On the Kitchen Table

A small disc-shaped image shimmers on the pale yellow wall of our cozy farmhouse kitchen. As the spring morning sun bathes my breakfast on the old wooden oil-cloth covered table, the surface of my steaming cup of cocoa is the source of this mirrored quivering projection.

Breakfast fare was predictable during my war-time pre-teen school years. It began with a healthy bowl of porridge; a gelatinous, milk-doused, and sugared combination of “Sunny Boy” cereal (wheat, rye, and flax), and rolled oats.  Next was white and brown bread

toasted on the wood stove and generously topped with home-made raspberry, saskatoon, chokecherry, or rhubarb jam; and of course, the cocoa.

Winnie Haythorne, my mother, bustled about in her print dress and faded apron, making it all happen. By the time my older brother Dick and I dragged ourselves from the shared bed in our chilly basement room, she would have the kitchen woodstove radiating, the porridge bubbling, and the toast browning on the stovetop wire rack. At about this time our dad, Frank Haythorne, having completed the first milking of the day, would come in the back door, hand Mom the enamel kettle with the day’s supply of milk, and then strip off his overalls on the landing. The hired man, George, a tough but gentle World War 1 veteran, clomped down the stairs to his curtained off basement sleeping area to change, and to wash up in the white enamel basin on the rickety home-made wash stand nearby. He only came upstairs at meal time.

The odors at breakfast were a country cocktail of wood smoke, cocoa and toast, and the cow barn. The family breakfast did not begin until all were seated at the table and grace pronounced by my dad, a figure of authority in his ever-present woolen tweed waistcoat. No matter what meal or day of the week, this preliminary routine was followed.

When the old wooden pendulum clock on the wall loudly ticked its way to 8:20 on a school day it was time to set out on the mile and a quarter trek to the little brick one-room schoolhouse. Mom packed our black tin lunch pails with bologna, cheese, honey, or peanut butter sandwiches, a few homemade cookies or piece of cake, and an apple. Our drinks came from the hand pump in the schoolyard well via a water cooler at the back of the schoolroom. We ate at our desks, while the teacher crossed the yard to the teacherage for lunch. The unsupervised noon hour was often punctuated by chalk or erasers flying around the room. Someone was always on watch for the teacher’s return.

Sundays provided a bit of a reprieve at breakfast. Dad would make the kitchen fire after milking and so porridge gave way to corn (flaked), rice (crisped), or wheat (shredded or puffed). Toast was made with the stove lid removed over the open fire if the top was not yet hot enough. A hot stove was still needed on Sunday to cook the weekly roast of beef while we were all attending the little white church, a quarter-mile walk down the dirt road to Salisbury Corner.

Arriving home from church was the most delicious time of the week. First, the exhilarating aroma of roast beef blessed our nostrils as we came through the door. Next, we quickly exchanged our crispy shirts, choking neckties, and neatly creased trousers for some do-anything-in clothes. Finally, we were free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day with the notable exception of the mind-numbing task of drying the dishes after the Sunday dinner, which, incidentally, was the only meal that departed the kitchen table and moved to the bright adjacent dining room.

Except for Sunday, orders of the day were issued at breakfast. Near the end of the meal Dad would announce the jobs to be done, then he and George would discuss any problems or concerns. There were euphemisms for more delicate subjects. If one of the cows was in heat George would announce that “Bessie is on the warpath”. 

On Saturdays Dick and I were included in these task announcements. If it was raining I would think “Oh boy, a day off!” But no, there was the chicken house or the horse barn to clean out, or the cow barn interior to whitewash. From an early age I learned that something can always be found that needs doing on a farm.

One spring morning my five year-old younger brother Owen put on his jacket and little rubber boots and went to the barnyard to see why Dad was late for breakfast. It was lambing time and a ewe needed help to deliver her twins. After viewing this amazing event Owen rushed into the house to spread the important news. “Mommy, Mommy!” he announced, anxious to share his discovery, “The lamb came out of the sheep!” Mom interrupted her breakfast tea (my parents didn’t drink coffee) to inform Owen that “Yes, all babies come from their mother.” I remember Owen becoming quiet and thoughtful but I don’t recall the conversation that followed. Perhaps I left the kitchen to them.

The kitchen table was the heart of the household. Its setting was both comforting and inspiring. It stood with one end against the east wall below a pair of windows that framed a view of the quiet partly wooded countryside, and invited in the morning sunshine and the spring and fall moonrises. Family conversations that thrived there might begin with Dad relating a story at breakfast. We would all listen attentively until the tale became a bit too improbable at which point Mom would catch on and say “Pshaw!, you’re just talking about your dream last night”. Most of my parents’ serious “public” discussions happened at that table, usually after George, who didn’t have to ask to be excused, left. As kids, the private talks only reached our ears as quiet mumbles in the dark after bed time.

Dinner was at 6:00 p.m. every day so the hand milking of the twelve Holsteins could begin at 6:30. If for some reason milking was late, we could hear the bawling complaints of the cows all the way to the house.

The first dinner course was usually plain; meat, potatoes, and a vegetable or two. Salt and pepper were the only spices - self-administered. The fresh, and of course organic, vegetables of summer were mouth-watering and I was sorry when the season ended. From fall until late spring the only fresh vegetables were less tasty potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, or turnips from the cool bins in the basement. Canned peas, beans, and corn from the cupboard or the Salisbury General Store supplemented this supply.

Although these were war years when meat, butter, and sugar were rationed, living on a farm reduced the inconvenience. Sugar was supplemented by honey from a beekeeper who kept hives on the farm, and the meat supply by home-raised lamb and chicken. Butter supply was not augmented and I can still hear echoes of Mom’s exhortation: “Don’t use so much butter!” However, the ambrosial aromas of her biscuits, muffins and buns made this admonition very difficult to obey.

The dessert course always made dinner worthwhile.  Pies, cookies, and cakes were my mother’s specialty. Chicken suppers in the Salisbury United Church basement had folks angling for a slice of one of her apple or rhubarb pies. At home a chocolate or boiled raisin cake appeared every week and the cookie jar was never empty. Having once been scolded for sneaking a piece of chocolate cake from the cake tin, I devised a strategy to avoid detection. I would cut a narrow sliver of cake the width of the pan so it wouldn’t show a piece cut out. I think Mom must have caught on when the slivers became more frequent, but she never said anything. Dessert consisted of these baked goodies accompanied by home-canned pears, peaches, cherries or apricots. However, to qualify for this course one had to eat up the sometimes not so delicious vegetables of the first course. The reward was nearly always sufficient for me to produce a clean plate.

That farmhouse kitchen table was the focal point in the provision of the nourishment I needed as a growing boy. Looking back I have come to see that it was also a central site in the support of other important facets of growth. The sharing, caring, and discipline received there fostered emotional maturity. The table discussions of farm, community, national and world events nurtured mental curiosity and learning. The guidance and example of my parents at mealtimes offered a spiritual growth component.

So that plain old oft-painted wooden table was like a mixing bowl in which all of the ingredients needed for the growth recipe come together, later to be baked to create an item for the menu that became me.

Don Haythorne, April 1, 2017