The Horrors Persist, But So Does Beige Food

Eating through grief, the culinary equivalent of food as a blanket, and a recipe for hash brown casserole.

Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

I’m going to make a statement that I think only Midwesterners, purveyors of “hot dish,” will want to fight me on, and that’s that Southerners are the experts of beige foods. (Also mixing creamy or gelatinous textures with nuts and fruits and calling it “salad” but that’s another newsletter.)

I recently got back from my hometown in Mississippi, where we celebrated my mom’s life in the church she loved dearly, with the women who’d lifted her up for decades, among the culinary staples that mend broken hearts. Chicken spaghetti, biscuits with ham, hash brown casserole, etc. As I milled outside the post-funeral reception with friends who flew in from London and New York City, respectively, we dissected the contents of my plate. (One of them is from Alabama, so this feast was standard in her eyes, but the other one, born in California, was not sure what to make of it all).

“So apparently this is pineapple casserole…and this is…I’m not sure…but, Oh Damn…” I said through a mouth full of half-chewed ham. “This is a good biscuit.”

My mother was an expert “down home” cook, seasoned at making things like pot roast with mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, or chicken spaghetti, which, if you’re unfamiliar, is a fully beige meal of (yes) spaghetti, pulled chicken, cheese, and creamy processed soups. My mom put mushrooms in hers; some people add Rotel. It’s baked in a casserole dish and served bubbling hot. If you think that sounds repulsive, you’re not alone. It’s…unique. But it’s also delicious if you’re into the culinary equivalents of eating a blanket. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, is all I’m saying.

A standard post-funeral spread: casseroles, beans and peas, cornbread and more. And sweet tea, obviously.

But the hash brown casserole—this is somewhat new to me; mom never made such a thing. I first had it on New Year’s Day, here in North Carolina. My friend, Trish, had a potluck party at her house, where friends and strangers alike roamed her beautiful home and bustling backyard holding paper plates overflowing with deviled eggs and bright green salads; cheesy dips and homemade brownies. My favorite, though, was the hash brown casserole.

Why had I never had this? In Mississippi, my family was clearly too busy dumping jars of red pepper jelly over blocks of cream cheese and scarfing it up with Wheat Thins to know about this cheesy, potato casserole of champions. Obviously the potatoes are meant to be the star of this dish, but the real winner is the cornflakes. The underdog, if you will.

This reminds me of the time I got stoned with one of my boyfriends and he poured crunchy, sweet and salty cornflakes on top of creamy chocolate ice cream and it was such a delightful marriage of flavor and texture, I felt I may as well have been at Pastis or The French Laundry. Ten out of five stars, would do again.

I don’t have a special recipe for hash brown casserole, but I do have the Internet, and this one looks as good as any. Because when it comes to making a delicious beige casserole, you just need good beige ingredients. Southern cooking is less about rules and more about intuition. Is there enough salt? Butter? Texture. Bam, you’re a chef now.

This is the food of my youth. Meat and potatoes, vegetables from a can, cooked within an inch of their short lives. While I have a great deal of nostalgia for standard southern fare (fried chicken may be the only food I want to eat both hot and cold), I spent decades untethering myself from the confusing dichotomy of common 1980s southern mentalities: that more is more, yet thinner is better and appearance is everything. That’s a conversation for another day.

These days, I don’t eat a lot of beige food, and over the years, I’ve rewired my brain and my tastebuds to find greater comfort in crunchy, herbaceous greens; hearty bowls of chickpeas, brussels sprouts, and sweet potatoes; and roast chicken with garlicky sautéed kale. (Though when I go back to Mississippi, all bets are off, especially when it comes to the country fried steak at Rooster’s.)

When grocery shopping for us, my mother would diligently obey my requests for organic, pasture-raised eggs; organic, pasture-raised whole milk; and always organic blueberries, grapes, and salad greens—but I know she thought I was being extra. That’s love. She never said a thing about it.

In the nine days between the time my son was born and my mother’s heart attack, I wanted spinach smoothies, quinoa bowls, and earthy root vegetables. “If you give me a recipe, I’ll follow it,” my mother said in response to my requests for actual nutrients. That’s love, too. Cooking unfamiliar foods out of your comfort zone for your postpartum daughter.

A couple nights before she collapsed, my husband made us a chicken ginger congee. We joked with my mother, who wasn’t much of an adventurous eater, that we were so proud of her for trying something new—praise we give to our three year old as well. “It’s a good flavor!” she said optimistically, even as she shuffled the nori to the side of her bowl with a grin.

Of course I still love the comfort food of my youth, but right now, I feel like I need to create a canyon of separation between past and present. The chicken spaghetti, the pot roasts, and tortellini “soup” my mom loved to make, which is just a bowl of pasta disguised as soup; it’s too close to home, to her. Everyone keeps telling me how nice it is to have sweet memories of my mother, but they don’t understand that I’m not there yet. I don’t want memories. I want her.

On Easter Sunday, instead of casseroles, fried chicken, and southern-style “salads,” what my mom would have served, I ate blanched spring veggies—snap peas, herbs, and asparagus. My mom hated asparagus. I had creamy, pesto-y beans. It was fully vegetarian. Mom wouldn’t have known what to do with an Easter meal void of meat. I don’t know that I could have stomached eating the foods she loved.

But hash brown casserole? It toes the line. It serves the same purpose as a standard beige casserole without the emotional baggage. While I tread through the muddy waters of this grief, where everything I touch, smell, and see, reminds me of my mother, I’m looking for ways to both be near her and separate from her, if only for self preservation. So if you’ll excuse me, I have some cornflakes to buy.