Long before I’d attempted to catch one myself, I ate many breaded and battered fish cooked by my grandmother. Dangling translucent filets from pinched thumb and forefinger, she’d successively coat them with sifted flour, beaten raw egg, and crushed Saltines, before laying them flat and sizzling on hot cast iron slick with oil. My contribution to the process was to crush crackers and sift flour.
“Climb on up, hon.”
Standing on a chair at her gold-flecked Formica kitchen counter, I’d lift my arms while she tied the too-big apron at my waist, doubling up bright material so I wouldn’t trip on the hem. Then she’d set a bag of flour next to me with a measuring cup, pan and sifter. Helping Mama Brown cook made me feel much bigger than my physical size. She trusted me.
“Let’s start with one heaping cup.”
Dutifully grabbing requisite measure, I’d plunge elbow deep into Pillsbury’s Best, withdraw my powder-coated hand, and dump one rounded cup into the sifter’s chamber. Shaped like a large coffee mug, open on top and bottom, its interior held a flat, rotating wagon-wheel shaped element set against a metal screen. Squeezing and releasing its double handle made the wheel move, encouraging flour through the screen. My hands barely big enough to envelop both handles, I struggled to get a good grip.
“We want to coat this cookie sheet.”
I loved working the aluminum contraption that sounded like Mom’s sewing scissors and transformed ordinary flour into fine fairy dust, catching light from the kitchen window as it fell, snow-like, on flat pan. Absorbed in its magic, I’d bend down, eyes level with cascading particles, and end up off course, coating counter instead of sheet pan.
“Watch what you’re doing there, hon.”
Mama Brown found ways for me to be efficient without making me feel like I’d messed up. At first, cracker smashing happened on the open terrain of a cutting board. I’d challenge myself to roll the pin faster and faster, imagining I was Godzilla flattening cars with my monster feet. A good third of what was meant to bread fish landed on the floor.
“Well look at that! Let’s get the dustpan.”
Next time I crushed Saltines for Mama Brown, it was through a Ziploc bag. My Godzilla self, unfazed, destroyed cars equally well from outside the humans’ sad attempt at a force field.
Mama Brown taught me how to crack eggs without getting shell in the mix and recognize the moist flakiness of perfectly done fish: opaque and slightly shiny.
“Dull is dry, darlin’, remember that.”
I remember.
Epilogue:
Shortly after writing “fish”, my octogenarian mom and only living elder was diagnosed with a rare, metastasized cancer. As always, she’s drawing on her inner resourcefulness to make the best of her situation, something all single mothers learn by necessity. I’m doing the same, scrambling to record shared memories before they become mine alone to hold. Fact-checking various bits with her – Dada Brown’s favorite beer, the color of Mama Brown’s Formica counter – has sparked conversations we never would have otherwise had. I feel closer to her now than at any other point in life. And it’s not just the specter of terminal time. We’re connecting the dots of our fragmented relationship into delicious wholeness.
Diane's essays have appeared in Oregon Humanities' Beyond the Margins, The Oregonian, and miniskirt; her images in foreign travel magazines and coffee table books including Lloyd Kahn’s Rolling Homes, from Shelter Publications. She lives on a 5-acre farm in Southern Oregon where she raises rotationally grazed lamb, welcomes Airbnb guests, and keeps hopeful eye out for edible wild mushrooms.www.dianechoplin.com.