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 “What’s for supper mom?” was a question we never asked. Mom cooked whatever she picked up at the local butcher shop or grocery store that morning. At that time, the only supermarket within a reasonable distance was very poorly lit, smelled like something died inside the walls, and probably did since you never walked inside without seeing a few roaches. We know this because of the one-time mom wanted to check out the store rather than walk to the butcher shop.

 Mom quickly left the store, made a U-turn, and hurriedly walked the two blocks to buy some ground beef for dinner.

 Our family suppers, in a way, were limited to the choices we had. Dad liked the Polish food his mother used to make. Mom didn’t. My mother’s mom was used to making stews: beef, pork, chicken, and once a month, she’d walk to the local fish shop and pick up some fresh (The jury is still out on that) cod. Dad wasn’t too thrilled about the stews, but he’d at least eat the beef stew, oh, and he hated fish.

 Because of the meal conflicts, mom learned to cook on her own – sort of. She walked to the five-and-dime store, bought a cheap cookbook, and experimented with the various meals. Guess who were her guinea pigs!

 Mom’s spaghetti wasn’t half bad. Maybe the sauce was a bit thin and runny, but it tasted ok. Her meatloaf? Well, she should have stuck to spaghetti. She’d use the ground beef and make a, hmm, no other words for it but a ground beef-and-onion steak.

 Spices? Well, she did use salt, pepper, and paprika. There was a fruit and vegetable stand around the corner and mom went there every two days. Those fresh veggies were a definite treat for us.

 I really need to clarify something. While we weren’t destitute, we lived during a time when things were really scarce. Dad’s job as a carpenter didn’t pay a lot, mom was a stay-at-home mom taking care of the house and three kids, while washing the laundry (at least she had a washing machine) and hanging it on the line, hoping she wouldn’t drop anything. We lived on the top floor of a 3-floor walk-up apartment building.

 Another clarification is that the apartment building had no gas stove. Electric stoves were not yet popular and in our area in Brooklyn, completely unheard of.

 Ah! You’re wondering that if we didn’t have an electric or gas stove, what was our method used for cooking. COAL!! 

 Yes, I grew up watching my mom and eventually learned how to cook on a coal stove.

 Once the food was over the coal, you didn’t dare leave the kitchen. While the food took what felt like forever to cook, at the same time, once the pan got hot, if you weren’t careful enough, the food would burn to a crisp.

 Oh, I guess I should also mention that for too many years, we didn’t have an electric refrigerator; we had an ice box. Yes, an ice box where a big block of ice was delivered once a week and hauled up the stairs by the delivery man. The coal was delivered once a month and chuted down into the basement for the three families to share.

 It wasn’t until the late 1940s, when my parents bought their first refrigerator and finally, in 1956, our landlord finally converted the coal bin to a gas furnace.

 My parents bought their first gas stove (no the landlord didn’t pay for it) and it was like learning to cook all over again. The food cooked more evenly, the temperature of the cooking surface (we had four burners) was more regulated, and the oven was bigger and evenly controlled.

 However, by then, we’d gotten used to eating whatever mom put on the table.

 So while the cooking may have gotten a bit easier, not once, even up to the day mom, as an invalid moved in with me, did she ever hear the phrase, “What’s for supper, mom?”