Free Entry Week 4

Making Cooter Stoop

 “Cooter soup.”

“Only your bayou bred folks call it cooter. We call it Tooter soup.”

My eyebrow rises on its own.

“It’s the proper way to say turtle, you have to add some rers.” 

My eyebrow rose even further at the Madea reference. The humor of the moment being lost my mom turned her attention to back to the iced potato in her hand. There’s an odd calm found while sitting on the back porch peeling garden grown potatoes with my mom. Her alto croon is painful beauty to my ears as she singing about how far we’ve come.

“Stop chewing on it, you gonna get a splinter in ya lip.”

I stop my assault on the match stem in between my teeth and turn back to the onion on my board. I still don’t understood how a match stem kept you from crying when chopping onions. But every time I ask for an explanation I get the same response.

“Don’t worry bout why it works, just be glad it does.”

Together we tackled the mountain of unbrushed corn teeth, then the Nerf ball tomatoes, each picked fresh from the garden, the remainder of dried soap washed off this morning.

The meat resembled over veiny pork chops and smelled of chitterlings just pulled off the stove. I watched as she expertly trimmed the nearly non-existent fat from the sides, years of working in the kitchen showing in every slide of her knife. She lets me chop up the turtle, reminding me to follow the grain of the meat, and remember the rocking chair slice.

The battle worn silver pot she sat on the stove shone from its Brillo pad massage only days before, the bottom still scratched from the assault of over 200 hamhocks.

“Time’s the only seasoning it needs”.

My eyes drift over to the salt and pepper on the table.

“Even time needs a little help.”

First the onions go in with a little bit of butter. The nutty, spicy smell playing a game of “got your nose”. After that the tomatoes go in, their slightly sweet smell sinks into my skin. Once the tomatoes have boiled down, we add the corn, and potatoes and watch them bob like the little rubber duckies as the Perry fair. Finally the star of the show arrives, we put the pieces of cooter into the pot and then it’s time for the best part . . . waiting.

I sit in front of her cross-legged like a little child listening to nursery rhymes. She just smiles at me and indulges me, telling me the same stories I’ve heard a dozen times before. Just as she gets to the part about seeing the chaos and panic caused by smoke bombs and pepper spray, the earthy smell of our soup reaches my nose.  

The first spoonful from the pot held just enough of every component, the soup thick and warm.

“Mom, isn’t this too thick for soup?”

“It aint thick enough for stew either.”

“So what is it?”

“Stoop.”

This time the humor wasn’t lost, I laughed heartily till I remembered the show we had been watching earlier.

“You got that from Rachel Ray.”