When my father retired from the office, my mother retired from the kitchen. That’s how Dad took over the cooking. He was happy to do this, I think, since he liked to cook and my mother (though a wonderful cook) did not.
He preferred simple food: pork chops or mini-hamburgers in our antique electric frying pan, or chili in the oven, or home fries, or great northern (not Navy) bean soup with ham cooked in a huge dented steel pot, enough to feed several families. But his favorite meal was Slumgullion.
Slumgullion was Dad’s word for his most eclectic concoctions. The recipe for Slumgullion was ever-changing, but it started with whatever was left over in the refrigerator. He might take some fried rice, a baked chicken breast, green peas, and gravy of some sort, then stir and heat together with unguessable spices. Maybe it sounds awful, but he enjoyed it, and I have to say so did most who tried it.
He was always happy cooking. He loved being active, having something to do or some place to go. But I think it was the creative aspect of Slumgullion that pleased him so, the ability to take what you are given and make something unique and wonderful out of it.
Eventually, a stroke took away most of his cherished activities, including making Slumgullion. We did what we could, my brothers and I, but still his life narrowed to a small area and limited opportunities. Yet to his last day, he had an astonishing capacity to find joy in almost anything: taking a ride to the golf course or grocery store, watching an old TV show, even our attempts at recreating his Slumgullion recipes.
I always thought my father made up the word Slumgullion. But a friend recently informed me that it is a real word, one that Edward Abbey used in the title of a book. In Slumgullion Stew, Abbey defines the word this way:
Slumgullion stew is the name of a dish popular among hoboes and other knights of the open road. Into a big pot over an open fire each man throws whatever he has to contribute-a stolen chicken, a hambone, a can of beans, a jar of salsa, an old shoe-anything edible.
That sounds like something my Dad would enjoy. But in his last years at least, Slumgullion was not just a dish, but a way of life. He found his joy wherever he could, and shared it with everyone he could.
He was after all his own greatest creation.
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