When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #14

Story #14 - Duck Pond Soup

I wonder what picture comes to your mind when you think of ‘Duck Pond Soup’? Do you think of ducks on a pond or do you think of ducks sitting in your bowl of soup?

I was probably about 12 or 13 years old. We had some friends by that last name of Murray. They had 6 or 7 kids and were Catholic. The 2nd to the oldest in their family was named Michael. He was one year older than my twin brother and I. I had a crush (it means I liked him) on him. He liked me too! We had chores to do everyday during the summer and on weekends when school was in session. Michael would come over sometimes in the summer and help my brother and I get our chores done, mostly for my sake, so we could all play and Michael could spend more time with me.

They lived in a small apartment in town and then later they moved out to a big farmhouse west of town out by the old cotton gin. It was a much bigger house and accommodated the size of their family a lot better. That was such fun to play at their house, both inside the house and outside in the yard. My twin brother and I rode our bikes across town, over the railroad tracks and out to their house. It was probably a three-mile ride to their house from our house. If it happened to be lunchtime when we played, she would invite my brother and I to eat with them. My favorite was her ‘Duck Pond Soup.’ We never had anything like that at our house. It was mashed potatoes with a scoop out of the middle to make room for the pond. Then she would pour alphabet soup or vegetable soup into the scooped out pond. It would fill with soup. Billie, the mom’s name, said that she just invented the name. It made it fun for her kids.
It tasted wonderful! It was so good! We’d tell our mother about it and she would be very kind and say, “They have a lot of kids so this is probably a good way to stretch their food budget.” Well, at my age, the last thing I thought of was ‘budgets’ and what did that all mean??? I just knew it tasted good and wanted her to make it. She never did.

My mom did make us another dish that I loved. I guess you could say this was a poor man’s dish too. She would cook cracked wheat and make cooked cereal. I was not especially fond of it. However, she would take the left over cooked cereal and pour it into a bread loaf pan. Then she put it in the refrigerator. The next morning she would slice it into one-inch thick slices and fry it in a pan and then pour warmed Log Cabin Syrup over it. Mmmm, it was sooo good! I loved it fixed that way!

Well moving forward to adult years---Julie and Lisa had their wisdom teeth taken out together on the same day one half hour apart from each other. Julie was 18 and Lisa was 16. It’s not fun having your wisdom teeth pulled. Your jaw gets swollen and it’s hard to eat anything. Well I fixed them ‘Duck Pond Soup!’ I used alphabet soup. They thought that tasted sooo good. I made a lot for them.

In February of this year (2008) we lost power and we had no electricity for almost 5 days! That meant we had no heat. Fortunately we had a gas stove. You can strike a match and turn the burner on and it will light. So I was able to cook things on the stovetop. I made ‘Duck Pond Soup’ and I think it was the first time dad (Grandpa Neil) ever ate it. He liked it! I’ve made it several times since. It’s a really easy meal to fix for Kirsten too and she loves it!