Memories of Mama

We love our mothers. And we love their recipes, although we struggle to re-create them.

Or so we learned from dozens of readers who answered our invitation to share their successes and failures in trying to duplicate their moms' best dishes. We hope today's selections are the equivalent of a warm hug for mothers everywhere for what they have taught us in the kitchen.

Mom's kolachkies

Pete Hoffman, 71, of Durham wrote about his late mother, Marcy Hoffman, who had to feed a family of 12 children in Albert Lee, Minn.

She was Mother or Ma or Mom or Mama, depending on preference and the nuanced intimacy of the mother-child relationship. Her kitchen was mostly meat and potatoes and lots of goulash. The specialty of the house was her kolachkies, a square piece of rolled dough with diagonal corners pinched together over the prune filling. We later learned that they went by "kolach," "kolache" or "kolacky," depending on your sensibilities as a low-brow Bohemian or a high-class Czech. But to us, they were kolachkies, with a substantial but light, fluffy, sweet dough, and walnuts when we could afford them.

At a recent celebration of the youngest child's 50th birthday, we discovered that most of us had tried to duplicate our mother's kolachkies. We agreed we weren't able to really come close, but we all enjoyed trying. And in the trying, we found out what a real labor of love it was to make enough to satisfy all of us and our good father.

Mother's creamed corn

Janice Van Rooyen, 65, of Matthews wrote about her late mother, Margaret Flowers Hansil of Belmont.

My mother was a renowned baker and cook. Her colorful recipes always included quaint measurements, such as "pinches," "dabs" and "smidgens." Her recipe for creamed corn was my favorite. It was made from fresh corn, shucked right in the kitchen. While my sister Sue could perfectly replicate it, I have never been successful. Mine is always too gummy or too runny; perhaps because I just can't get the "smidgens" or "dabs" in the correct proportions.

Mama's pepper hash

Gayle McCracken Tuttle of Clayton wrote about her late mother, Mayo McCracken of Morganton.

Mayo McCracken was a prolific writer of letters. Her looping, even script covered both sides of lined writing-tablet paper, creased and straining the envelopes that arrived almost daily while I was away at college. Eyes closed, I could see the fig bush as she described it, heavy with milky, purple fruit, and smell the lilacs outside my bedroom window some 300 miles away.

My kitchen was a humming home-canning factory last summer when I opened a shoebox of my mother's faded letters, postmarked 1950 to 1954 and addressed to my brother at Wheelus Air Base in Tripoli. There, in those familiar loops and swirls, she wrote: "We've got five long rows of the prettiest peppers, just turning red. Mama and I have put up 400 quarts of green beans, tomatoes, soup mixture and blackberries for cobblers. It will surely come in good this winter. We'll put up pepper hash this Saturday. I'll save some for when you get home - I know how you love it so."

Translucent bits of peppers and onions shimmer like holiday lights in a Mason jar - Christmas in July. Breathe deeply and the sweet-tangy-salty scent grabs at the back of your throat to make your mouth pop and your eyes squint before you've had a taste. It can make pinto beans dance around a hunk of cornbread, stand a slab of fried liver mush upright and cause a batch of okra to forsake its Creole upbringing. Pepper hash, just like Mama made.

Mother's chicken salad

Holly Marlow Hall, 58, of Durham wrote about her late mother, Pansy Clayton Marlow of Durham.

I miss my mother dearly, but every time I make her chicken salad, I smile. My mother never wrote down or followed a recipe. This unfortunately is a family trait she passed down to me.

When I decided it was time to try making her famous chicken salad, I had only my memory to follow. My mother was her own worst critic. She would usually say, "I think it has too much mayonnaise," or "It's too dry this time," or "It's too mushy." But it always tasted the same to us: wonderful.

I remembered the ingredients and exactly what it tasted like, but nothing more. After many years of trying some of this, more of that and not so much of the other, I finally found it. My husband, John, says it is the best chicken salad he has ever tasted. How I ever figured it out is a miracle. Well, not really. I am sure I had a little help from above.

Mom's red velvet cake

Sandra Carringer, 55, of Apex wrote about her late mother, Katie Johnston of Kirkmansville, Ky.

My first memory of Mom's red velvet cake is having a newspaper person at our house taking a picture of a cake for an article in the local paper. That was quite a big deal since it wasn't every day we made the paper.

I'm not sure where she got the recipe, but it became the diamond in my mother's cooking crown. It's not that she didn't have other specialties. There is her chicken dressing that we would fight over at Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sweet potato soufflé, the cornbread and even the white soup beans, to name a few.

But it's the red velvet cake that I most loved. It's a beautiful chocolate cake that's colored a rich red with food coloring. The icing is this incredible white fluffy heavenly stuff that starts out with a white sauce. I've never seen this icing on another cake. You see red velvet cake in the stores, but it has a cream cheese icing. I feel so sorry for what these poor folks are missing.

Every year I would expect red velvet cake for my birthday, on Christmas Eve. Somehow it always tasted so sweet to know it was filled with a mother's love. Love can be spoken through words, but it can also be spoken through a beautiful, red, chocolate, wonderful cake.

Mother's cat-head biscuits

Becky Rees, 53, of Hickory wrote about her late mother, Ramona Icenhour of Lenoir.

My mother made the best cat-head biscuits you ever put in your mouth, and she would never measure a thing.

I remember watching her as a child. She would pull that green bowl out of the flour bin, add Crisco and milk and start swirling it with her fingers. Once the consistency was perfect, she would pinch a ball out, toss it back and forth in her hands a couple of times and put it in the pan. Here's the magic part: She would punch it with her fist. Every biscuit eaten at our house had that fist imprint in it. I tried many times to do exactly as I watched her do so many years, and to this day I have never gotten it right. My mom has been gone for almost four years. That green bowl sits idle now. What I wouldn't give to have a warm cat-head biscuit and a big slice of garden tomato.

Mama's pound cake

Sisters Barbara Batts, 62, and Sara Atkins El Malki, 59, of Rocky Mount wrote about their late mother, Sue Atkins of Raleigh.

Everybody loved our mama's pound cake.

The grandchildren's favorite part was the crusty top. They would carefully pick it off and exclaim, "Grandmama, this is perfect."

Cousins Lyn and Jim liked the moist interior and would say, "Aunt Sue, this is perfect."

Her daughters, Bunny and Sara, liked to lick the batter on the spatula and beaters and would say, "Mama, this is perfect!"

Each time Mama would beam and say, "I made it for you because I love you."

Mama's pound cake flew to Okinawa as a gesture of keeping homesickness away and to Morocco as a welcome gift for a new son-in-law's family.

When Mama died in 2009, the torch was passed to daughter Sara, now known as "The Pound Cake Queen."

Nana's pumpkin pie

Ellen Law, 53, of Huntersville wrote about her mother, Georgia West, 78, of Winston-Salem.

Maybe it is because I have a sweet tooth, but I believe my mom's best efforts are at baking, especially her pies. Christmas and Thanksgiving would not be complete without Nana's pumpkin pie. I'm sure there would be an uproar at the table if she tried to deviate from the standard. She shared her recipe with me years ago when I first started learning to cook, and I have never used another. She makes the filling from pumpkin she cooks with just the right blend of spices. The homemade crust is the perfect salty, flaky counterpart to the sweet and spicy filling. My dad loves my mother's pumpkin pie so much that a few years ago he convinced me to grow pumpkins so he could provide her with a source. So I planted the seeds from the previous year's pumpkin. Much to my surprise, pumpkins did grow and supplied us with enough pumpkin to carry through both holidays and then some.

Mama's two-handed chocolate pie

Joan Erwin, 64, of Charlotte wrote about her late mother, Lottie Payne of Lenoir City, Tenn.

My mother was a terrific country cook. Sewing and cooking were her favorite pastimes. The extra work she poured into everything she made resulted in pure deliciousness. When we visited Mama and Daddy in Tennessee, she would make the best chocolate pie. We called it "Two-Handed Chocolate Pie" because sometimes she needed an extra hand to stir the filling to make the consistency just right. She made the perfect pie crust; the rich, dark, smooth chocolate filling; and the light, fluffy meringue, all from scratch. My mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease for 16 years and could not cook or work with her hands or even remember the family she loved. About a year before she passed away, I decided to make the pie for my family on Christmas Eve. It had been many years since any of us had enjoyed her famous chocolate pie, and it was a huge success. I worked so hard on that pie, but the smiles on my family's faces were worth all the effort. The satisfaction I felt in honoring my mother was worth every bit of the hard work.

Mom's meatballs

Jo Ann Anderson Fernald, 57, of Charlotte wrote about her mother, Mary Anderson, 87, of Wayne, N.J.

My maternal grandparents emigrated from Naples, Italy. Mom learned how to cook wonderful Italian food at her mother's knee in Brooklyn. We were living in London for a year, and our daughter in Atlanta called to get Grandma's recipe for meatballs. I didn't know the recipe. Mom made 'em; we ate 'em. I called Mom's retirement home in Florida to learn the secret and relayed it to my daughter. The key is using ground beef that is not lean, no less than 20 percent fat. It may be bad for the arteries, but it's great for the palate. Don't brown them; cook them raw in the "gravy," as Italians call the red sauce. The recipe or brand of sauce does not matter. The flavor comes from the meat simmering in the sauce.

These meatballs have passed through at least four generations, half-way around the world, over a century, from a village near Naples to a Brooklyn tenement to the New Jersey suburbs to Florida to a London flat to Midtown Atlanta and then back to Dilworth in Charlotte. They have world-class flavor, but simple, humble roots.

Mom's miso soup

Pat Lewis, 53, of Charlotte wrote about her mother, Yukiko Leavitt, 76, of Fayetteville.

The dish that reminds me of my mother and one I try - try being the operative word - to make is her miso soup with daikon. It just doesn't taste the same as when my mom makes it for me. It was her favorite when her mother made it, and it has become mine. When my mom was in her 20s, she married my father. He was an American GI, and she was a Japanese national. They met when she was an usherette in a movie theatre and he was on leave from the Korean War. She emigrated to the States with my dad, and they raised four children. When I go to visit my mom, she always makes a special "Japanese breakfast" for me, and it always includes this soup. It's our special little ritual and helps us feel a little closer.

Mama's Brunswick stew

Jane Bass, 68, of Apex wrote about her late mother, Boyd Britt Bradshaw of Roanoke Rapids.

My mother made the best Brunswick stew in the world. Mama started with cured pork sidemeat that was rendered in a big, heavy pot. Chopped onions were then browned in the fat. A young hen was cooked separately, deboned and added to the big pot along with the rich broth.

July was the best time to make Brunswick stew because the vegetables were fresh from her garden. Huge beefsteak tomatoes were peeled and chopped. Young butterbeans, picked and shelled the day before, were no bigger than my little fingernail. Just-ripe yellow corn was shucked and cut off the cob, but not too close.

The mixture was simmered for a couple of hours, stirred often to prevent sticking or scorching. Salt, pepper and sugar seasoned the stew as it was tasted and re-tasted. Shortly before the stew was done, several cubed white potatoes were added, along with a stick or two of butter. The flavor kicker was a pinch of red pepper flakes.

I have done my best to re-create the recipe, relying on local markets for free-range chickens, good canned tomatoes and frozen vegetables. I have made the Brunswick stew for our family at Thanksgiving, but hard as I try, it is just not as good as Mama's.

Mom's one-egg chess pie

Sarah McIntosh Nixon, 88, of Stanley wrote about her late mother, Maude Huitt McIntosh of Gaston County.

When I was still in grammar school, my mother was cooking for nine children, my grandmother and parents. She was delighted one day to find in the afternoon Charlotte News a recipe for a chess pie that used only one egg. She used it plain or to make variations such as raisin, pecan, black walnut and other pies. When I grew up and married, it was always a favorite recipe for me. I won the daily and weekly prize with a raisin variation on the WBT Radio morning cooking program way back in the 1950s and still have the pewter pitcher. I am still using it as Lower Calorie Pecan Pie for our Lincoln County Extension & Community Association pie tasting observance of National Pie Day in January and never have any left at our annual fall church bazaar. I have often used it for family gatherings, to share with a sick friend's family, as a thank you token and shared the recipe. More recently, I confess, I have used the store-bought pie shells with no complaints.