Grandma's Chicken and Dumplings

           I was looking at the calendar the other day when I noticed that it was about time for what I call family reunion season to start.  Family reunions can be so much fun, you get to see family you haven’t seen in years and catch up.  But the one thing that all family reunions have in common is good food and lots of it.

            I went to family reunions years ago with my grandmother, and she always brought her famous chicken and dumplings.  I say famous because everyone in the family knew that she made the best.  Her pot of chicken and dumplings was usually empty before half the people got through the line. 

            There was one year, however, when I thought we were going to bring the pot home untouched.   You see, that year someone else tried their hand at making my grandmothers famed dish.    They even went so far as to place their pot of dumplings next to hers.  

            It didn’t take long before word got around that one of those pots was not my grandmother’s.  Half the family had gone through the line without as much as a sample of either one.  Nobody in the family wanted dumplings that were not made by my grandmother, and they had no way of knowing which pot was hers.  That was until my grandmother reached the dumplings.

            I don’t think she had any idea how many people were watching her when she reached for the spoon that was in her pot of dumplings.  If by some chance she did know, she covered it well. 

            After she helped herself to a hearty portion, the person directly behind her, one of her nephews as I recall, leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I made sure to get behind you when I got in line so I’d get your dumplings.”

            She turned around and gave him the smile she usually reserved for her grandchildren.  Her voice was full of joy when she said, “Well you just help yourself.”  He easily smiled back as he took the spoon she handed him. 

            Thinking back, after my grandmother handed him that spoon I don’t think it was out of anyone’s hand until the pot was empty, and even then several people went back to scrape the pot, including my great-grandmother. 

            Making Chicken and Dumplings was a labor of love to my grandmother.  She always made it from scratch and only used certain ingredients.  Never did she use chicken broth in a can or premade dumplings.  She always made the broth herself by boiling the largest hen she could find, (and it had to be a hen). 

            The dumplings she made were always rolled by hand until they were so thin you could see through them. To make it any other way would have been an insult to Southern tradition. 

            My grandmother was born and raised in the South and came from a generation steeped in Southern cooking tradition.  It’s sad to say but there are a lot of the cooking shows on TV today, and they have many people thinking that the only way you can cook is if you go to culinary school, and learn how to plate a dish.  I’m sorry; I don’t really care what the food looks like on a plate.  Food is to be eaten, not looked at and put on display.  

            Unfortunately as my grandmother got older it became harder and harder for her to make chicken and dumplings and in her last years she didn’t make them at all and it was sorely missed by everyone in the family.  I have tried several times to duplicate her recipe, and I have come close, very close.  

            There is an old saying always copied never duplicated.  That is definitely my grandmother’s chicken and dumplings.