.
She had seen her mother do this many times, prepare a casserole or a pot of soup to take to someone who was sick. Neighbors, church members, and once even the recording secretary from DAR, a woman her mother claimed to loathe.
So Cora Lynn knew about defrosting the chicken and preheating the oven. She even remembered to squeeze excess water from the spinach. When the timer went off, she had a piece of aluminum foil at the ready. She was halfway out the door before she wondered if she was supposed to take anything else to Miss Olivia. Did her mother usually include a vegetable or a salad? Unsure of what to do, she grabbed a can of asparagus spears from the pantry and stuck it in her purse. Her father was always complimenting her on her resourceful nature, so it was with confidence that she rang Miss Olivia’s doorbell—twice, because Miss Olivia didn’t like wearing her hearing aids.
Cora Lynn thought maybe Miss Olivia had developed a problem with her throat, in addition to her other various maladies, because she was speechless as Cora Lynn placed the chicken divan on the kitchen table and pulled out the can of asparagus spears from her purse. She thought it a little rude that Miss Olivia didn’t walk her back to the front door, but she knew the old lady wasn’t feeling well so she decided not to mention it. One of her mother’s favorite sayings was, “Don’t say anything if it can’t be nice,” so Cora Lynn let herself out.
Even though Miss Olivia didn’t move around as quickly as she used to, what with her overall poor health and the undue stress from all the trouble she’s seen during her lifetime—“more than most people could bear”—after Cora Lynn left Miss Olivia couldn’t get to the phone fast enough to spread the word of the canned vegetable masquerading as concern.
Cora Lynn thought it was enough that she had prepared the chicken divan according to her mother’s recipe and called to schedule a convenient time to drop it by. But Cora Lynn was young, and she didn’t realize she’d violated one of the cardinal rules of culinary caregiving. Her mother set her straight the minute she got back from Hot Springs.
“You always take a complete meal,” said her mother. “If you’re part of a group effort, then each person signs up for one food item, such as salad or dessert. But if you’re thoughtful enough to assume responsibility all on your own, you need to take more than just the main dish. It’s preferable that everything be homemade. People aren’t usually too demanding about the bread, though; they realize you’ll probably stop by the bakery on the way over. But under no circumstances do you offer a can of anything to an ailing person and expect it to make them feel better.”
Before Cora Lynn could say she thought this was entirely too complicated, her mother whispered that if she ever found herself in such a pickle again she could resort to a canned vegetable only if she took the time to put the contents in a dish. She also told Cora Lynn not to ever utter a word about that particular little trick. In the end, though, it was just one of many secrets the two would share in that kitchen, thereby securing the sanctity of their mother-daughter bond for years to come.