Lessons From Our Parents — As Taught by a Chicken Carcass

Sometimes the lessons from our parents embed themselves in our lives without us realizing it.

I can’t do it. I can’t throw it in the trash, I texted my sister.

Throw what in the trash? she asked.

The chicken carcass. I just can’t make myself throw it away.

I blame my mother. As much as I don’t think that I’m my mother’s daughter, or my father’s child, it seems almost every day I see something in myself that comes straight from my roots.

Being thrifty and frugal and creating extra meals out of chicken and turkey carcasses is one of those traits I learned from my mother. She grew up very poor. Our young family growing up was better off than my mom’s early childhood years — we weren’t poor, but we were also far from wealthy. We still had many a meal that was fried potatoes or pots of spaghetti that would last us several meals.

Creating a meal from almost nothing and reusing leftovers to create additional meals to keep a family fed is something I learned from my mother.

My first Thanksgiving in Texas, we went to another couple’s house. And while it was an enjoyable day, communing with the other two that I was just getting to know, I was still sad about not cooking my own turkey and having that leftover turkey carcass for a crockpot of soup to follow.

Fortunately for me, our hosts took pity on me. She gave me her turkey carcass to bring home with me. That was fifteen years ago. I still remember that.

My sister’s in the same boat, but a little bit better about it. Last Thanksgiving we texted about this very thing. Even though it was just me for Thanksgiving, I still had to get a small turkey breast. Not that I like eating turkey that much. It’s actually not even on my favorites list. It’s just that I like to make the soup afterwards.

There’s something rewarding in it for me, to feel that I’ve created extra meals from almost nothing.

But my sister did admit, now that all her children are grown and left the house, raising their own families now, that she can finally throw the carcasses away.

I haven’t graduated to that point yet.

The other day I was standing in the kitchen looking at what little was left of the roasted chicken I’d picked up last week. I’d gotten four meals out of it, and there was still quite a bit left. I was cutting up the rest into small pieces to make chicken salad out of it for sandwiches.

I looked at the carcass.

I opened the freezer and looked at how much was still there. I was trying to eat everything out of the freezer before I move. In six weeks, I needed to have that freezer and the pantry empty. And I still had a lot of frozen soups and even a ham bone in the freezer.

I had no business keeping the chicken carcass. I needed to throw it away.

But I couldn’t do it. After all, I also had some left-over veggies in the refrigerator. Along with an extra onion that I’d never used from a few weeks earlier. And there were a few asparagus spears. The asparagus had just started popping up, but there wasn’t enough for a full dish yet. And I was leaving in a few days for my dad’s house for Easter. It would be over a week before I could add to my asparagus stash.

So, I compromised. I cooked down the carcass with just a small amount of water. I only made half a crockpot full. Enough soup for four nights.

This debate over the chicken carcass got me thinking about how many habits and how many personality traits we’ve inherited from our parents.

Many times, they’re good habits and traits to have. Sometimes not so good. But they become part of ourselves and part of our lives without us realizing it or recognizing where we’ve picked this up from.

Sometimes the things we learn are insignificant things, mere little quirks, like not being able to throw away a chicken carcass.

Although in looking at my own life and comparing what I picked up from my mom, I realized that there is one major trait of hers that I’ve overcome.

My mom, who passed in 2020, was a wonderful person. I love her very much and am so happy that she was my mother in this life. But she had one trait that she was never able to overcome. If she even tried. I don’t know whether she did or not, or if it was just too engrained. She was not, shall we say… a very positive person.

I remember two common quotes of hers that I heard so, so often.

If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.

If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen to me.

I could have easily slid into that train of thought with my own life. But with a lot of effort, I veered onto a more positive path for myself. I didn’t want to keep treading down that path of negativity. I wanted to choose optimism and positivity. Fortunately, I was able to break that parental lesson.

And if I could break that one, I could break away from other lessons too.

Actually, seeing how in many ways I’ve broken away from family rituals and am kind of the ‘black sheep’ of the family — at least a gray one — then I can admit that there are many parental lessons I’ve chosen to go in a different direction from.

I must not really want to be able to throw the chicken carcasses away. The joys I get from creating these ‘freebie’ meals must be too much of a reward for me and it seems I don’t really want to lose this habit.

Want to join me for dinner one night?

Soups on!

And it’s a freebie meal at that.

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