Mini-Memoir: Ranch Food

Having spent much of my growing up years on ranches, I guess some would say I was deprived of fresh fruits and vegetables; however, I have such fond memories of canned food, especially canned grapefruit sections and canned kadota figs. Where was Kadota, anyway, the exotic place that produced those plump, seedy orbs in syrup?

The ranch commissary contained rows of syrupy fruits in cans: canned peaches halves and canned apricots were other favorites. I remember canned tomato soup and small cans of spinach, which my mother would dress with vinegar, bits of bacon and chopped hard boiled egg. I could easily imagine Popeye slurping canned spinach through a pipe.

I remember the DelMonte labels on canned cream of corn and canned green beans and Lipton’s canned cream of mushroom soup and cream of chicken soup that would go into casseroles with potatoes, which stood in a lumpy sack in a dark corner. Although some potatoes did come in cans, we didn't like them.

You should see the surface dumps here in Tuscarora: mostly rusted cans.