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This is Dana Abrams on Tuesday, September 27th at 5.45 p.m. I am at Mount Zion Church conducting an interview with Wilma Jones for

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the Food and Stories Project for American Material Culture Studies 402. Okay, I have a list of questions that I was

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going to go through with you. And then I actually want to kind of question about the church and food here as well. So, okay, the first thing is when growing up,

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what were your favorite dishes and in what time during the year did you have them? I really didn't have a lot of favorite dishes.

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We didn't have a lot, so I was just glad to get whatever I could to eat and I eat all year long. Is there a specific thing that

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you like really liked or like remember from around the holidays? Like a specific dish? No, most of the holidays, our

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basic holiday dinner was like for Thanksgiving it was always turkey, we had roast beef, we always had duck,

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pearled onions, cranberries, whole cranberries, sweet candy yams that's our basic meal that we had for thanksgiving so you have

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a lot of meat that's interesting i've never really i just kind of had the turkey and that's it no beef and a duck usually she the lady who raised me we always

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had a duck and we always had a large number of people that came to the um dinner family to the point that she had an antique table that if you sit at it

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at first it maybe holds six people but it had enough leaves when the whole group got there about 15 people would get around that table by the time they pulled it

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out and added the leaves the sections to it so it was a big gathering it was a big gathering where did you go up right here you're up right where i live now only up the

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street across from the elco where vacant lot is okay down to have a house on there right but there were i think six row houses there that were joined together and that's where

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i was born on 66 west cleveland avenue the latest house on the road there and they were there until someone um the arson set them on fire oh wow yeah i had lived there

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then we had that we had long gone from there so i lived in newark all my life. I was born on the street. Wow. At 66 West Cleveland Avenue by Midway, was delivered by Midway.

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Wow. I'm a native Newarker. Were there any like dishes maybe specific to Newark that you remember or that remind you

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the area or like any places that she would go to to get a certain cake or anything like that? Not really because my foster mother was a very good cook. She did

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everything from scratch. I really didn't have to go out. I ate everything right home. I like sticky buns. She used to make homemade sticky buns and homemade donuts and

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that was usually around the holidays around Christmas. Were they like the big ones? Yeah. Not like the stand-alone ones.

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Yeah, a little regular -sized doughnuts with the holes in them. Or then she picked the middle holes she was defarming. Like they have the doughnut

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holes now at Dunkin' Donuts. Like that. So that was really good. Yeah, homemade doughnuts are like the best. Homemade

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doughnuts and homemade sticky buns. So it was made good. So you have like a sweet tooth now, do you think, from like a typical year? I'm a foodaholic. I love

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food. I'm serious. I love food. I love to eat. And everyone that knows me know that I love to eat. Would you rather cook for yourself or like go out to restaurants?

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Well, I like cooking for myself, but I do go out to restaurants. I like to eat that steakhouse, one of my favorites. Do you cook steak at home?

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Yes, occasionally. What kind would you cook? I usually use ribeye and sometimes a quarter has, we've had all kinds of mistakes because the lady who raised me

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didn't have any children so she took me in. I still had a mother. My mother still was over me but she asked if I could live with her. I just stood to help out because

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the other said we didn't have a lot. So I stayed with her even though I did, I had to obey the rules for my mother. right so okay but uh my foster mother

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she cooked everything um from scratch everything went from scratch she did not use a box for cake or anything really everything had to be done from scratch

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is there like i know you said you have sticky buns and things like that but was there any other kind of like a main dish that she cooked that from scratch do you like

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remember like the taste they smell everything we always had roast either on sundays we either have roast beef or chicken one sunday we might have roast beef the next

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sunday we have chicken we always have we have mashed potatoes we have candy and cheese string beans wow yeah we always had It was like a feast. Yeah, every Sunday.

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Our house was like, she was a minister's wife. Her husband passed away when I was younger. But whenever any minister came to the

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church, we always invited them to the house and their families and they would eat with us on Sundays. There was always somebody at the house eating. She sort of had

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like a boarding house, I guess you would call it, where people would come in. There were teachers that came from down in Dover, and she used to feed them. You

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know, they would pay a certain amount, and she would, you know, fix food for them. So we always had food, and we were always feeding people. So religion and food is kind

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of like a running theme throughout your childhood community now, probably. Right, yeah, because when her husband, when I was younger, her husband, if that was a minister,

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and in those days, they had services three times a day. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Wow. I don't like everyone working church a lot, but that's a lot.

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You have the regular morning service, and then you have an afternoon service that started maybe around 3, I'm going to say 3. And then the evening service started

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around 6 or 6.30 in the evening. and a lot of times I was like, ugh, but I had to go no matter what. Now, I might be sitting up there asleep, asleep,

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but I still had to go, yeah, to church. Did you ever, like, bring any little snacks with you or anything like that? No, no, no, no, I don't

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want to do that, huh? Eight before I went, and that was it, and I knew how to act, you know, to sit quietly. Right.

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So that was it. Basically, you know, we was always in church. Right. Do you think that, do you use any of her recipes now, like, do you have like

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church dinners or anything right now? Yeah, we had family and friends day Sunday. Okay.

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So, yes, and I cook, I'm on the kitchen ministry. Okay. I'm ahead of that. So, I cooked, we had roast beef and I like

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real mashed potatoes, so we had real mashed potatoes and gravy and string beans that i cooked with turkey smoked turkey because a lot of people didn't eat pork right

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so i did it with smoked turkey and um then we had assorted desserts what i did i prepared the meal and then i asked all the church members to bring the dessert okay

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so what do you mean by real mashed potatoes is that like is there a specific recipe for that Oh, no. You know, people use instant mashed potatoes in the box. No, I peel the

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potatoes. I cook them. You cook them with butter and stuff. I cook them and then mash them. And when I make mine, I use can milk. Can milk?

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And sometimes I might use some real milk with it, but most of the time, can milk. It makes them richer. Right. And butter. Do you have any recipes

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that you use, like any special ingredients for or anything like that? No, you know, I use a lot of Goya. I like Goya.

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Like beans? No, not the Goya beans. I use the Goya seasoning. Okay. That's good.

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To me, it gives a little kick to your food. What is it? Like a Cajun thing? No, it's Mexican, Spanish. Okay. Spanish. If you ever go down the ethnic aisle in

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the grocery store, you'll see Goya. You got Goya juices. You have Goya beans. You have Goya rice. Right. Goya everything. I use the Goya seasoning.

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Okay. And it's very good, I think, and it gives a little extra taste to your food. What I usually do is if I'm making chicken,

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any kind of chicken fried or eggs, I usually wash my chicken and after that i season it the night before and i put a little goya on it along with my other seasoning and then

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the next day i just fried or bake it and that seasonings in it gets into it sounds good yeah so it turns out pretty good so as a matter of fact i made the gravy tonight i

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put a little batch of goya in yeah when i made for the day i made the person that's sick i did a roast turkey breast and mashed potatoes because i had a little bit of some left

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i used mashed potatoes and doctored them up and we had fresh carrots from the garden peas and fresh squash and put a little bit of spaghetti sauce on

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it okay and took it Oh, I made something and I used a box for them. I used a box and they took it out. They were very pleased because

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they used to eat out a lot. They were happy to visit the church. They can eat out for just a couple of days. Maybe longer than five pounds.

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That's such a great thing to do. Do you cook a lot for a good church? Somebody tells me that someone's not feeling good. you know it's a couple of us get

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together maybe two or three of us get together and we do a meal you know one day one did one and this week a lady had she had her arm or shoulder just what was wrong with

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her arm just located or something so i did i was like since i'm always on the go i try to do something quick so i made a pot of spaghetti and then made a salad and just

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I put the fruits and tomatoes and cucumbers and then I know they like ranch dressing so I took a bottle of ranch dressing and French spray it and took it to them and that

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was so they could have it and then they wouldn't have to fix, you know, food because she has two young children. Her children in my, I do children's church and her two

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daughters are in my children's church. Great. Sounds good. I love doing gracious things like that. Yeah, you know. So I don't mind helping, you know, I like helping people when

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I can. I'm always trying to do something to help somebody. I don't have a lot of money, but I can give my time. Well, you don't need money to help people.

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Sure. That's what I do. And favorite recipes, I don't really have any favorite favorites, because a lot

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of times I get recipes that are passed on. like somebody had something and I like and I'll ask them for the recipe like this recipe here

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it's a peach cobbler and I usually make my peach cobbler from scratch okay I mean I make the dough and everything for the flour and all that right but this is a quick one you

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don't have to cook make the dough and I said let me try this so not this Sunday but Sunday before we had a special day and we cooked and I said I'm going to try this I got

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real peaches went to the store washed them real good and used peaches and I used green apples the methotosh apples cut them up and made a cut them up and then I followed the

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directions on that and made that peach cobbler and what you do is you make a mixture of flour, ground sugar and something other and you make a layer of the fruit then you

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put the sugar and the flour over it then you make another layer of fruit till you get to the top till you finish it and then you make you take almond you can use vanilla but

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this almond and hot water mixed that up with sugar and then you pour it over the top. Wow. And our first time I did it, I was doing

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that in between my meal because I was like, I have a certain time I said I got to have this cobbler in the oven by one o 'clock because we're serving it too. Right.

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And I had it in the oven while the other stuff was cooking and by the time they finished eating, the cobbler was ready and I had some ice. I just happened to have

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ice cream. I wasn't plan on serving ice cream, but I put some ice cream up in the freezer. So I just put this a little bag. They loved it. And it was hot out of the

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oven and they loved it. Matter of fact, the minister who preached his wife came to, my husband was like, you know, I said, well, didn't he get anything downstairs?

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I didn't have that much because I didn't expect all those people to be here. So I had to sort of like ration it out. and I had saved myself some just to

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see if I hadn't tasted it. I didn't know what it tastes like, but I said, okay, so I gave up mine, but I did leave myself just a corner to see. Yeah.

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It came out real good. I was pleased. That's the recipe. I'll have to try it. You can take that recipe. I copied it. Okay.

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All right, great. Do you ever cook in like special dishes or like do you have anything from when you were younger that you cook

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in or like do you keep pans forever, you know, are you like? No. I don't have any special dishes. When my children were coming up, you know, they

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liked spaghetti. I made spaghetti a lot, meatloaf, they like sloppy joes, nothing really fancy.

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Now, I have this Texas chicken recipe that I got from someone else. Somebody had it here and I liked it, so I asked where they got the recipe,

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could I do it? So one day I was having a meeting and it was my turn to serve. And I said, oh, I'm going to try this. So it's easy. I did it. It was a hit.

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And everybody liked it. So it was, matter of fact, to the point that the meeting I went to, they were having a family Bible study. And

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she called me and said, Wilma, the recipe, that was delicious. What is it? And I gave it to her over the phone. She made it. And everybody loved it.

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So then I had a Bible study meeting a couple weeks ago. and i said this is quick because i had to go to work that morning and um i made it there was a hit

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and they took it home and wanted more and more and i said no i have not fixed it so the lady that i fixed the food for she said miss wilma um could you give me um that

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texas chicken i said i can't this time because i am in our yeah i can't so but a texas chicken is just any part of the chicken you watch the chicken and i like the little

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second joint you know the drumstick the top part and i seasoned them real good the night before and next day i took a pyrex pan put a little bit of oil on it and cooked the

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chicken like you normally would cook chicken and when it was just a bit done i took a mixture of lifting onion soup mix okay and uh eight ounce bottle of french dressing

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and a can of whole cranberries very interesting comment you mix it all together okay and then you pour the mixture over the chicken okay and then you take a piece of tin

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foil and cover it up real good and cook it for another maybe 15 minutes so it seasons into it right and then while that's doing that you cook a pot of rice

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nice fluffy rice it sounds and then once that's done you take the rice put the rice on the plate and put the chicken over that and then a little sauce goes

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over top of that now you got a meal do a salad or this time i had cabbage uh or anything you want to go with it wow you got a meal and then i went

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to dj's and got a pie and served uh apple pie and ice cream it sounds great Do you tend to get a lot of recipes from friends or do you ever go online?

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Yeah, I've gone online and gotten recipes and I might do something I like. I don't really have a favorite, it's just if I have something that somebody

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might fix that I like, then I'll try. my stuff, and how it comes out. So, and as far as the old days, no, there was no really old recipe.

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Right. No, but like I said, we were, we didn't have a lot. We were a lot, some would like to say like Fridays,

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that was our night. Our father, you know, we'd get paid and we would have luxury, you know, that was a big thing. You'd

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have, you'd have different content or maybe three or four different content like you can make a nice sandwich but normally basically and that's why

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i don't eat beans to this day well i do soup beans and we made our homemade homemade bread okay and that's what we had we had a lot of soup beans you know i mean it's

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stressed it was food and it was good what are soup beans soup beans like lentils kind of yeah okay and they're beans and you just make you know soak them and when you

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make soup at home. I call them soup beans. Maybe bean soup. Right. We had those a lot. Okay. So I don't eat them now. I eat bacon. I eat baked beans. It's the same thing.

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But as far as it's bean soup, I don't. I won't say I won't, but you know, it's not online. Again. Yeah. When you were younger, do you remember

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going to any like little candy shops or anything around like you are? Yes, they had what they call penny candy, really

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penny candy, you can get candy for a penny, and my favorite is squirrel nuts, the little, I don't know what they were, they're brown and they have white

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in the middle, they're real small. the day we had them at work today and then if i went to the movies i always got to get a box of jordan mints and raisinets i love

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raisinets those are my favorite and i like any kind of nuts mostly brazil nuts pecans i love them but that candy stores where we went a lot like the penny candy you know

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that's we got mary james and those they call them brick that's the taffy on a stick things like that now penny candy i think there's like 10 cents a piece or more

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than that yeah yeah you could get a lot of candy in a bag hello hi oh hi well i'm in here we didn't have the meeting That's the lady that I could

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just look through the shirt that I made this spaghetti for. I'm selling candy for her children when they're at work.

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That's so nice. You also mentioned something about gardens. Do you have a garden in your yard? No, I don't. No, I don't have time for that.

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Do you go somewhere other than the food store to get your vegetables? No. Someone brings me some food. The reason why I mention garden is because the lady that

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was helping me with food, she has a garden. Okay. So she made the squash from her garden and she brought carrots from her garden. Okay. So that's why, but I don't garden.

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Do you regularly get like food from different people's gardens around here or? No. Is it just like once in a while? Somebody might have tomatoes, because I

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love tomatoes, or cucumbers, you know, they'll bring some, or peppers, but no, as a rule, no, I go to Pat's Mark. Okay, yeah.

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Did you have a buzz when you were younger? No. No. I think my father had peppers, because he

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liked hot peppers, he always had hot peppers. And my grandmother had a garden, and my uncle did also, so I used to get a lot of things out, these gardens. right but

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for me yeah it's not my thing you said that he had he liked hot peppers is that like why do you think you like spanish food or like that evening maybe so and i still

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eat a lot of hot peppers yeah i like those jalapeno peppers and any kind of type i like hot stuff i really did stuff that might be it i don't know are there any kind of

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like spanish foods that you like really really like like really hot foods like slug. Uhhhhhh not particular. I just.

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I think you still want to do it? Yeah it's locked. Nah. Yeah it's watered in. This side over here is a puller card.

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Yeah it's strictly off what I said. The ice was still in there. Thank you. You're welcome. See ya.

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Good night. Yeah, I have water Sunday. I try to, in case somebody doesn't want to drink out of the faucet, I have these

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little bottle waters in my cooler. That should be the last intervention I have. Spanish foods.

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Not really. My daughter -in-law is from Trinidad. And she makes some dishes. I don't know what they are.

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I like octopel. That's not Spanish, but I like octopel. They're very good. What is that? Ox. Exactly what it is? Yeah.

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Okay. It comes from my ox. Is that a special way to cook that? Yeah. Well, she does. I don't know. She cooks it somehow or another. She cooks it to

00:24:46.140 - 00:24:57.080

the point it has a nice little gravy with it. And it's good. All I can say is I like it. And I don't eat everything. But nothing Spanish

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particular that I know of. Okay. Yeah. You mentioned on the phone that you didn't necessarily write down

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recipes and that you just kind of, you know, off the top of your head would make these things. Do you have any kind of like book or thing

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that you keep, you know, just written down on a piece of paper or do you keep like little recipe cards or? Oh, I have some recipes, well, yeah, I have a book, like, for

00:25:25.160 - 00:25:36.220

different recipes, you know, that I go by, and I usually sort of, like, sometimes I, like, improvise or adjust them to my taste. Right.

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Yeah, so I have all kinds of cookbooks. Okay. Mm-hmm. So it's something that, like, you, it's almost like a photo album of different

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recipes. It's different things, yeah, and then it's, like, cookbooks, like, we get a cookbook at work, I work at Avon. Okay. and many many years ago we bought in

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recipes and we put a book together so I've taken recipes out of that different churches have had cookbooks I bought them you know to get some ideas and you have like uh then

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they had like this black family recipe cookbook I tried to look at some of the stuff in there and um tried some of the recipes out of that but I any kind of reference book if

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If someone at work brings in something that I like, then I'll try it and I might improvise, I might try it their way or I might add a little something to it to fit my case.

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What is your kitchen like? I have a very small kitchen. Nothing fancy. So nothing you feel like to spend time in

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there or? No, it's just a basic old kitchen because see what it is, where I live now is where I grew up. that's the house was paid down to me it's a very old house there were

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like 200 years old or so it's very old it's very old i just got sodden and stuff put on in the bag 10 years ago i guess but it was regular just a regular old frame house it

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used to be um and it's just a small kitchen there's nothing fancy but it did all of our cooking in there yeah everything was cooked in there but it's nothing nothing that

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nothing that you could just pinpoint or expand in a bag it's just a basic old kitchen right do you have anything like hanging in there that's kind of like memorabilia or nothing

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like nostalgia about it really all that stuff was going like you know because i stayed there and then when i got married i left and um then i got divorced maybe 15 years later

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and then my post mother was old. She was 93 when she died and I came back and took care of her and she left the house but I was living in Townport Apartments at the time.

00:27:51.740 - 00:28:02.540

Then I just came back up and there wasn't that much stuff in there. So no, it's no memory of a billion there now at all. Is there anything you wish that

00:28:02.540 - 00:28:16.880

could be in there that would like make you happy when you cook or anything like that? No, I just wish and now I just wish for thinking because I'm older now and I'll probably

00:28:16.880 - 00:28:27.360

eventually be going into a condo or something where I don't have to do anything. If I had like a kitchen that was like a really kitchen that you could really move

00:28:27.360 - 00:28:38.460

around in, you know, like with cabinets up top and I don't have all that. I just have just the basic, some cabinets, you know, so it's an old -fashioned house. Right.

00:28:38.460 - 00:28:43.700

Yeah, so. But I mean, it's good enough for what I need to do. Right.

00:28:43.760 - 00:28:54.490

Yeah. How did you learn how to cook? by watching my mother and my foster mother. Did you cook at a young age or did

00:28:54.490 - 00:29:02.240

you do it more when you were older, like more for, you know, because you liked it or more because I do? No, I never had to cook. I wasn't one

00:29:02.240 - 00:29:10.920

of those times where you might see on TV where the children have to cook. And not only on TV, some children did have to cook, but I did.

00:29:11.040 - 00:29:19.840

My father did. Truthfully, my father did all the cook. My mother didn't cook. yeah my father was the cook he cooked all the food and

00:29:19.860 - 00:29:35.420

my father died very young he had all that he was seven because i wasn't he paid to go to my senior prime when he died and he did all the cooking my mother did

00:29:35.420 - 00:29:49.440

very little cook and then my foster mother she cooks all the time so i learned how to cook watching him and my foster mother But I never had to cook, you know,

00:29:49.440 - 00:29:57.520

fix the meal, like they'll say, okay, it's your turn to cook the meal tonight, now I'm going to have to do that. So it's just by experience and looking on?

00:29:57.620 - 00:30:01.860

Yeah, trial and error. Okay. Yeah. That's always a good one. Trial and error.

00:30:03.240 - 00:30:11.700

Were there any foods that your parents didn't let you have when you were little? I don't. Yeah, I don't know.

00:30:12.640 - 00:30:20.460

We have, like I said, there wasn't a lot of everything to have because it was very limited. So, no, I couldn't, we

00:30:20.460 - 00:30:28.360

could have everything. What about like lunch boxes? Like what would you put in your like lunch bag? The basic peanut butter and jelly.

00:30:28.360 - 00:30:34.540

Yeah. That's what we had and we had a brown bag. It wasn't a lunch box, it was a brown bag. Okay.

00:30:34.540 - 00:30:45.740

Redbird brown bag. Usually we had peanut butter and jelly or tuna fish. It was either or. That was the basic

00:30:45.900 - 00:30:57.780

we took every day. And a piece of fruit. That was our meal. It wasn't our unique little juice box drinks or anything like that. What's your favorite kind of fruit?

00:30:59.400 - 00:31:11.120

I like all kinds. I like peaches. I like any kind of fruit. obviously yeah i like peaches a lot i like cherries i like the black cherries the bean cherries i

00:31:11.120 - 00:31:22.700

like apples oranges nectarines i like it all i hate strawberries i used to go pick strawberries all the time i used to make strawberry shortcake straight over merlin

00:31:22.700 - 00:31:32.620

they have a field where you can pick strawberries i mean you have to pay but you know pick your own where is that It's up Fair Hill, past Fair Hill on Blue Ball

00:31:32.620 - 00:31:42.760

Road up in Maryland, up 273 M.D.C. Street. And that's where I used to go pick. And then also the apple orchard's up that way, Milburn's Orchard.

00:31:42.900 - 00:31:51.340

I go there, matter of fact, it's probably in a couple weeks I'll be going up there to get apple cider doughnuts with my girls at work. Oh, wow.

00:31:51.580 - 00:32:00.140

Apple cider doughnuts. Oh, they're delicious. You have to try them. What do they taste for? I mean, they taste like apple cider. They're made with apple cider. they're

00:32:00.140 - 00:32:06.680

delicious. Now they have them in the grocery store but they're not like the ones you get up in Melbourne. Well nothing's like homemade. So have you ever

00:32:06.680 - 00:32:19.060

heard of Melbourne's Orchard? No. No. Well if you ever have some free time with your friends or just want to take a ride you go out of this parking lot and you're going

00:32:19.060 - 00:32:32.160

to make a right go to Cleveland Avenue. you make another right and just go keep going across that intersection just keep on going past the dorms keep on going down

00:32:32.160 - 00:32:42.360

that road just keep right on going and just keep going until you're running the mile and you're running toward the same day maybe five maybe ten minutes it's all straight

00:32:42.360 - 00:32:53.060

road when you get to an intersection you make a right because If you're past Gore, Gore sits on the corner, once you're past Gore, a little ways down the road, it's

00:32:53.060 - 00:33:02.740

like a little back road, it's like a narrow road, one bilingon and one coming, but when you get to this stop sign, you make a right and it's right

00:33:02.740 - 00:33:08.700

there, it's Millbrook's Orchard, and you can get your own apples. How long have you been going there? Years.

00:33:09.800 - 00:33:17.150

Like since you were a kid here? No, not since I was a kid, I was older, Because one of the girls at work, that's how I got turned on to the apple cider

00:33:17.150 - 00:33:24.900

doughnuts. One of the girls at work came here one day and said, try this. I was like, oh, these are, what did you, she's at Melbourne's Worship.

00:33:24.900 - 00:33:34.400

And she was married to one of the brothers, one of the owners. She worked with me for a while. So then from that day forward, every year

00:33:34.400 - 00:33:42.860

around October, I go up there and get apple cider doughnuts and bring them to work. They have apple cider too. And, you know, give them to my girl. because

00:33:42.860 - 00:34:00.980

i had six nine girls under me okay and i was treated so and then once a year i make a big pot of spaghetti i mean a huge pot like this big like this tall and i take it in and

00:34:00.980 - 00:34:10.400

i make a salad and a french bread and french bread and i take it in and share it because they always look forward When are you making this together? I said not in hot weather.

00:34:10.400 - 00:34:18.040

Yeah. And then one year for my birthday, my birthday, I treated, I did, um, barbecue ribs,

00:34:18.660 - 00:34:25.880

ham, candied eggs, macaroni and cheese, and collard greens, and rolls.

00:34:26.720 - 00:34:32.560

On your birthday? Mm -hmm. I took it into work. We had a feast. Oh, that's great.

00:34:32.640 - 00:34:41.920

Yeah. That's so nice. Yeah. Do you remember any kind of birthday cakes you used to have? No, that's a big problem.

00:34:42.720 - 00:34:59.000

My birthday is December the 20th, five days before Christmas. So I always got gifts. I never had a birthday until I was grown. And the guy I was dating gave me

00:34:59.000 - 00:35:09.420

a surprise birthday party. I never ever had a birthday party. It's always Christmas, and because we were near Christmas, we didn't have a lot, and I

00:35:09.420 - 00:35:19.540

always got overlooked, you know, because I was the oldest, and they would say at the time, because it was my mother and father had three children, and then eight years apart,

00:35:19.540 - 00:35:31.060

and then I was next, and it was too warm, you know what I mean, and because I was the oldest, well, you know, met the other kids, so I never got them had a birthday. Oh,

00:35:31.060 - 00:35:39.060

no, but never a birthday cake or anything? No. No, not until I was older. Yeah. Well, what kind of birthday cake do you like now?

00:35:39.500 - 00:35:46.060

Me? Uh, any kind. Oh, I like ginger's cakes, like Ginger Sweets to you. I don't know

00:35:46.060 - 00:35:54.180

if you've ever heard of them. No, is that a bakery? It's a bakery. It's a lady who started, she's an Italian lady, I think. But she started in her home just

00:35:54.180 - 00:36:04.010

making cakes. Like, you say, I think I'll just make cakes. she like went to a decorating class and started learning how to make cake and then she started out just experimenting

00:36:04.230 - 00:36:16.020

and next thing you know she has a business and it's their delicious cake she makes with uh any kind you want but i like the ones with the cream uh pudding filling

00:36:16.020 - 00:36:26.600

and strawberries in between and then she always puts fresh flowers on the top of them oh that's so Is she like around the area? She lives in Wilmington. Okay. Her office is

00:36:26.600 - 00:36:33.580

in Wilmington. And what's it called again? Sweets to You by Ginger. Sweets to You by Ginger. Mm-hmm. They're delicious. It sounds like

00:36:33.580 - 00:36:40.280

a nice- She made my nephew's wedding take. Every time we have a family's thing, we always get our cakes from there. Mm-hmm. That's great.

00:36:40.280 - 00:36:48.780

I like that. Yeah. Do you remember, my professor was telling us about this, but when people had takeout out of their homes?

00:36:50.580 - 00:37:03.900

take it out of their home yeah i guess they would like make something and then people could come and get it from them uh now my foster mother used to have dinners she

00:37:03.900 - 00:37:13.860

would sell dinners like for the church and she would do it right at the house and people would come and you know they should take orders and they would come and give it

00:37:13.860 - 00:37:25.560

and take you know pay her and take it out. She did it all the time but she knew exactly how much she was going to make, how many dinners. She used to crack me up. You

00:37:25.560 - 00:37:35.700

know like we had a couple pieces of chicken and we could get four dinners out of this out of each chip and she cut her own chip in and how much she would charge. They

00:37:35.700 - 00:37:45.960

didn't charge a lot in those days. I mean the dinner was like what maybe five hours if it was that right for like for her family you mean no she'd like fix a plate of food

00:37:45.960 - 00:37:56.040

you know like a plate like you get a piece of chicken and you get like whatever vegetable she had right but that's the only thing i know about cake egg now there

00:37:56.040 - 00:38:05.520

might have been another cake egg that's all i know i know she used to sell dinners for the church and from the house and she'd cook them right at home and serve them and

00:38:05.520 - 00:38:16.240

some people would eat their dinner at the oh really in our dining room and or they were taken off you know come and take that we had a lot of people like uh white

00:38:16.240 - 00:38:26.240

people that lived down east cleveland avenue they were coming to market it right there was older people there they used to come all the times to her dinner

00:38:26.520 - 00:38:33.740

you know she would call them and say you know i'm having dinners and they would call it would be sometimes they would take it with them and sometimes they would just

00:38:33.740 - 00:38:46.160

fit in there and eat Right. So, you know. That's so neat. Yeah, and then they had like around Corbett Street, down around the corner here,

00:38:46.160 - 00:38:55.400

there was a family that had, they had like a little restaurant in their house. And they had, you know, they sold food there and people could come there and eat

00:38:55.400 - 00:39:03.000

if they wanted to. Did you ever go there? No. First of all, I didn't have to because we had food at home. Right, right. We didn't eat eggs.

00:39:03.900 - 00:39:11.440

I don't remember eating eggs when I was young. No? We always ate at home. I didn't start eating eggs until I was stumped grown. Well, if you have good

00:39:11.440 - 00:39:20.440

food, I mean, why not? Yeah, we never ate eggs, you know, like the rest of us. Never. Is there like any food that

00:39:20.440 - 00:39:29.060

you totally hate or you wouldn't eat at all? Yeah, spatters. Really? Never tasted them.

00:39:29.060 - 00:39:37.880

No? But I wouldn't, I don't like them. Some think I like them. Have you ever had like a pre -disaster or anything?

00:39:37.900 - 00:39:47.000

Have I ever had a pre-disaster? And they just went completely wrong, completely just... Yeah, burn it up. Yeah, I've run up stuff before.

00:39:47.330 - 00:40:00.020

I forgot, you know, like, nothing in the oven too long. Yeah. like fell asleep i've done that but i regrouped and got something else to replace it real quick

00:40:00.020 - 00:40:19.360

like it's in the air over now it's cool enough but uh yeah i'll have to be safe Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm totally fine.

00:40:21.620 - 00:40:37.210

I think I basically went over everything. That was Very great. Do you think, is there anyone else you

00:40:37.210 - 00:40:46.750

think in the community that you'd be able to maybe give me reference to that I'd be able to interview as well? Anybody else that you think is like

00:40:46.750 - 00:40:55.150

a really good cook or really interested in cooking or anything like that? I know someone that's a really good cook. I don't know about the interview

00:40:55.150 - 00:41:16.030

part. I mean she's kind of she's older she's kind of shy she's a very good cook and her name is um Annette Watson okay she lives around the corner I

00:41:16.030 - 00:41:37.330

don't know what that address is 60 I don't know what her aunt there says yeah i was 55 thinking i gotta go in my church she's going to this church

00:41:39.190 - 00:41:53.610

she's a very good cook a meticulous cook everything has to be just right is that the way you are are you able i like to try to make it you know presentable and

00:41:53.610 - 00:42:05.770

i would like my food to be so that if you eat it you know you want to eat it again you wouldn't just come you know to eat like if you came here to eat dinner that food is

00:42:05.770 - 00:42:17.030

awful i'll never go there and you know i'll never eat that food again yeah so i try to fix food the way i would like to eat it do you like to prevent it like in little

00:42:17.570 - 00:42:27.270

arrangements are you like to stick with this food at all? Just according to what's going on yeah like if there's something big no yeah because we just serve the plates from

00:42:27.270 - 00:42:38.510

the kitchen but if we're having like a something that's like a little tea or something yes you know the presentations everything. Do you like to decorate cakes

00:42:38.510 - 00:42:47.870

and stuff like that too? No earlier I mean I'll make a cake I like the plain cakes the pound cake better just like regular pound cake homemade

00:42:47.870 - 00:43:06.750

pound cake her address is 61 new london like i said i don't know you know whether she'll want to talk or not right but um she is a very good cook excellent

00:43:15.190 - 00:43:31.530

I'm the only one on my street and um I'm the only one on my street well there's one lady Phyllis, Lourdes and the rest are rentals

00:43:31.530 - 00:43:48.530

you know student rentals so and on that street I think she one it might be three people that are original people on that

00:43:48.530 - 00:44:04.950

street the rest is all student Okay, well that was great. Thank you so much for your time and all the information and the recipes. It's going to be fabulous and

00:44:04.950 - 00:44:14.010

I'm definitely going to try the Texas chicken as well. Okay, it's simple. I mean you could do that without a wing. I mean anybody could make that. You're just making like a glass

00:44:14.010 - 00:44:23.310

pyrex. I use a pyrex. I mean you don't have to. You can use a tin full but I like pyrex. Right. It seems to hold the heat, you know, so I'll just use just a regular thing.

00:44:23.310 - 00:44:32.250

But how much, if you're just making a little bit, you only need like a little small one. Like if you're just cooking for maybe four people or five, because you

00:44:32.250 - 00:44:38.030

can get a lot of those little second joints in that little small thing. Right. So it's simple.

00:44:38.430 - 00:44:49.130

You could do that. Have something one night, invite your friends over, and it's no work at all. While it's in the oven cooking, you can be making a

00:44:49.130 - 00:45:01.650

salad. getting your salad together and making rice doesn't take long to make rice yeah rice is done chicken's done in about maybe an hour put that little bit of mixture on

00:45:01.650 - 00:45:14.090

it for another 15 minutes till it simmers through it you know gets through it take it out your rice put it over it you got a meal it's a quick meal great it's a simple meal

00:45:14.090 - 00:45:22.590

definitely sounds delicious thank you for this Thank you very much. You're welcome. I hope I was able to help you a little bit.