My mother made it a lot, well too much for my taste. She didn't waste anything. If we didn't eat the soup she would add brown sugar and molasses and magically turn it into baked beans.

I don't know why, I suppose it was something her mother never did, either. You'd think soup would have been a great thing for someone who hated to cook as much as my mother did, just throw everything in and ignore it for a couple of hours. She just jnever discovered them.

My own bean soups were during my veggie years, so they were heavy on the garlic and lacked meat. They were still a revelation, a hearty, tasty and cheap dinner option with back yard salad and homemade bread.

Soup season is almost over here in the high desert so I don't know if I'll make any this spring. Maybe next fall. I can taste it already.

Her soup and stew were always very basic.

Navy beans - cleaned and soaked overnight
Add an onion.
Add a ham bone ( if you have it) and ham

Simmer until the beans are tender.

Sometimes she would make cornbread to go with the soup.


I just want to be able to make split pea and ham soup. I can never get the dried peas soft enough to eat.

She and my grandmother lived on oatmeal 3 times a day until Hoover was gone, porridge, bannocks, and skilly. My mother wouldn't allow oatmeal in the house until I was long gone.

When she got her first job, she pried a nickel loose from my grandmother and bought a fried egg sandwich. She said it was her best meal, ever.

I pretty sure our mothers didn't want to repeat the same meals for their children. Sometime we didn't have an alternative. Our parents made our lives better than theirs.