The woods followed the road, stretching out across yards boasting a couple acres. In summer, the woods were drooping with black raspberries and mulberries begging to be picked. Most of the wooded areas nearby don’t host the berries—our family got lucky.

That’s where you’d find me in July: barefoot, and at times, bare-legged, picking black raspberries and placing them in a small plastic colander to make them easier to wash. I’d often have to fight ants, bees, and other insects for the ripest fruits. And even if they clung on after being picked, they’d be washed down the sink or drowned in the post-wash soak. Most of the berries would get eaten by my mom or my sister in a day. Mom might top her nightly dessert of vanilla ice cream with a few plump berries. And I’d sit on her lap as she tried to eat, impatiently waiting for her to tell me how great they tasted, and hopefully, how I’d done a great job picking them.

The berry-laden woods dipped down to make place for rows of corn and soybeans in our neighbor’s land sometimes. Other times, they’d run together. If it wasn’t those two crops, it was a private garden full of fat tomatoes and giant zucchini. When I say giant zucchini, I mean torso-sized logs. Every summer, mom would be gifted a few logs from a bountiful neighbor. We’d spend weeks eating our weight in zucchini bread and zucchini soup, praying for a respite from the gargantuan squash every time we opened the refrigerator door.

Mom was a sucker for any roadside stand with tomatoes or corn on it. She was always searching for the reddest, juiciest, most irresistible tomato to supplement a dinner of steak and macaroni and cheese or pork and mashed potatoes. Even dad piped up if he had an opinion about the tomatoes accompanying his meat. I’d happily eat over-buttered zucchini bread and corn cobs for days on end, but you wouldn’t catch me with one of those red devils on my plate. Even as an adult, I’ll never reach for them.

You’d have to pull me away from the center plate at breakfast if it was full of the Cincinnati delicacy known as Goetta. An ugly, grainy, German-inspired mush of ground pork, oats, and spices crisped up in a pan. Mom would cook our fried eggs in the Goetta grease afterwards, and I’d marvel at how brilliant she was.

But that’s not the only local meat dish hiding warming spices. Two words: Cincinnati chili. It starts off simple: beef, tomatoes, and some chili powder. But the flavors on top? Chocolate, cinnamon, and allspice. Toss the monster over spaghetti and grate some mild cheddar over top. We’ll call it a three-way because…well, you can imagine.

Our family’s go-to lunch spot was the famous chain responsible for the chili. Before you order, they greet you at the table with tiny white bowls full of Oyster crackers. You can sprinkle the crackers over top of your chili. But my sister and I would douse them in the hot sauce by the napkin dispenser and place them sauce-side down on our tongues, holding back tears until the server would return with our diet pops. Because this is Ohio, and pop is the only acceptable word for the carbonated drinks from the fountain.

We kept pop in our second refrigerator in the garage. The freezer hosted frozen chickens from the Quaker farm up the road. Mom was on their distribution list. Every three months, families would flock down to the farm on a Thursday evening and retrieve two fresh chickens in a bag with their name tacked to it. Mom would pick up a dozen of their eggs, too, with yolks so yellow-orange you were left wondering if they were bloodied. We only had one acceptable preparation of a whole chicken from that farm: beer-up-the-butt.

Once every couple months, dad would come home to his favorite verbal request from my mother: “I need you to drink half a can of beer.” Dad would smile and respond, “yes, ma’am” as he put his briefcase down. The other half of the beer nestled in the can would be lovingly lodged into the bird’s backside. The chicken would sit erect atop the can, be coated with garlic, butter, and a simple poultry rub. All of the scents—beer included—would permeate the house for hours, taunting us until our mealtime. The beer kept the inner meat of the bird nice and moist, and the slight yeastiness made it taste strangely more satisfying. Mom swore by the technique so much that she started gifting beer-holders for beer-up-the-butt chicken to everyone she knew. I rolled my eyes every time she bugged someone about it. But I knew that she was right.

Only once did we order a turkey for Thanksgiving from the same farm. But a few bites in, we looked at one another expectantly. Mom piped up: “this turkey sucks!” We agreed in relief, opting to fill ourselves with my sister’s extra creamy mashed potatoes, my sausage stuffing, and a loaf of what mom called homemade bread. If homemade meant taking a frozen chunk of store-bought dough out of the freezer and baking it after an all-day thaw, then it certainly fit the bill. Mom and my sister would dollop the canned cranberry jelly on everything but the pumpkin pie, made with canned pumpkin.

We had an old contraption in the kitchen known as a pie safe, but we never actually kept pies in it. If you opened its perforated metal and wooden doors, you’d find a dozen different breakfast cereals, microwave popcorn, and cans of mock turtle soup that I would heat up for my dad to have for lunch. He usually made the trip home for his lunch break, opting to read the paper instead of interacting with us.

But his favorite gathering was around one of our summer bonfires smoking away under the canopy of the Milky Way. We’d haul out s’mores fixings and lay them out on a step-ladder like a side table. I liked the chocolate to be as melted as possible, so I’d pierce the center of my marshmallow with a square of the chocolate bar and roast them both over the fire together. Just before the milk chocolate started to drip, I’d pull it away and sandwich it between two undoubtedly stale honey graham crackers. Dad only trusted me to toast his marshmallow just right. Any rejects that had accidentally caught fire would be offered to mom, who’d pop them in her mouth prematurely every time and shout, “Ooh hot!”

Bonfires were a Friday evening affair, usually preceded by a couple of square-cut pizzas from the one gas station in town. Because it was a family-owned store, the pizzas were made fresh in house. They certainly weren’t pretending to be as good as other delivery spots fifteen minutes away, but for the price, location, and greasy fingertips, they got the job done. Frozen pizzas were the second choice, but my parents reserved them for nights when they hired a sitter. Our babysitter would fill the preheating oven with chocolate chip cookies, and when the beep announced the desired temperature, we’d swap the trays out. Most of the cookies were ignored because we were already full from the dough and the pizza.

The most ignored cookies we ever made were gingerbread. They weren’t ignored at first, though. At first, we’d spend hours rolling out the spiced dough, cutting out dozens of shapes with dull stamps, and decorating them with home-dyed icing. My sister, the artist, used toothpicks and paintbrushes to get the perfect shades and contours on her cookies. Sometimes, she’d paint a famous character’s portrait with mom perched over her shoulder to take pictures and brag to all of her friends. But when the whole process was complete, we’d put them on a plate covered with plastic wrap and stick them off to the side to compete with all the other holiday treats. They never won out. Occasionally, dad would have one after dinner. But most were just a decorative reminder of a way to spend time together on our precious winter break.

The gingerbread always lost to a chocolate cake. Mom was never content with candy canes, thumbprint cookies, or hot chocolate. The only dessert that could captivate her was boxed chocolate cake. Every Christmas, we baked a boxed chocolate cake, covered it with store-bought chocolate frosting, and topped it with a poinsettia powdered sugar design with the help of a stencil. Sometimes, we wrote messages on it in leftover gingerbread icing, but we mostly left it wordless before topping it with a candle. Mom had a clever ruse designed to get her cake every year; she claimed it was a birthday cake for Jesus. So we would light the candle, shut off the lights, and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus on Christmas evening in a family tradition I was shocked to discover others didn’t have.

When I moved to Chicago, I learned quickly that my food traditions were place-specific. That even within the Midwest there were endless local cuisines, opinions, and pride. Mom would send me care packages containing cans of Cincinnati chili and soft candy canes from our favorite candy maker. I saved them for special occasions, inviting new friends over to taste my childhood for an evening and share in my food pride. But I welcomed the foods and preparations of my new city, leaving behind the bulk of packaged items and longing for the ease of driving a mile up the road to get fresh corn. Or walking ten yards to the right of my own front door to pick free berries.

When I went home for Christmas, I marveled at the thought of having that boxed cake again, made extra rich by the golden yolks of Quaker chickens. Mom made Goetta for breakfast two days in a row, and I fought my sister for the last piece both mornings and lost both times. We went out for Cincinnati chili three times while I was in town, and each time, I wondered how long I would have to wait to have it again. Mom sent us back to the city with a suitcase full of the cans to tide us over.

Chicago’s foods started luring me in more and more, though. The farm-to-table restaurants spoke to the farm-adjacent child in me who craved the freshness of just-picked berries and homegrown squash. The fusion restaurant dishes educated me in spice, brightness, and balance. I started cooking at home with a bounty of fresh produce from farmers’ markets, still shunning tomatoes at every booth and wondering if they were the perfect ones my mother had spent her life searching for. I laughed at the ears of corn priced a dollar each but I still paid it, longing for home the entire time.

My suitcase full of cans remained untouched for so long that when I found them again before moving into a new apartment, most had expired. I felt a twinge of guilt as I tossed them out, wondering how I’d forgotten the magic tucked away in my closet. One can survived with its date just shy of a week out. I ate the can on my own that night, without tossing it over the usual plate of spaghetti, without grating the signature mild cheddar over top, and without sharing with any friends who had yet to discover it.

I asked mom to stop sending the cans, telling her I was fully stocked. She obliged. When I went home the next Christmas, we went out for the signature chili, and I ordered a bowl of it, plain, partaking in tradition without the addition of the components I’d done away with. Both my parents and sister eyed me with suspicion when I ordered, and the server wrote it down with a strange expression. She was wondering if I was a local or not.

The next year, my sister was living abroad during the holidays, so mom and I were in charge of the food. My tastes had further changed by the time I went to visit. When mom proudly shook the box of cake mix in front of me, I smiled but informed her that I probably wouldn’t be having any this year.

The holiday week passed quickly. We made gingerbread out of almond flour and maple syrup that was neither ignored nor adored. Mom said they would have been better with icing. For Christmas dinner, we had a Thanksgiving style dinner of roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, and sausage stuffing. I made the stuffing, as usual, but didn’t reach for it. Without my sister to make them, the mashed potatoes were tasteless. Mom said her turkey was overcooked.

The day after Christmas, I gathered my bag to head to the airport. Before I left, I opened the pantry to grab a snack, and I saw the chocolate cake mix sitting on the shelf between two cans of chili. Mom didn’t notice the tears when I got in the car with her, but I squeezed her hand so hard, I could see her dark purple wrist veins popping out—the color of black raspberries in July.

– Jamie Witherby