USDA Food

The kitchen was the brightest room in the apartment, especially when Mom was cooking. She always seemed happy when she was cooking and I thought she was a food magician because she could take the most disgusting food imaginable and make it into a masterpiece. The kitchen was the life source. This was where we ate and talked and laughed. This is where we were all together. I think it gave her satisfaction that no matter what else was falling apart around her, she knew how to create a meal with the little she had. She could not give us much at all materially, but she could give us a meal, and that she did.

Thanks to the USDA Food Commodities Distribution Program, i.e. free food from the government, all the kids in Gills Alley had food to eat. We would pick up our food in bulk once a month. Since we did not have a car, we walked to the distribution center and carried the boxes of food home. The boxes were stamped USDA FOOD and were filled with non-fat dry instant milk, dehydrated powdered potatoes, canned chopped chicken, dried split peas and beans, raisins, butter, shortening, rolled oats, rolled wheat, peanut butter, cornmeal, flour, big blocks of very orange cheese, farina, canned green beans, canned tomatoes, and bagged rice. No fresh fruit or vegetables. Each can, bag, and box had no color, no decoration and no paper label. Just stamped in blue ink.

Luckily, the distribution center was not far from Gill’s Alley and we only had a short walk on the main street, leaving little time for anyone to see us. The walk home felt like the “walk of shame.” None of us said a word about it but I can’t help but think that we were all thinking the same thing:…   we are poor and everyone knows it because we are carrying home boxes stamped USDA FOOD.

Once home we would unpack the food and “Mom the cooking magician” came to life. She would put the canned chopped chicken in a pan with butter and add a little water and flour and make a chicken and gravy dish and serve it over rice or hydrated potatoes. It was a true transformation of this chopped, canned chicken that looked like dog food when you opened it and smelled like it too. If any of us were in the room, we would all moan and groan at the site of it and Mom would just go about her business transforming that USDA chopped canned chicken into a meal that warmed our little bellies.  She also made us farina or oatmeal for breakfast with raisins and powdered milk that she would make ahead of time and cool in the refrigerator. Sometimes the bags would not be sealed properly and we would have little bugs in our farina. We would all gross out and Mom would respond very calmly while picking the bugs out of her cereal saying  “oh these little things won’t hurt you… (while taking a bite)…. yum…” and instruct us to do the same.  We followed her lead…. like it was the most normal thing in the world to pick the bugs out of your morning cereal and keep right on eating.