"Well, look everybody! Velma Jean's made a fruit salad!"
Of course she did, because that's the only dish Velma Jean ever brought anywhere. She was a lovely person, we all liked her, but Velma was not a cook. She had learned the recipe from a woman over the other side of Double Branch (but not as far down as Silver Cross), and it was nigh on to impossible to mess up, so she made it, and that was just how it was.
It was a nice salad. It was very nice, especially in Summer, the first ten or twelve times you had it. After that, it became comical, then nearly tragic. We dreaded the appearance of that lime-green Tupperware bowl that had likely been her Mother's. It was Velma Jean's neighbor who first started saying, "Well, look everybody! Velma Jean's made a fruit salad."
It was Decoration Day at the Congregation Holiness church, and in a small town everybody goes to everybody else's church for special events. Of course the Baptists and the Methodists were well acquainted with Velma Jean's fruit salad (Her mama was Methodist and Velma joined the Baptists when she married, so they tended to go to both.), but those holycostals were completely unaware of the situation, so when Velma Jean walked in and Gloria said with exaggerated enthusiasm, "Well, look everybody, Velma Jean's made a fruit salad," they had no idea why we were obviously doing our best not to die laughing.
After that, Gloria would make the announcement, often surreptitiously, as Velma Jean walked in the door. If Gloria wasn't there, someone else would do the honors. Heaven help any soul who brought the same dish to a function twice in the same month. "Did you bring a fruit salad, too?"; any number of variations on the theme.
Poor Velma Jean was too nice to notice the stiffled chortling at here expense. Over time, the joke, such as it was, lost its edge of sarcasm and became a simple acknowledgment that some things may be relied upon. We all loved Velma Jean and her faithfulness to serve any way she could, even if that meant bringing the one dish she could make to every function she attended with food involved. That fruit salad was, in its own way, a sign that Velma Jean loved us.
I think we realized how much after her funeral. It was a lovely service. Heaven knows the casket was the nicest piece of furniture Velma ever had. As we started through the line at the dinner, it was Gloria who suddenly said, very softly, her voice catching, "Oh...There's no fruit salad."
The funeral dinner is one of the highest of social occasions in the South, and a fixture of such celebrations is the "funeral bowl." At least that's what we call it in my family. It is a cut glass serving bowl, nice, but not so nice that it would be dreadful if it got broken. I have several, as do my Mother and Grandmother. Indeed, even more than the casserole dish, the funeral bowl is a concrete sign of the gentility that my homeland is known for. You might hate a man his entire life, but when he drops dead, you will show up at the house with a bowl of something as a remembrance. Anything less would be uncivilized.
I love the tradition of the funeral bowl, and enjoy collecting recipes to go in it. Here is my favorite.
Velma Jean's Fruit Salad
This is a congealed salad, but uses Eagle brand milk and lemon juice instead of Jello. It can't be sliced like a buttermilk salad or the like, so it's ideal for a bowl. Sweet, creamy, and citrusy, it is perfect for summer. Serve as a dessert salad with pimento cheese sandwiches and gazpacho. You can also chill the mixture in a baked pie crust.
1 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple and 1 15 oz. can of mandarin oranges drained. This will be blended with 1 can of Eagle brand milk and 4 tbs. of lemon juice. I like to put the fruit in the bottom of my mixing bowl, pour on the juice, and then add the milk, so the milk doesn't stick to the bottom of the bowl.
When all that is stirred together, fold in an 8 oz. bowl of Cool Whip, thawed. Chill till set.
You can use lime juice or a mix of lemon and lime juice. A touch of vanilla is nice.
