There was mayonnaise, and lots of it.

Good, old-fashioned Southern bowls of gooey, fat-flaunting delight covered every surface of her kitchen and sprawled across card tables. It was music from an oldies station of top hits: spring green pea salad dotted with chopped hard-cooked eggs, three kinds of deviled eggs, coleslaw and enough potato salad to feed the 82nd Airborne -- my friend had cooked 10 pounds of potatoes, to be sure she had enough.

At the center was the giant ham, a mountain of pork to be picked at and nibbled as much as sliced and eaten on plates.

For a Southerner, eating this kind of food is like having your Grandma wrap you up in her knitted afghan and pat you on the head -- especially since you tend to need a nap afterward.

As my friend circulated around the room encouraging consumption of the gallons of potato salad she'd made, I realized that I missed this food, proud throwback that it is to days before obesity epidemics and global influences.

Now, I like to cook olive oil-roasted green beans and cedar-planked salmon. I enjoy going out for sushi, and I know that salads for lunch can work toward managing certain areas of expansion.

But I need a little mayo and ham in my life now and then. And, darn the critics, I'm going to say it: This food is good. From the crispy heat-and-eat store-bought rolls (like ones my mother served) and bacony green beans to the pound cake and chocolate pie.

Where did I develop a taste for this food? My mother didn't make most of it. She claimed she was allergic to eggs, so no deviled eggs at my house, and she thought potato salad was too much trouble. However, she did make pimento cheese and chicken salad with the spreadability of room temperature brie.

No, I ate this kind of food at every potluck, neighborhood picnic or simply "come over and eat" time between the ages of teething and college. And at my grandmother's. The only things missing from my friend's feast that might have been on her Easter table were roast turkey (in addition to the ham) and celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese and onions. She also favored lemon meringue over chocolate pie, but I split hairs.

When I was a kid, a jar of mayonnaise (Duke's, never Hellman's) lasted us a week to 10 days. Today, a jar lingers in my refrigerator for two or three months, sometimes until the expiration date dictates the need for a new one.

While I don't have the high mayo turnover of my mother, my fridge lacks one fixture of hers: a canned ham.

At all times, a round canned ham sat on the top shelf. She said she kept it there "in case of an emergency."

A canned ham emergency might be such events as: a death in her church, which would necessitate a quick food response; unexpected guests, which never happened at our house; or an extended power failure, because canned hams don't have to be cooked before eating. (Although I can imagine few things worse than being stuck in a dark house eating a cold canned ham, even with mayo.)

Sometimes our Easter ham was a canned ham (not the emergency ham; Easter is not an emergency). It was covered with mustard, honey and cloves, which were the most edible parts.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, canned hams are made of pieces of ham that are molded, vacuum sealed and steam-cooked in the can. They will keep at room temperature for up to two years, awaiting death, destruction or urgent need.

At other times, my mother served a non-molded ham -- what old-timers call a "city ham," to distinguish it from country ham. City hams are injected with water and brine, and are easily cooked or precooked. These are the honey-glazed, spiral-sliced hams that hordes line up for at stores on Saturday before Easter Sunday.

I'm no biblical scholar, but I doubt that a ham was the centerpiece of the Last Supper. The connection between hams and Easter may go back to farming days, when country hams put up to cure in winter would be ready for eating by Eastertime.

Pigs on early Southern farms were low-maintenance sources of meat. They could forage on their own for food, adapting easily to a free-range lifestyle, unlike beef cattle. Early settlers learned from Native Americans that pork was perfect for preserving with salt and smoke. Aging the hams for up to six months improved the quality as well as offering food for periods of shortage.

Pork, whether as barbecue or country ham, has traditionally been a food for celebration in the South. It was cheap and could feed a crowd. Kind of like my friend's potato salad, with enough mayonnaise.

(Freelance writer and cookbook author Debbie Moose is a former food editor for The News & Observer. Reach her at www.debbiemoose.com.)

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