Wham Whams, And The Passing Of An Era

This morning I was hungry as I began my daily rituals, so I went to the refrigerator to see what we had to satisfy my hunger. As I pushed things around inside, I noticed the newly purchased cans of biscuits and decided that they would do the job. I looked at the instructions to determine what temperature to set the oven, grabbed a cookie sheet and the cooking spray, then I began to peel back the paper covering on the ready to cook biscuit dough.

As I hit the tube on the counter, causing it to make a "whamming" sound I was reminded of what my bride's Aunt Peggy referred to these type of baked goods, "wham, whams". She is from the old school of cooking and always makes biscuits from scratch. I will admit, they are very delicious and with butter and chocolate gravy on them, let me just say they are sure to be served in Heaven.

I remember one time we were at Aunt Peggy's house and she was making biscuits and the comment was made that I ate canned biscuits growing up. Now understand this, I like bread in just about all of its forms, and canned biscuits rank right up there for me in the bread category. Aunt Peggy laughed her down home, loud and joyous laugh and asked, "You like wham whams better than real biscuits?"

"Wham whams?" I asked. "What are wham whams?"

She informed me that canned biscuits are called wham whams because of the sound the can makes as you whack it on the edge of the counter to open them. I laughed at that, and said, "Well I do like a good canned biscuit." She berated me good naturedly about that and said there was not any wham whams that could compete with her biscuits. And this of course is true.

As I reflected on that conversation this morning I began to realize that we really have begun to see the passing of an era. Times nowadays more often than not families find themselves cooking from a can or a box, rather than from scratch. There are more prepackaged meals on the shelves today than ever before, and not too long ago I read that grocery stores were putting in sections to have already cooked meals that can be purchased and taken home to be eaten right away, because of the needs of today's modern families.

Times they are a changing, we now more often than not are running here and there to do all that we think is needed to be done, grabbing something to munch while we go from place to place. We spend more time eating in our vehicles than at our dining room tables. Which as long as we are talking and sharing the time with our kids may not be so bad. But more often than not, we've got them watching some DVD while we are chatting up our friends on the way to the next baseball game or whatever.

While I will never give up eating wham whams, I think when the fall starts back and the kids are at home more often I will try and set aside a little bit more time to spend around the kitchen table with them. We may still cook from boxes and cans, but the time spent with family is the main thing, that is one thing that I do not want to see pass away.