The Vegetable Soup

By Phil Ruby

As a young boy growing up in the nineteen fifties and sixties in rural West Virginia, I often overheard the conversations that women of that time and place had. My mother, aunts, and other women in the community talked about their houses, clothes, household hints, and whichever female member of the community was not present at the time, especially. They also talked about food. They shared recipes, although often leaving out a special secret ingredient or two to make sure no one else got it quite right.

One would say, “Would you please give me your recipe for that broccoli casserole of yours? I just love that!”

“Of course, sweetie!” the other would reply.

After the recipe was attempted, the first woman would come back and proclaim, “I tried that recipe. I followed your instructions to the letter, but mine just didn't turn out the same! I guess you just have the touch. What is your secret?” The woman who shared the recipe would just smile and shrug her shoulders.

Such was the case of the infamous Mabel’s Vegetable Soup. It showed up at all sorts of events such as church suppers, family reunions, pie socials and any time someone passed away and food was brought in to the grieving family’s home. Mabel rarely went any place where people gathered to eat without her big pot of vegetable soup in tow.

Now, you noticed I called the soup “infamous”. There’s a story behind that, of course.  Mabel was an older lady in the community in the fifties, and even though people were kind and cordial to her, not many really liked her. The only reason for that I could discern was that she was what was called a busybody. She was into everyone’s business, and made no apologies for it. She didn’t talk much, nor spread gossip a great deal, but she just had to know what everyone was doing. Without trying to be mean, she would, however, eventually tell someone else everything she found out, and they, in turn, would often turn it into malicious gossip. Mabel was simply nosy, and the other women wished she would just mind her own business. Their own tendency to spread rumors and talk out of school was considered more respectable, somehow. I think the main difference was that Mabel didn’t have much of a life of her own so that the other women could retaliate by spying on her. She mostly stayed home, eavesdropped on the eight-party telephone line that most of us shared, and cooked her soup.

The thing that put the bite into the soup was the fact that all the menfolk loved it. They drooled over it as Mabel came through the door, wherever they were. As soon as the pot hit the stove, one of the men would open the lid and get a big whiff of its aroma. Soon bowls and spoons were coming out and men were lining up to get to the dipper that would serve the amazing precursor to the main course of the meal. Mabel would just stand off to the side with a slight grin, hands folded behind her back, rocking back and forth a bit, obviously enjoying the attention her soup was commanding. The other ladies would shoot glances at each other, knowing that they had never prepared any dish that came close to that kind of response from their men. Eventually, one of them would walk over to Mabel, look her right in the eyes and say, “Mabel, when are you going to share your recipe for that soup?”

In a drawn out, easy tone, still rocking from heel to toe, Mabel would smile and answer just as she always did, “Aw, honey, it ain’t nothin’ special. It’s just vegetable soup,” and she would offer no more. This made the other woman all the more furious with her, my mother included.

Not long after my twelfth birthday in early March, I was reading a comic book in our living room one day and overheard my mother talking on the phone in a worried voice. “How bad is it?” she asked the person on the other end, “I do hope she’s all right.”

I eventually learned that Mabel had come down with a fever. Her daughter had come in from Florida, and was tending to Mabel’s needs. I was hurried to get dressed in a clean, button up shirt, comb my hair, and climb into the car. My mother grabbed the fresh biscuits she had just made for supper, and wrapped them up to take along. We rushed the two miles down the road to Mabel’s house, where several other cars were parked in the front yard, and two more ladies from the community were walking up the road toward the same location. I asked my mother as we pulled in near the house, 

“Why is everyone gathering around? She’s not dead yet, is she?”

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” mother barked at me, “We’re just concerned,” she added, now taking a softer tone.

It didn’t take long for me to understand what was really going on. As the ladies visited, talked, and asked if there was anything they could do, I would see one of them open a cabinet. Soon after, another would casually walk by the secretary, slip open the lid, and peek inside. Then another would slide a drawer open. One of them eventually got a little too brazen and Mabel, though ill, was still able to see well enough.

“What are you doing, there?” Mabel asked.

“I’m just trying to find the thermometer,” the lady replied, “Do you think we should take your temperature again?

“The thermometer is right here on the night stand beside me,” Mabel said in a low, gruff voice, 

“Never mind. I know what  you all are up to,” she said, “You’re all snooping around trying to find my soup recipe!”

The faces of the ladies in the house ranged from flushed embarrassment to astonishment.

“Well, come on in here, all of you,” Mabel growled, “Some of you are no doubt hoping I don’t die before you get it out of me, and others are hoping I will die so you can search the house proper! Well, save your energy. It’s not written down anywhere. It’s in my head.”

The women all took a small step forward, leaning closer, assuming she was about to share the great secret of her soup that made men salivate and always return for seconds. They were disappointed.

“I want you all to get out of here and leave me alone so I can rest and heal. It’s just a little fever,” she barked, “I’ll be fine in a couple of days, but not if you all keep stomping around cackling like hens and looking through all my things!”

The women, one by one, put on a fake smile and told Mabel they hoped she got better soon, and asked once more the obligatory question, “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you, dear?” 

Eventually, the cars all left the yard and we returned home.

Easter Sunday was a few weeks later, and I was wishing I could be out in the bright, warm Spring sunshine playing instead of getting ready for church. My suit did not fit me well, as I had undergone a growth spurt since our last occasion to dress up. The sleeves and pant legs were about an inch too short to look right, not to mention feel right. My main concern was to get it on, get past the service and get back home to take it off again. We all piled into the car, my parents, my sister, and I. The church was only a little more than two miles away, just past Mabel’s house. My mother glared at the house as we went by and pulled into the parking lot of the church.

As usual on Easter Sunday, the lot was packed, and every pew was full. They even had to bring out some folding chairs to put along the back wall to accommodate the people who came to church only twice a year, unless there was a wedding or funeral. Lilies were placed around the room, and a couple of sheets were hung from a clothesline across the back of the pulpit area to serve as a makeshift curtain for the Easter play that the youngest children were to share with us. We sang the usual Easter songs, “Up From the Grave He Arose” being a favorite of most of the congregation. They seemed to enjoy sitting through the verses and popping up out of their pews like jack-in-the-box clowns for the chorus. The men would always glance at each other and laugh like it was the funniest thing they’d ever done. I laughed, too...at them.

After the singing, the play, and the seemingly never-ending sermon, I was more than ready to head back home, but right after the dismissal prayer, the announcement came. “We can now adjourn to the dining hall where we’ll have our Easter dinner!

“What?!” I thought to myself, “I wasn’t told about this!”

I followed my dad to the car where he popped the trunk lid and retrieved a covered dish. It was my mom’s delicious baked steak and onion gravy. He told me to grab another dish which contained her lemon meringue pie. Well, I was all ready to get home and play, but my second favorite activity was eating, so it was all good!

All the men were standing around talking about the weather, cars, baseball, politics and other important matters, while the women were all talking at once about who knows what?  Suddenly the room got quiet as the door opened and there stood Mabel, her large pot firmly grasped in both hands, and a sheet of paper tucked under her arm. She walked across the room to the food tables, set the pot down, then put the paper, face down, beside it. Then she moved the pot directly over the paper, covering all but the corners. She opened the lid, placed the soup ladle into the mysterious but delicious culinary favorite, and stepped back to the side of the room, smiling and rocking back and forth, heel  to toe, just as she had always done. As the men lined up with their bowls and spoons, and comments of anticipation welled up among them, the ladies began to chatter once more. A brief blessing was said by the pastor, and the feast began.

One by one, the ladies walked by Mabel and expressed their delight that she was feeling better.  Then they would glance at the soup pot, and the corners of the paper underneath, wondering if they should ask. No one did.

Mystery Solved?

As the dinner  and all the desserts were done with, Mabel lifted her empty soup pot and left the paper on the table as she strode out the door without saying a word. My mother rushed over to pick it up, calling out to the now closed door, “You forgot your…” Of course she had waited till it was too late to catch Mabel before doing so. As my mother slowly turned the paper over and laid it down on the table, high-heeled footsteps tapped across the tiles toward it. There it was. It was as if heaven had opened up, a light shone down, angels sang, and the recipe for the simultaneously loved and hated vegetable soup was right there before their eyes.

A few weeks later a pie social was held at the old one-room schoolhouse that was then only used for community functions that could not be held at the church. The reason they could not be held at the church was that there would often be “gambling” going on. The raffles, the cakewalk, the door prizes, etc. were all considered gambling, according to the church bylaws, and such activities were forbidden in the Lord’s House.

Other foods besides pie were always brought in, and of course Mabel and her soup pot were there. As I stood along the wall, my attention divided between the food and the tall, blonde haired girl who had just moved to our community, and as the men clamored over the pot of ambrosia, I overheard one of the ladies talking to Mabel as she stood, hands clasped behind her back, smiling and rocking heel to toe.

“You know, Mabel,” she said, “I tried that soup recipe. I followed your instructions to the letter, but mine just didn’t turn out the same! I guess you just have the touch. What is your secret?!

Mabel, still smiling, and in her slow, drawn out, easy tone, just said, “Aw, honey, it ain’t nothin’ special. It’s just vegetable soup.”

In her sly way, Mabel had always told them her secret, right from the start, but they didn’t catch it, and she had failed to add it to the recipe she left on the table at Easter dinner. “Aw, honey…”