Grandma Dale's Chicken and Dumplings

I remember spending the night at my grandmother’s house in east Texas. Nights were always dark because her house had no electricity until I was almost a teenager. After dark, she burned coal oil lamps until we could no longer tolerate the reek of soot and fumes.

That was a long time ago, in the fifties, when wolves still roamed the piney woods and howled at the moon all night. The wonderful aroma of grandma’s biscuits in the morning made it all worthwhile.

Grandma Dale was a good cook but there was one dish she made better than anyone else in the world – chicken and dumplings. I don’t know her exact recipe, but she would start by kneading dough she made from flour, shortening, baking powder and salt. She would roll the dough out with an old rolling pin on a wooden cutting block and slice it into the desired size with her butcher knife.

She would boil a chicken, one she had raised, wrung its neck, and then plucked herself. I remember she used a pressure cooker. When the meat was falling off the bone, she would put it in a boiling pot of chicken broth, and drop in the dumplings.

The chicken was tender, as were the dumplings, and both seasoned to perfection using only two ingredients – salt and pepper. Don’t ask me how, but the subtle seasoning combined with tender chicken and succulent dumplings to provide a concoction to die for. Chicken and dumplings is a universal dish, at least in the south, but I have never had it before or since as tasty as Grandma Dale used to make.

Many moons have passed since I slept in the piney woods of east Texas. I barely remember the coal oil lamps or the howling of wolves at night. Still, I will never forget the sublime flavor of my ol’ east Texas Grandma’s chicken and dumplings even as I know in my heart I will never taste it again.

Fiction South