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Post by Kimby on Dec 31, 2009 4:22:39 GMT
And I thought MY family invented fried bologna sandwiches! We didn't use mustard, though (I hate the stuff, especially the bright yellow varieties). Our "fried bologna sandwiches" consisted of two slices of white bread spread with mayo (actually Miracle Whip, which is tangy-er than mayonaisse), 2 slices of bologna, and pickle relish, buttered on the outside and grilled like a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum! I have no use for cold bologna, though. Ick.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 31, 2009 17:30:48 GMT
I am SO much enjoying re-reading the last several posts! I read them during the Christmas visit, but can give them their due attention now. After reading the wonderful new input, I went back & read the whole thread again. Seeing it all together gives a dazzling impression of the myriad influences and variety that have shaped all of us. Don Cuevas, I closely read your reminiscence of a Bensonhurst childhood. My late husband was from there -- from a Norwegian family living in an Italian neighborhood. He loved Italian food and completely rejected Norwegian food, so I've always felt unfairly deprived of access to that cuisine. But your story brought out a whole other aspect of Bensonhurst, and was like being invited inside the homes that make up one of America's great melting-pot areas. The only thing wrong with your story is that it set up some powerful, unable-to-be-satisfied food cravings! Moving directly to the Mississippi seafood getting & eating of Kerouac's childhood was like being plunked back home after a whirlwind visit to New York. Everything he described is something I enjoyed in my own youth, except that we never tore the crabs apart before boiling them. Really, I've never encountered boiled crabs done that way. Oddly, Cristina's roots experience was quite exotic to me, with fruit and cheese for dessert and fried bread (for which I now have a yen). What was not exotic was the etiquette of never spurning food and of giving everything a try. Thank goodness for that kind of early training! Your nostalgia for the dear departed who shaped our young lives quite touched me. It's impossible to think about these things without those people moving through every memory. I hardly ever eat baloney, but whenever I do I think, "hey -- this stuff's not half bad!" However I feel strongly that mayonnaise has no place on a plain ham or plain baloney sandwich. That calls for mustard or for nothing at all.
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Post by cristina on Dec 31, 2009 18:30:31 GMT
And I thought MY family invented fried bologna sandwiches! We didn't use mustard, though (I hate the stuff, especially the bright yellow varieties). Our "fried bologna sandwiches" consisted of two slices of white bread spread with mayo (actually Miracle Whip, which is tangy-er than mayonaisse), 2 slices of bologna, and pickle relish, buttered on the outside and grilled like a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum! I have no use for cold bologna, though. Ick. Kimby, I think your family did invent your style of fried bologna sandwich, which except for the mayo part sounds quite good. Ours was pretty simple: Fry the bologna then place between mustard coated Wonder Bread. I can't remember the last time I ate it, but I might have to pick up some bologna at the store today ;D And Bixa, I am making bread this afternoon so I think fried toutons might be on my menu later on...
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Post by traveler63 on Dec 31, 2009 19:26:32 GMT
Don C - I loved you story and it shows that even if you don't consider yourself a good cook if you have the desire, you practice and over time you become that good cook. Your stories of grandmother baking are similiar to my grandmother's wonderful baking.
K2, your fishing and crabbing stories are wonderful. I never got the hang of fishing, it was too boring for me. My Dad was great in teaching me, but it wasn't my cup of tea.
I love this thread because it shows how we all have diverse culinary roots and it is something that I think I we don't consciously think about until something like this comes along.
Oh, kimby I just saw your post re Bologne sandwiches. Yours is almost the same as mine, except I loved them cold. Miracle Whip is just the best!!!! and mine was dill pickles.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2010 12:35:16 GMT
Triggered by K2's remembrances of crabbing and fishing,I too, have a vivid recall of how during the various seasons, our family would embark upon the various bays,ponds and the mighty Atlantic to procure that season's offerings.Elaborate crab and lobster pots and eel traps,all homemade, would be hauled out of the sheds,ropes and lines replaced,new knots applied(I learned later on that every fisherman had their own particular "signature" knot,so as to not confuse with someone else's traps or to be able to tell if someone was poaching). Long beautifully forged clam rakes and heavy buckets were all part of the production. (I have a gorgeous iron forged eel rake on display in my home that always evokes curiosity,it is so unusual an item). Everything would be planned and arranged the night before as we would have to awaken early to set out,everything packed into the jeep or truck. To be continued...
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 3, 2010 17:40:43 GMT
Eeek ~~ braving the cold choppy Atlantic for food from the deep! I have long had a desire to go to places like Scandinavia and the Netherlands and sample eel dishes. Eel isn't part of my culinary background, but I've never met a seafood dish from a cold country that I didn't like.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2010 18:11:18 GMT
I have eaten eel a number of times, generally in Belgium.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2010 0:49:43 GMT
Eeek ~~ braving the cold choppy Atlantic for food from the deep! I have long had a desire to go to places like Scandinavia and the Netherlands and sample eel dishes. Eel isn't part of my culinary background, but I've never met a seafood dish from a cold country that I didn't like. Well ,not quite braving the cold choppy Atlantic for us children by no means. My parents would not allow for me to go out in the boat on the ocean. I always had to stay behind for those expeditions,and it really bothered me. But,the journeys to the bays to forage for clams and mussels at low tide,those I could go along for. There were certain spots that my father knew by heart,one tiny section,a bare strip of a sandbar that he could spot from far away. There would be the treasure of the day. He would always take pause after raking up the first clam,take out his small pocket knife,and open,taste it and smile .Then,he would open another and hand it to me. Very special moments those were.I have never been able to experience the freshness of a clam quite like that since. We would spend a good bit of the morning raking,gathering up the full wire buckets and haul them back to the jeep. We had time for some play,but,we were there not to amuse ourselves and that was made very clear.My father was a fairly strict disciplinarian and if we "misbehaved" we were not allowed to come back the next time.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 5, 2010 2:47:39 GMT
For something that's messy, stinky, and a good way to get hurt, the procuring of seafood from its natural home is frequently fun.
When I was in high school, my dad had a boat. The family would go out in Savannah sound and easily get dozens of blue crabs. I've gone crawfishing in the bayous in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, where the cotton mouths would threaten with their white yawns, but not approach close enough to stike. Actually, the crawfish were braver, coming right up to the giant humans and clacking their claws. I used to live quite near Audubon Park in New Orleans, back when the zoo was completely open. One summer we had a garden in the narrow back yard and went fishing almost daily in the park. Except for bread and milk, we hardly bought anything from the supermarket that summer.
So many of my beloved memories of food involve seafood ~~ marveling as kids at the boiled river shrimp piled up ready to eat, their feelers reaching almost to the floor; covering the kitchen table with lots of newspaper and putting out beer, pop, and crackers in anticipation of a boiled shellfish feast; laughing with my uncle as we'd see who could get the biggest pile of crawfish shells the fastest; closing my eyes in bliss as I popped the stuffing from crawfish bisque in my mouth; sitting at the outside table waiting for my grandfather to finish filling a bowl with oysters he was shucking at a big tree stump; watching in admiration and slight horor as my mother would drink off the oyster juice that remained in the bowl later ........... whew, I could go on and on!
I used to love crawfish season in New Orleans -- going to Seafood City and getting the freshly boiled crawfish in three-pound increments, then hustling over to City Park to eat it while it was still hot, hoping the paper bags wouldn't break before we got settled.
This commercial might be an amusing curiosity to many of you, but to me it's a tear-inducing bit of beautiful nostalgia:
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 18, 2010 17:22:08 GMT
I'll give the matter more thought.... Hush puppy mix -- I used to have some of that in Paris. There were also many Europeans to learn from. And as this was a time during which we travelled extensively in both Europe and Asia, My mother is from Newfoundland, Canada, which from a culinary perspective might be the black sheep outpost of Ireland. If anyone is wondering why these quotes are grouped together ...... I was reading back through this wonderful thread with all the great writing and the generosity shown by those who opened windows into their lives and backgrounds. It left me wanting more and hoping that bumping the thread would get others thinking and telling about their own roots. Spindrift's comment above was based on her saying that there wasn't much to Irish food and my contention that she's dismissing things based on familiarity. So please, I hope more people will want to tell about what shaped them as cooks and/or eaters. Kerouac's remark makes me wonder how those of us living far from the food of our childhood either make do or do without those standards from our pasts. Imec, who I assume is of European ancestry, expanded his kitchen repertoire by exposure to "the source". And Cristina mentions a part of the new world greatly influenced by the old. My question is, how many of us were awakened to our roots by travel to distant places?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2010 19:41:15 GMT
Well, in terms of things from our past, often we just do without, even when we could get the stuff with extreme perseverence. After all, it's not as though any of us are going to die of hunger if we have to make do with other items. I would even venture to say that continuing to "do without" is what makes these things taste so good when we have a chance to eat them again. Many of the items are not considered to be gourmet treats, so it would be rather strange if we considered them to be essential when there are so many other things that we can eat. But coming back to them after a long absence really makes them taste better.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 18, 2010 20:49:44 GMT
.....it would be rather strange if we considered them to be essential when there are so many other things that we can eat. This is judgmental on my part, but I have to say I find "norteamericanos" (those from US & Canada) & Europeans who live in Mexico and obsess continuously about foods they miss to be tedious in the extreme. Sure, everyone misses certain things, but it is downright infantile to reject the food of the host country because it's not the same as back home. And really, the host country is now our home. Learning about and embracing the food culture is an affectionate way to interact with the people and to feel more at home. I think I mentioned elsewhere that when my family lived in Spain when I was a child, we lived in a Spanish neighborhood. My parents were thrilled to be exploring this foreign country and passed on their excitement and curiosity to us. Even as a kid I looked down my nose at some of the Air Force families who lived in an American compound and exclusively ate from the commissary for the entire three years of their stay.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 19, 2010 1:31:22 GMT
Well, here is a grimly amusing piece of serendipity.
An American friend of mine died last week. As I was writing the Reply above, her husband, who is Mexican, phoned me because I'd promised to help him with some paperwork. He brought me a couple of things as remembrances of my friend, and also made me a gift of what he called "all this American stuff I never learned to like". Included in that were two jars of horseradish. Among norteamericano yearnings, horseradish is way at the top of the list, and I am certainly not exempt from that particular yen.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2010 11:23:22 GMT
What a lovely remembrance Bixa. Thanks.
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 21, 2010 10:38:12 GMT
Good. Now I know how to spell 'yen'. I always thought it was a strange way to pronounce 'yearn'.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 22, 2010 0:33:25 GMT
Thank you, Casimira.
HW, you prompted me to look up the word. I was amazed to find that its origin is Chinese!
Entry: yen Function: noun Etymology: obsolete English argot yen-yen craving for opium, from Chinese (Guangdong) yīn-yáhn, from yīn opium + yáhn craving Date: 1906
: a strong desire or propensity <a yen for the sea>; also : urge, craving <a yen for ice cream>
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 23, 2010 7:04:39 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2010 7:18:03 GMT
Some opium might be good right now.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 23, 2010 7:39:49 GMT
Oh yawn ~~ you're suffering a tedious yáhn right now, aren't you?
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Post by auntieannie on Jan 23, 2010 20:42:45 GMT
my culinary roots.. hum... Switzerland is physically right at the converging point of several culinary waves. And the relative high standards of life allow many more exotic foodstuffs to be widely available for purchase.
However, my parents - both born during WW2, have only been able to discover these more exotic foodstuffs in their later years.
My mother grew up better off than my dad, my maternal grandfather being a butcher and cattle (what's the word for those who will be the point of contact between the seller and buyer in the cattle world?) whereas his young wife (who escaped with him from a well to do Bernese family) held the local café-restaurant, whose customers enjoyed the food she cooked herself. Once my mom had a family my maternal grand-mother only cooked for my grand-father - she'd had enough. So I have rarely seen her at the hob.
My father's parents had 7 children, so food was scarce for them. I mostly remember the Sunday roasts and the famous raised-dough tarts for dessert.
The cuisine of Valais includes cheesy staples such as raclette (has now received an AOC sign or Appellation d'Origine Controllée); Valaisan cheese fondue sees the fondue built on top of a tomato base, and is ladled onto small boiled potatoes; cheese on toast with slices of tomatoes quickly softened in a pan with some herbs put between the toast and cheese; much of the cuisine there is inspired by nearby Italy, with its chestnuts, risotti, love of mushrooms as well as pasta (cornettes/hornli were traditionally only made for the swiss market) and espresso coffee.
The region is lucky to have a mediterranean micro-climate in the middle of the Alps so apricot trees as well as many other fruit trees are happy there. Grapes now benefit from professional winemaking to make it so much better than before, when each family had some vineyards. The Alpine setting provides for fantastic hunting opportunities. There is a Germanic influence as well, but since my grand-mother came from german-speaking Switzerland, I am not sure if it is felt in other families. I don't know how many families in Valais eat rippli (a kind of gammon/ham) or spaetzli or such things. Thanks to my mother's cooking skills, I have always enjoyed vegetables, thanks to the generosity of her dad, we've had meat on the table at times when my parents might not have had the money to provide it.
I want to write more but have to go now.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 23, 2010 20:57:42 GMT
my maternal grandfather being a butcher and cattle (what's the word for those who will be the point of contact between the seller and buyer in the cattle world?) Is "broker" the word you want, Annie?This is a really unexpected glimpse of another world! For all their relative youth, your parents' food background is almost that of a Switzerland now lost in the past. How lucky you are to be aware of the food tradition in Switzerland that existed before today's affluence and sophistication. And how lucky we are that you have the sensitivity and talent to tell us about it. The Italian influence as you describe it, mostly seems to be the logical adaption of foods common to the cool northern forests. I'd imagine tomatoes are mostly available in the summer, but what about other vegetables that are part of the menu all year round? Please, Annie -- as soon as you have the time, tell us more about the food of Switzerland and its regions!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2010 21:47:47 GMT
I would like to know more about the "rösti" border.
For those who don't know, it is the distinction between the Germanic lands (which eat "rösti" -- a sort of hash brown item) and the "French" parts of Switzerland which are, er, sort of French. At the same time, since I love rösti, I confess to buying some of the industrial prepartions of it when I go to Migros either in Switzerland or in their hypermarkets just over the French border. I would also like to know more about what happens to all of this food when you get to the Italian parts of Switzerland.
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Post by auntieannie on Jan 24, 2010 2:01:38 GMT
well, again, I have no way of really knowing if fully swiss-french families do eat rosti. We do like it in our family.
I wanted to add that I had grown new roots after I visited India. If I feel down, nothing heals me better than a simple dahl. either with rice or chapatis.
As for English cuisine, the wholesome home-cooked food can be delicious, however it is really rare to find a commercial place serving really delicious totally english cuisine. And England has access to so much goodness!
Back to Switzerland: tomatoes: lots of ways to preserve them for the winter. My bf was remarking the other day that tomatoes have also become a staple of his life now. Not a week passes without tomatoes being consumed in our house.
other vegetables: one difference I have noticed is how Swiss eat the white meaty part of the "swiss chard" rather than its leaves. Swiss gardeners wait for the stem of the bigger leaves to be a few inches wide before they are deemed ready for eating.
Obviously, many people in Switzerland eat vegetables either boiled or dumped in a "white sauce" or served as a salad. However, not at my mom's. I wouldn't know how to describe it, but her vegetables are always appetising (i.e. no white sauce. yuk!) I think she usually finishes steamed veggies with a tiny bit of butter or similar nice treatment. My dad didn't like lettuce salad before he married my mom.
The italian speaking part of Switzerland mostly eats Italian-inspired food. risotti, polenta, fish from the lakes...
The grison/graubunden area of Switzerland also has an interesting cuisine, partly inspired by nearby Austria, or a mix. One of their specialties is a walnut pie. mmmmmh!
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Post by auntieannie on Jan 24, 2010 2:43:20 GMT
Otherwise and in general, Switzerland has mostly paesant culinary roots. So meals are sturdy. Rarely refined.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 24, 2010 15:34:05 GMT
True, but Switzerland also has a top-flight tradition of hotellerie and cooking schools, that incorporate the best from the surrounding countries as well. But of course that isn't for your typical family dinner.
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Post by auntieannie on Jan 24, 2010 15:36:41 GMT
lagatta, I agree yet these are no roots to me, they're just the whipped cream in the chocolate pot.
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Post by Kimby on Jan 25, 2010 21:23:38 GMT
My mother has never been a "great cook" but she did have some recipes that were family favorites.
E.g. she always made chili for our family ski trips. Since her memory loss has begun, though, she realized she didn't know how to make chili anymore. So for this recent family ski trip, she and Dad bought a "kit" for making chili at the grocery store.
It tasted OK, but it didn't even have bacon in it. Definitely NOT Mom's chili!
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Post by gertie on Mar 8, 2010 19:15:02 GMT
Bixa mentioned tearful nostalgia and I must say this thread has brought to mind a lot of that for me. My roots are midwest farm family. Dad's folks were German, and one of my earliest memories is of visiting the pig barn on their farm. My dad always said pigs were clean animals, something I could never fathom as that barn just stunk so badly. Mother's folks grew up on farms but because my grandfather was a mechanical genius he went into that line of work and they never lived on a farm after they were grown. They did always have a big garden, the produce of which they shared with family and friends, who were also generous with them. I remember going to help Dad's mother make noodles, which were made in quantity and spread out on the screen porch under scrupulously clean dish towels to dry so that there would be noodles for the winter. Grandma cooked the kind of stick-to-your-ribs German midwest fare you might expect, with the licorice-flavored German cookies she made each Christmas an especial favorite of the family which everyone fought over. A few years ago she gave me a book of "family recipes" but most of them read like a midwest farmer's wives church supper recipe. About the only exceptions were the Springerle (which is what her recipe called the Christmas cookies, she always pronounced it "spring - o-li") and some recipes for and involving sauerkraut. I actually had to fight my ex for that cookbook, he loved everything she ever made. One of the things that brought tears to my eyes was the mention of egg sandwiches. When I was very small, we lived next door to Grammy and Grandpy (mother's parents) and they took care of me. Grandpy worked two full-time jobs so it was Grammy who taught me to can vegetables, make jams and jellies, cook a few things, and such, although she also worked a night job after I got a bit older. I remember she used to leave for work and if I hadn't got to sleep already, Grandpy would ask if I wanted a fried egg sandwich and make one for each of us. The funny part about this, he refused to make lunch for himself. Grammy used to rush home to fix his lunch and then get to bed so she could be up to serve supper. Even if she left him a plate with a prepared cold lunch in the fridge he would gripe about going without because she wasn't there to fix his lunch. Mind you, everyone knew he'd have gone out for chili dogs and beer. Another thing I recall from that time was how everyone shared things out so much. Grandpy was something of a mechanical genius, and he used to be called upon to repair farm equipment and cars, which he was able to do after hours at the garage which was his second job. In return produce and meat were received. It was not at all uncommon for us to return from some errand and find a bag or basket of fresh produce waiting on the back porch. We always went to the ice house where we had a locker for meat, which we got each year when the extended family did their butchering. My father always helped in the fall when they'd cull the pigs and we'd get a pig for that which was, of course, shared with my grandparents, who would get half a steer and share with us. From all this, I was able at the time of my first marriage to at least get by in the kitchen. Gosh, the silly things you do in your youth! The X and I for all sorts of poor reasons decided to get married while we were in college. At first, we were both working full time and going to school full time, so little time for cooking and little money for anything but just surviving. Bless him, he put up with a lot of my very first efforts. Although I had always helped in the kitchen and had learned to make a few things, I was very nervous in the kitchen on my own and really didn't know very many techniques. He had a lot of spaghetti with meat sauce, hamburgers, mac and cheese, and dollar-stretcher casseroles. My first effort at nice dinner came when I decided we should have friends over for a dinner party, probably from watching some cooking show on TV. I knew other people had wine with dinner and had even had it once or twice, but that dinner was my first experience of wine pairing. One of the guests had been raised in Germany as his dad was posted there with the military. I remember he brought a piesporter michalsburg (sp?), which I did not really favor the wine initially, but it was so delicious with the roast. I had to call Grammy for specifics on cooking a roast such as "How do I tell it's done?" and "How do I know how many potatoes to peel?". Boy do I recall the bite of the expense of that long distance call when the bill came in. For a while it was quite a joke to tell of my kitchen disasters. Among the more amusing, I was in the habit of preparing lunch for us after class on certain days and pre-made steak fingers were really cheap at the grocery. In our cheap student digs the electric stove burners took forever to heat up but were fine once they managed that, so I would take the skillet of oil from the oven and set it on warming stove while I fixed my hair and face for my job. One day the X had fried himself an egg sandwich before class after an all nighter, something I had no knowledge of, so the oil heated up much faster. Just as I rounded the corner returning to the kitchen, wondering why I smelt something odd, there was an odd "poof" sound and the non-stick coating of the cheap skillet lifted off, poofing into the air in a greasy cloud. I had to scrub every walll in that apartment when we moved out a short while later to get rid of the greasy grey on every wall. I believe it was hearing me tell these tales that caused my Dad's mother to write out the book of recipes, and the X ate a lot of those budget-stretching casseroles full of rice or pasta over the years we were together. We both hoped to afford "gourmet" someday and used to cook together occasionally for a special get together. We learned to make fajitas, shrimp cocktails, bbq brisket, and lasagna together. I recall sitting down and watching cooking shows after meals of lunch meat sandwiches and budget casseroles and dreaming of the day we'd be able to afford to buy the ingredients for some of the fine meals. For a long time my biggest problem was knowing when things were done. All my family had the usual midwestern farmers habit of cooking everything very well done. Meat with the slightest bit of pinkness was clearly a deadly threat. Licking cake batter was forbidden as the raw eggs would make you sick for days. Oddly, in contrast to that, on canning days my grammy would fry up a big breakfast, most probably these were always Saturdays or Sundays. The left over fried eggs, bacon, and pancakes would be left on the table and whomever liked could walk by and make themselves a lunch sandwich by rolling up eggs and bacon in the pancakes. We moved to Texas when I was still in elementary school, though I continued to spend summers with Grammy and Grandpy until I was nearly grown. I learned to love bbq brisket, Tex-Mex, Mexican, and other local favorites I had never had. I still make "Yankee" mustard potato salad and deviled eggs. All my friends in the small town I grew up in called it that because rather than cider vinegar, mustard, Miracle Whip, and a little sugar, they used either white vinegar, or in the case of most, dill pickle juice, and no mustard in their potato salad and deviled eggs. They really didn't know what to think when I made hot German potato salad, although there are German communities further south in Texas. My grandparents used to carry a cooler full of frozen treats like maple syrup, brauts, breakfast sausage (they spice it a lot differently here), cheeses Uncle Don made, and real smoked ham when they would come down from Ohio. They even flew a Samsonite suitcase down a few times which was crusting with ice by the time we picked it up on the conveyor at the airport but they never said boo to us about it. They always took back pecans and Coors beer. Grandpy used to wait for a summer Saturday when all his friends would be cruising by on the way into town and sit out with his beer cooler for a footstool drinking the Coors. I recall friends and relatives laughing about passing round again so they could be waved to join him on a lawn chair and enjoy one as well (Hope it doesn't make him sound alcoholic, I doubt he got more than 8 or ten out of the 6 or 8 cases he'd carry back, it was more of an amusement for him to show off than anything else). I didn't really get to start making all those recipes I'd been watching on TV until after I met my dear husband. When it was just the girls and I after their father and I separated, we liked to go out and eat pho or real Mexican, as well as the standard Tex Mex and bbq that is ubiquitous here. Over the years, we had learned to make many of our favorites from all the above cuisines ourselves, I even got lessons in making tortillas and tamales from my daughter's friend's Mexican mother. But meals like that were mostly for special times and on weekends as I was always working a couple of jobs to make ends meet. I never had much wine until I met him, either, although I always liked it I always felt very intimidated as the only people I knew in my area that had wine with meals were very well off, and even then it was rare. His mother and I really enjoy sharing a bottle of wine over a nice dinner, we don't pay much attention to all the wine snobbery, just buy what we like and eat it with what tastes good together to us. Now I sometimes feel like I am making up for lost time in a way. I took a few classes and I have a history working in commercial kitchens. I really think I would love to be a saute or grill station line cook and eventually a chef somewhere, or to open some restaurant of my own. I even looked when a local restaurant closed at the possibility of setting up shop there, but unfortunately for me someone beat me to it because the owner had started talking to him before he retired and closed shop. On the other hand, I would love to travel in the sense of spending time living in various areas for a few months at a time, so I am not sure how I could do that if I had such a business. I know when you run a business you have to expect to be there to mind the store. Perhaps one of my daughter will eventually have an interest in running a business with me. Thinking about all this to write this entry has got me really craving a few things that are hard to find here. The only way I have ever got tomatoes to have quite the good smell and taste I remember from my youth in Ohio is to grow my own. When I worked in the restaurant I once asked a produce man why tomatoes in the store are so tasteless. Turns out they gas green ones the same as they gas green bananas right before delivery to groceries and restaurants because shipping green means they keep better. He said in the case of tomatoes, what you have basically achieved is a green tomato that looks red hence the lack of taste and smell. The other thing I have never been able to get here is apples. Grammy and Grandpy had a friend who worked at Ohio State as directory of whatever they call the farm program dealing with plants and seeds and developing hybrids and such. He had an orchard of old varieties of apples, some of them I have never seen elsewhere, though I have forgotten some of the names. He told us delicious apples were bred for shelf life not taste so that is why they usually look all red or yellow and pretty but taste either like nothing or are mealy. Some of the types he grew were Jonathans, Winesap, Gravensteene, Black Amish, Pitmaston, and he had some trees from seed he got from a tree Johnny Appleseed had planted. They made wonderful cider every year, too. My mother once told of going apple picking for cider to raise money for band equipment. After they finished at the orchard where they had been allowed to pick the gleanings, there weren't near enough apples, so they roamed the area collecting a few from every family orchard in the area and my Grandpy laughed about how the county police had had some fancy footwork to not catch them at it. Today I am sure they'd put them all in jail readily, and I get kinda sad about how crazy some of the ways they deal with children these days, but that's probably a subject for a complete other forum. Anyway, thanks so much to everyone that contributed here. I really enjoyed reading everyone else's stories and I hope I haven't bored anyone too much with mine. Sorry it is such a long monster of a post.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 8, 2010 22:50:23 GMT
More "monsters", Gertie, please!
That was delightful, informative, and very touching. So many of us can identify with those early, uninformed cooking attempts. One thing that really strikes me is how many of the homey things you remember are passing away as we move into a "more efficient" world.
About your grandmother's cooking -- I have a sort of recipe file in my head that I think of as "more than the sum of their parts". Even though I love using herbs and spices, it's quite true that some things achieve magic with very few ingredients and seasonings.
I am enjoying apples in Mexico more than I ever did in my life before, having known only the vapid beauties from the supermarket. When you think of all the wonderful varieties brought by the different waves of immigration into the US, and how few of them are to be found anymore, it's heartbreaking.
Thanks so much for this peek into what formed you into an appreciate diner and skilled cook.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 10, 2010 8:30:29 GMT
... ..., with the licorice-flavored German cookies she made each Christmas an especial favorite of the family which everyone fought over. ... ... Ha! Had them myself this Christmas, just not home made. My sister broughtthem when she visited
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