Someone’s In the Kitchen with Flygirl, by Sherri L. Smith

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I have a preoccupation with food. I like to eat it. My characters like to eat it. I like to cook it, so my characters do, too. Unfortunately, World War II brought about the rationing of many things I like to eat-butter and sugar to name two. In spite of the cutbacks, FLYGIRL has food aplenty in the preparation of simple meals between mother and daughter. Ida Mae snaps the ends off the string beans; her mother washes mustard greens in the sink. Biscuits are baked (with margarine, not butter!) and when Ida's little brother, Abel, finagles some cream out of the neighbor, strawberry shortcakes enter the picture.

World War II brought about a lot of changes in the kitchen. SPAM, for one thing, became a staple in many households, and the invention of the frozen dinner followed on the heels of all those women leaving the kitchen to fly airplanes and work in factories. Rosie the Riveter is in many ways the mother (or, at least the grateful older sister) of Betty Crocker and Sara Lee. Even after the war, in the 1950s when women returned to the hearth and a nuclear family lifestyle was idealized, the concept of convenience in cooking swept the nation. The first microwave, invented in 1947 by Raytheon, relied on wartime technology according to their website. Sure, it was the size of a refrigerator, but by the mid-50s it was available in a home-sized model and thus unleashed thousands of women from the damnable fate of sweating over a hot stove all day.

Ida Mae's mother, however, is not the sort of woman to rely on frozen dinners or boxed cake mix to feed her family. Ida would have learned from her mother how to make her drop biscuits from scratch, greasing the baking sheet so they slide off easily when they're done. She would have learned how to pull the salt from a country ham by soaking it overnight, changing the water frequently, and scrubbing the mold off the tough outer skin, still rough with bristles. (I have never managed to do this correctly. My mother brought home a country ham one day and we had the saltiest, most eye-watering, moisture-stealing slices of ham steak you have ever seen until we couldn't take it anymore and had to get rid of the thing. Wasteful, I know, but truly droughts can be caused by one under-soaked country ham. Ida Mae wouldn't have that problem. Ida would be a good cook.)

It makes me wonder, though, if she could have hidden her heritage in the kitchen. If WASP were cooks instead of pilots, the minute she mixed up some grits and eggs, or offered to boil up some ham hocks, would her fellow cooks cock their eyebrows and call it "Southern" cooking, or would it be undeniably "soul food." Imagine: Ida Mae begins to date her instructor, Walt Jenkins. She offers to cook dinner one night for him and his sweet white-haired old mother. Dishing up a plate of beans, rice and Louisiana hot links, would the Tabasco sauce light a fire in her boyfriend's heart, or would he send her packing, her spices being not to his liking.

I'd like to think Walt Jenkins could use a bit of spice in his life. And his old mother, too. For all the bad reputation Southern food gets for its high-fat, high-calorie content, it sure is good. And it can be great for you. There is nothing in the world better for a body than a cup of cooked greens-mustards, collards, you name it. There are more vitamins in a stewed cup of greens than there are in a whole bowl of lightly steamed spinach. It's no wonder Ida made a good pilot-her mama's greens gave her keen eyesight and nerves of steel. All pilots should eat a Southern mother's cooking. Heck, all people should eat it, every once in a while. It lights a fire in the heart, and warms the soul.

Sometimes it's hard to believe we are at war today, though we are certainly learning to make sacrifices, self-rationing even if there is no official call for it yet. Until that happens (heaven forbid), what would you like to eat that would make the world seem a just a little bit friendlier, the war a bit more winnable, and make you feel more loved? Go and eat that thing. Savor it. Share it. And count your blessings. Ida Mae would, feeling lucky enough to be back at her mother's table, a roasted chicken on the board, a bowl of green beans with bits of ham on the side. Food brings comfort, which leads to happiness and, if we are lucky, a bit of inner peace. Who couldn't use that right now?

Sherri L. Smith, Flygirl, Putnam Juvenile, Penguin Books