CHICKEN SCRATCH AND OYSTER PIE

I have an odd, 40-year relationship with chickens. Not as pets, just as subject matter.

When your father has a Ph.D. in food science, and his bachelors and masters degrees in poultry science, you have a tendency to grow up with a warped knowledge of poultry and of Things In Our Food Unseen.

Eating with Dad isn't always fun. He knows too much, and, to him, discussing the fermentation process of Tobasco is casual conversation. So is Salmonella, staff infection, bacterial growth rates, the percentage of bug parts allowed in canned foods, and the best, most humane way to transport and kill a chicken.

Meals require a mental preparation on my part, and I always try to study the menu at a restaurant to see if I can possibly eat something that Dad has NOTHING to say about the ingredients or what gross-ness might lurk within the entre. I've not been successful in 40 years, and doubt I ever will be.

Dad's mother, my Nana, asked him what he was majoring in when he graduated high school in 1958, married my mother, and was preparing to go to Oklahoma State University.

"Poultry Science," he told her.

"What are you going to do with THAT? Starve to death, that's what you're going to do," Nana said.

Out of her three sons, my father, the quiet middle one, made the most money in his lifetime and has had the most success. I'm not sure Nana ever realized how famous and smart Dad actually was. Maybe not so smart in love (he divorced my mother in 1972, and my evil stepmother in 1992), but definitely smart with food and money and making money from food.

I tell people I was conceived at Oklahoma State University and born at the University of Georgia, and I am telling the truth. Mom was pregnant when Dad graduated with his masters degree and was accepted to the University of Georgia, and I was born the December of the first semester of his doctoral program.

As a young child, I have memories of my father in a white lab coat, holding my hand and walking with me down long, sterile hallways lined with gray doors that never opened with bright yellow and black signs on them. Sometimes there were red signs, hung above gigantic, sunflower-shaped shower nozzles that appeared out of nowhere around every corner.
I never really knew what Dad did, but I knew he was important because he was, after all, wearing a doctor's coat. He never had patients, though. Dad had things like ripped up hot dog wieners, eggs, and raw chicken, all kinds of microscopes and strange vials that sat in refrigerators turning different colors.

At home, he was good - real good - at making fried chicken, and he showed me the 'right' way to eat it completely to the bone, letting nothing go to waste. (Sometimes this was gross, but if I swallowed quickly and drank enough water, I got through it without gagging.)

In his mind, there were 1,100,000-plus recipes for chicken, I was sure. To include the 11 secret herbs and spices (as well as the recipe for Extra Crispy). He knew Colonel Sanders personally, and had worked for Pilllsbury, J.D. Jewel, Pilgrim's Pride. He developed Mr. Turkey franks, bacon, ham. Dad knew the secret ingredients in Spam, developed the Hardee's chicken sandwich, consulted on the breading for Arby's chicken sandwich, and worked with McDonald's on their chicken McNuggets (which, by the way, taste bad to adults because they are rancid, and children respond to that rancid taste, so it is put in there purposefully.)

Dad also experimented with food constantly, making a variety of cuisines, mixing this and that spice, inventing incredible dishes out of ordinary ingredients. He rarely made mistakes - with the exception of oyster pie.
Living in the South (coastal Georgia to be exact), Christmas is celebrated a bit differently. The temperature on Christmas Day is likely to be a suffocating 76 degrees, so no sleds are usually on Santa's list for that area, and White Christmas is sung only out of pity for the rest of the nation experiencing real winters.

To adapt to no winter and Christmas, however, new traditions were added, and one of those traditions was oyster pie. Turkeys are rarely seen roaming the beaches scratching in the sand in Savannah, Georgia, but oysters are plentiful and - let's face it - versatile.

I picture it this way: A colonial woman was making Christmas dinner one year and had her pie crusts lined up on the counter along with other ingredients for the main course. She reached over, meaning to grab the mincemeat, but she really got the shucked oysters, originally intended for stew. They didn't waste food back then, no matter what, so this colonial woman was probably quick on her feet and covered those oysters with more pie crust and just baked the damn things.

In other words, oyster pie was an accident. It was people making due with what they had, which was basically protein that felt like a big booger and tasted much better on ice with horseradish than under a pie crust.

Christmas of 1979, however, my father found this accident in a recipe book somewhere and decided against the traditional turkey (HIS turkey, his PERFECT turkey) in lieu of oyster pie.

At the age of 14, I was a sullen, quiet kid. But a tiny, tender shoot of rebellion had begun to grow in my gut, and I decided to draw the line at oyster pie.

My father was not impressed with my new assertion of independence on this Christmas day, and (although he had not even tried the dish himself), he insisted that I ingest the entire piece he had given me before I was allowed to leave the table.

After attempting one bite (the trick of gulping really fast before the gag reflex kicked in didn't work and it ended up back on the plate), I refused to eat anymore. It was the worst thing I had ever put in my mouth and it wasn't going back in. Period.

"Pamela Michelle," Dad warned, getting that TONE in his voice. That "father" tone, whatever it is that makes the entire ass of a child squeeze itself together automatically, as if a leather belt is going to come flying out of nowhere and land on the butt cheeks with hard intent and purpose.

He finally grounded me, and left me sitting in the dark dining room with that piece of oyster pie in front of me until 10:30 p.m.

At breakfast, the same piece of oyster pie was there, instead of the traditional bowl of cereal.

Needless to say, I went hungry that day.

It was the first time in my life - ever - I had stood up to my father. I loved him more than anyone in the world and would have done anything to make him love me again.

(Was it me, Dad? Did I make you leave? Did I do something? Or was it Mom? Do you love me and Johnny anymore or your new family better? Do you still like Mom? How come you never call? How come you don't talk to Nana and Popa anymore? Why can't you and me go somewhere without HER? Do you like your new daughter more than me? If she's not trying to be my mother, then tell her to quit being so mean. Mom says child support is always late. I forgot I was supposed to tell you that. Mom says I look like you and she hates that sometimes. How come you just disappeared? Mom says you just disappeared and left a letter, and sent us to Nana and Popa's, but you didn't tell me anything like that. Did you have an affair? Mom says you had an affair with your secretary. Is this new mom you got me your secretary? Do you miss me? I miss you. Especially when I get a C and Mom is mad. Mom is always mad, Dad. You make her really mad and she gets mad at me because I still love you. Do you still have our house on Frontier Court? Is my tree house still there? I miss my room. Does Evan still live down the street? I never saw Evan again. He was neat, but Mom says he was bad because he was a Jew. Evan and I walked into that graveyard across the street from his house. He didn't have a mother, just a dad. Now I don't have a dad, just a mother. Are you ever going to live with us again? Remember watching the space guys and reading the paper? When they landed on the moon? Do you still watch Walter Cronkite? Are you and my new mother PTA presidents, too, like you and Mom were? Does your new daughter go to my school? Did Evan flunk because we hid the paddle that time in the construction paper closet? Did they build the new playground that Mom designed? What grade is my new sister in? Did you talk with Johnny? He cried when Mom said you were gone, but that was all. He tells me to shut up about you sometimes when I talk about you now. I tell him to shut up back. Stupid little brother. I hate him sometimes. Mom loves him more. You loved me more. Remember that spider in the garage that you killed, Dad? Squashed it dead, and all those babies came out everywhere and you had to dance and dance around, stomping them the whole time? That was funny. Do you know what happened to my bicycle? How come you stayed here and we're in Oklahoma now? I hate Oklahoma. It's ugly. Are you going to live in Oklahoma, too? When do I get to see you again? Will you call me? Dad? ....)

Dad will tell you today that he made a mistake with that oyster pie. At 40, I laugh at the memory of that dark dining room and that slimy piece of oyster pie on china in front of me, its gray juice oozing out everywhere in the moonlight.

My father laughs at this story until tears fall out of his eyes. Water full of joy, sorrow, regret running down the sides of his face.

He is older. He has lost both of his parents and now stands on the edge of his own mortality, reviewing his accomplishments and mistakes. I suppose there comes a point in life when a personal inventory is necessary for all of us, along with apologies and forgiveness.

He counts oyster pie as one of those mistakes, along with a few other things, and has never attempted to make another one since.

Interestingly enough, if he did, I would eat every bite now.