Like most people, I eat 2 or 3 meals a day. Some meals are good, some are terrible, but very rarely do I remember any of the good ones. How was that pasta? It was terrible. I’ll never eat it again. How was that steak? I guess it was ok. Not good. Not bad. And I will never think about it again. There are some meals that are so good though, so absolutely fantastic that you never forget them. There are some so good that you know when eating it you will never experience a moment like that again, but you will reminisce on it for the rest of your life.
My mother, God love her, is good at many things. Cooking is not on that list. How someone can burn the top and bottom of a casserole but keep the middle frozen when there was never anything frozen there to begin with is beyond me. There have been times in my early life where I had so much charcoal coursing through my veins that it probably could have been used to fuel a professional barbeque competition. All this to say that when my mom cooked the best meal my family had ever had it was quite a shock to the system.
We were on a vacation in Charleston, SC. We’ve never been a go-out to eat family. On our vacations, we always cooked our meals. Usually, our diets stuck to the same routine of hot dogs and carrot sticks, burnt grilled cheese sandwiches, or iceberg lettuce in a bowl. Somehow my mother was compelled to try a recipe she found in a magazine. The recipe was for some sort of baked salmon. The only fish I had ever seen my mom cook prior to this were of the stick variety, completely charred.
While in the process of preparing this meal my grandmother, Granny, decides to trip and fall, landing on her shoulder and screaming in agony. Everything was halted and we rushed her to an emergency room. Come to find out she broke her collarbone. She was given a sling and a five-gallon bucket of opioids and sent on her way.
When we got back to the house dinner preparations started once again. The fish had been left to sit and marinate in whatever concoction it was in for the couple of hours we were away. Maybe it had something to do with the extra liquid in the fish, or maybe the oven was magic but what came out was a true culinary masterpiece. As we all sat down to dinner that night nobody said a word, they just enjoyed the salmon. Granny could be heard in her room where she had also been served the meal, moaning in ecstasy between clinks of her fork hitting the plate.
This meal happened at least two decades ago. People have come into the family and people have died out of it but it never fails that at every single meal we have had together since that point the salmon is brought up. Thanksgiving. “How’s the turkey?” “It’s pretty good, but do you remember that salmon mom made when we were in Charleston?” “Oh yeah, now that was some good salmon!” and if Granny happens to be part of the conversation she just starts moaning.
This meal has become something of defining moment in Walter lore. I think every family has a few of these memories that are brought up so often that even grandchildren who were not even born before the event occurred seem to also remember it as if they were there. The miracle of the fish. The one time my mother cooked something that everyone liked. The hilarious part about it is that to this day she still does not think anyone liked this ‘good salmon’. If anyone brings this up she gets defensive and shuts down the ceremonial telling of the story.
Well, mother, I want to come out on record here to the world. You may not be great at making toast, or eggs, or hotdogs in the microwave. And that is ok. Because that one time when you cooked salmon in Charleston after Granny fell over and broke her collarbone, well that was some really, really, ‘good salmon’’.
Cue Granny, moaning in ecstasy.