Harvest memories center on mom's homemade meals & pies

Cherry. Lemon meringue. Chocolate. Sour cream raisin. Apple.

During haying and harvest seasons my mom, Marcia, ended her dinners with one of those pies or several others that were on her long list.

She didn’t work in the field driving trucks or combines like some farm women did, instead preferring to contribute to the harvest effort by making the biggest and best meals she could for my dad, brother and their employees.

The meals she made for “the men” who came in from the field at noon to eat around the table at our farmhouse kitchen were legendary for the variety, quantity and quality of food she served them.

The meals centered around meat — beef roast, roast chicken, pork roast or some other variation of the three — and potatoes and gravy. Green and orange vegetables also were prominent.

My mom’s garden harvest coincided with the grain harvest so the dinner table was laden with either cooked green beans, peas, sweet corn or buttercup squash, and every day refrigerated pickled cucumbers and onions, fresh tomato slices and carrot sticks vied for space. Watermelon, honeydew melon and cantaloupe also were served, but not for dessert.

Dessert most always was mouthwatering pie. Not only was the filling tasty, but the flakey crust a flavorful delight. On the rare occasions she didn’t make pie to cap the meal, she whipped up a sweet treat such as homemade chocolate, lemon poke or pistachio pudding cake.

No sooner had my mom cleared the table, washed and dried the dishes — sometimes with my help but more often by herself because I was outside doing work to avoid the latter — and ironed some clothes, when it was time to start thinking about making lunch for the harvest crew.

I helped her make the lunches, which typically were a meat sandwich, sometimes roast beef, chicken or pork slices leftover from dinner and other times lunch meat such as minced ham, with sides of fresh veggies, cookies and lemonade.

During haying, the crew of men and teenaged boys took a break and sat on or leaned up against the flatbed trailers while they ate their lunches. When I was little my mom let me stay after she delivered the lunch to the alfalfa field that was a half mile from our farmstead and eat lunch with the haying guys and then ride back on a trailer load of hay.

I don't know what it was about being in a hay field that made minced ham sandwiches dipped in lemonade the best thing I had ever eaten. I tried that combination at home a couple of years ago and it wasn’t anything like I remembered. I guess the hot sun, itchy alfalfa leaves and dust added flavor that can’t be created.

During harvest I accompanied my mom to the grain fields to deliver the lunches to the combine, trucks and swather where my dad, employees and brother were, in that order, until I got old enough to drive. Then I took over as the delivery driver.

The men ate on the go during harvest, and I spent time with my dad in the combine, brother on the swather and in the trucks of the drivers, visiting with each of them about how the crop looked from their perspectives.

Recalling those days on the farm when my mom worked hard to fuel the men who were bringing in the hay and the harvest is bittersweet because most of them, including my dad, mom and brother, are no longer on Earth, but I am happy that I made those memories that are still close to my heart.

Ann Bailey lives on a farmstead near Larimore, N.D., that has been in her family since 1911. You can reach her at 218-779-8093 or abailey@agweek.com.