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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2009 11:57:29 GMT
Bixa,to answer your question about hunting season and the process afterwords,I recall it being a very orderly process. Several of the men,uncles,cousins on my father's side of the family would make it into an occasion,that I suppose could be termed a tradition.After returning with the deer,a huge party of sorts,with lots of beer drinking took place in one of the barns. I was not really party to this of course,but the end result was everyone coming away with their share of the slaughter. In the meantime,on my mother's side of the family(they all lived on the North shore of Long Island) a similar scenario took place during that time of year.Her family,which also included many uncles and cousins and my father,went on hunting trips together and all the food was shared.Nothing frenzied about it. I have heard many people,elderly folks in my hometown,tell stories about our farm,with fond recall.Of interesting note,while financially,there were lean times,due to a poor harvest perhaps,and lack of income one year,due to the resourcefulness and self sustaining nature of the procurement of food,we always had a huge bounty of food available. I also remember hearing that while in urban areas,during the depression,people were near starving, there was no depression in the same sense of the term,out on the farms. Lack of food was never an issue. As for making sausage,funny you should mention. I inherited,after my brother died,one of the ancient,manual meat grinders.My husband and I did make sausage many years ago.It was quite a success but has not been repeated.The grinder is wrapped up in the shed,it's really a quite beautiful contraption.Who knows,maybe we'll be inspired again. Will keep you posted on this. Funny you mention my growing herbs.While you understood,there were many who did think me strange but years later thanked me for .One friend remembers quite well ,as he went on to establish one of the first commercial fresh herb businesses and found a niche with many of the finer restaurants here.
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Post by tillystar on Dec 22, 2009 12:46:29 GMT
Well, from helping her in the kitchen I have learnt to cook my MiL's fabulous roast lamb which is the best I have tasted and also to put together lots of different salads and different roasted fish. She cooks some meatballs that everyone in the family are mad about and always argue on how many they each get. Well I asked her to teach me those but quite frankly, I don't think they are all nice at all (although I will never admit it out loud ) and they are so much faffing. So I don't make them - anyway I guess its better for Mr Star to have them to look forward to...maybe! FiL taught me how to make the local bean and pork stew and a potato and beef stew, he fancies himself a bit of an authority on Basque cooking (much to the annoyance of my MiL as he never cooked a piece of toast until they seperated). From watching him I also improved my paella....although I have never felt inclined to make his olive and offal version. He makes some salt cod pil pil which I have th same feelings about as MiL's meatballs.... Oh and he taught me to fry an egg as apparently mine were inedible... Mr Star's grandma who is no longer with us made the most fantastic rice with clams, it was very simple with just garlic and parsley but tasted like heaven would if it had a flavour. She didn't teach me to cook them but I found a few different recipes and played about with them until I came up with a version most similiar to her's. She knew they were my favorite and alwas made them if I was visiting, she was really upset when we visited just after the Prestige oil diasater as there were no decet clams for sale because of the spillage - she took it very personally those bastards had stopped her buying good clams. I also messed about with different recipes to make her chorizo and potato stew, not quite the same but close! We eat lots of quick and easy food such as chorizo and fried eggs, spanish omlette and tuna and roasted red pepper baguettes, which aren't typical quick suppers in London. Other things which are favorites I have learnt to cook at MiL's but mostly involve seafood that is impossible to find (spider crab or angulas (baby eels)) or just too expensive in London to cook regularly.
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Post by tillystar on Dec 22, 2009 12:58:56 GMT
And as for holidays - we used to alternate Christmas and NYE, we'd do one in London and the other in Gernika and swap over the next year, but since Little Star was born we have been at home.
As the main Christmas meal of fish and shelfish in Spain is eaten very late on Christmas Eve, usually eating at midnight to see in Christmas, we have taken to doing that on Christmas Eve an then having our usual British Christmas dinner on Christmas day. So yes, we get to do both, which is greedy but good.
I don't know if it is all over the country but certainly in that region of Spain they also celebrate the 6th January with almost as big a celebration as Christmas, so we usually have a big lunch or dinner that day too as well as doing the typical UK thing of taking the tree down.
We always try and be there for carnival as its so much in Bilbao that night and that can't be replicated here!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2009 14:00:45 GMT
That all sounds fantastic, Tilly. I have always really enjoyed trying to reproduce dishes that others have made. Sometimes one doesn't have any sort of recipe at all, so there is a lot of trial and error and trying to guess what the missing spice might be, even if the main ingredients and proportions are not very difficult to work out.
I shouldn't say this, but when performing such experiments, one sometimes comes up with a better dish than what one was trying to copy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2009 14:57:28 GMT
There is huge Twelfth Night celebration here in NOLA. Many parties and elaborate celebration in homes.One of my favorite nights of the year.We alternate with a group of friends every year.We had last year.Gorgeous food and everyone dresses up.Only time of year I can summon up to dress elegantly.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 22, 2009 21:39:38 GMT
Truly interesting, Casimira. I suppose the whole process of getting the kill home and processed it must have been second-nature to the hunters in your family. The note about being self-sufficient and self-sustaining is rather sobering, as so many people now live without even a back yard, must less an efficient family-run "food factory", which is what the kind of farm life you describe was. Tilly ~~ make room, please, as I am moving in with you. That all sounds so good, and yes, I know what you meant about the blasphemy of tinkering with the old recipes, even though the informed tinkerer will probably come up with a better version.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 23, 2009 5:49:33 GMT
Sorry ~~ I hope I didn't sound too terse in that last reply. Please remember I'm visiting family, sharing a computer, etc., and that was written on the fly & while being interrupted.
Tilly, it's so great that you brought in the Christmas traditions from two countries, tool. I have a vague idea or memory of little sandwiches (?) for the Christmas eve midnight feast called medianoches ... or I'm confused.
And Casimira .. to clarify, 12th Night = Epiphany = 3 Kings, correct? Isn't that the official opening of carnival season?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2009 11:12:58 GMT
Yes,Twelfth Night,The Epihany,is on January 6,also known as 'Little Christmas',is indeed the heralding of the Carnival season. I am digging out my finery this weekend!More then anything,looking forward to the feast being served that night.Creole food at it's finest,ettouffes and the like. Very much part of the roots of New Orleans cuisine.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Dec 23, 2009 14:42:38 GMT
Tilly once sent us a gift package of fabulous Spanish foods across the pond. It was both extravagant and generous. I well remember those wonderful Alubias Negras Tolosinas, to mention but one item. (This was back on TT Get Stuffed.)
I have a soft spot in my heart for Tilly.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2009 16:58:22 GMT
Such an interesting thread. It made me think. I seem to cook a variety of foods, originating from different countries. As a kid my mom taught me how to make some Indian dishes, which I attempt now and then. They never turn out as good as she made ofcourse.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 23, 2009 21:31:34 GMT
You'll have to look for my culinary roots in the "Culinary Accidents" thread. :-) Or was that on TTR? :-(
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2009 11:53:01 GMT
Kimby,would love to hear about your culinary roots from your childhood visits/stays on the family farm you shared with us. Surely,visits to must have had some lovely and memorable meals.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 24, 2009 20:15:11 GMT
Yes, ditto! My stepfather has been telling me about summers spent on his grandparents' farm, and it is fascinating stuff. It's particularly interesting after seeing Casimira's loving and complete picture of the family farm, as it would seem farm life didn't change that much through the decades.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 24, 2009 21:23:45 GMT
Kimby,would love to hear about your culinary roots from your childhood visits/stays on the family farm you shared with us. Surely, visits must have had some lovely and memorable meals. Sadly (for me), this is the farm of my father's memories, not mine. I was either too little to remember when we went there, or attending a memorial for one of the last Otis children (Dad's aunts and uncles) as an adult when I was there. My Michigan memories are all from my Grandma's house in Kalamazoo, a wonderful 4-story (counting the full basement - more on that later) house on a wooded hill with bedrooms up under the roof and a spooky attic under the eaves that had a door that locked behind you if weren't careful - or if a mischievous sibling gave it a push when you ventured timidly past the threshold into the dusty, cobwebby dark! The reason I count the basement - and this is where the "culinary" part comes in - is that Grandma ran a pie bakery in the basement, a business that employed many aunts, uncles and cousins, and provided pies for the colleges and restaurants of Kalamazoo for many years. We used to go there every Christmas (except the year Grandma travelled to Turkey over the holidays) and sleep in those attic bedrooms, visit with cousins seen only once a year (lots of cousins - my aunt married an Italian catholic and had 11 kids), and sneak down the stairs to the pie bakery after hours to dip paper cups into the buckets of pie filling. Grandma had a large commercial pie oven with horizonal baking trays suspended on chains that held dozens of pies each, all rotating in the huge oven. Large dough-mixing machines, and my favorite, the dough-rolling machine. You put a ball of dough into the chute and it came out flat, but long and skinny. You swiveled it 90 degrees and put it through the next set of rollers and it came out in a big sheet, ready to lay over the pie plate and pinch off the surplus with your fingers. After the filling was poured in, a second sheet of dough was placed on top, then experienced thumbs and fingers flew around the edges doing the crimping. (That's the only part I learned how to do, but not nearly so fast as my kin.) My sister who was born on Christmas Eve (that year we had a late Christmas at Grandma's, but were none the wiser as none of us were in school yet, and didn't know the magic date had passed) got a Birthday Pie every year for her birthday instead of a birthday cake. Grandma got her start baking pies during the Depression, using a gasoline-fired oven in a tent pitched in Florida, when my Dad was just a little one. His father was a farmer and a carpenter who was able to find work in Miami Beach building the Breakers Hotel and brought his whole family with him to live in a tent city for several years while he worked. (Dad recalls the Hurricane of 1926 from his years in the tent.) Grandma started baking pies to raise extra cash, and by the time they left Florida, she had a booming business baking pies for area schools. When the Depression ended and they headed back North, she delivered her last batch of pies on the way out of town! So did I inherit my Grandma's pie-baking gene? Nope! Though I will bake 2 pies for a potluck Christmas Dinner tomorrow - and have made pie crust from scratch and pumpkin pie from a pumpkin - I really detest baking. I don't like sweets desserts much, and find the act of making them from scratch "potsy" as my MIL would say. Too much trouble. Nonetheless, when I sign off here, I will dutifully bake my two Fudge Pecan Pies, though Marie Callendar made the crusts.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 25, 2009 3:03:21 GMT
Hoo-boy Kimby ~~ and you were dismissing yourself as having shallow culinary roots?! What a great story. It's not only a fascinating slice of US history, including melting-pot components, but the stuff of which novels are made. A wonderful story, told with verve and excellent details -- thank you!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2009 10:53:08 GMT
I have heard younger people wax nostalgic about the places they have gone to buy ready-made food, and their regrets about places that have disappeared.
I guess that would be another form of culinary roots, and I won't even say that it is a shame, as long as people recogonize where to go to get good food, even if they cannot make it themselves.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2009 11:13:49 GMT
Beautifully written narrative Kimby! A true slice of Americana. Thank you for this wonderful memoir.
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Post by spindrift on Dec 26, 2009 15:58:37 GMT
Oh I love reading this thread. I just want to say that being half Irish I consider the Irish don't have any culinary roots apart from mashed potatoes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 26, 2009 22:01:33 GMT
Tsk, tsk, Spindrift. Look how Kimby started out by almost dismissing her roots, then digging deeper, as it were, to uncover a trove of rich culture. What about soda bread? Aren't there other special breads? What is bannon? Is corned beef and cabbage an Irish-American treat?
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Post by spindrift on Dec 26, 2009 22:16:53 GMT
Ummm....don't forget that for hundreds of years the native Irish, being ruled by the English, were poverty-striken and probably considered themselves lucky to eat potatoes....the profits of their labours being taken by the English gentry and their agricultural produce being shipped abroad...
But, you're right, I'll give the matter more thought.... yes, there is Soda bread of course...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2009 23:10:12 GMT
Spindrift,when I first started reading this thread and the earlier contributions,I thought, I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this and rapidly dismissed my having much to say.Then, after reading more,thinking,reading K2's memories of rural life ,I was amazed at how much I was able to remember. And the best part is no two stories are the same but have some similarities.All different variations with the same theme.I was very pleasantly surprised.
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Post by traveler63 on Dec 27, 2009 3:15:34 GMT
I think everyone has culinary roots. Whether they are deep or shallow they are there. If you can take advantage of them in any small way then you are a cook. I can remember a lot of failures for me, but don't let it get you, just press on and experiment. Not everything has to be from scratch. I have started using instant polenta, 3 minutes. You learn to adjust with premade ingredients. I have even seen Tyler Florence's episodes on the Food Channel where he has used premade ingredients and he says there is nothing wrong with it. I am the worst dessert person, and if I have to do something I use premade pie crusts, so what! Don't tell and most people won't know the difference!!!
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Post by Don Cuevas on Dec 29, 2009 13:02:38 GMT
I had a very urban childhood, in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
My maternal Grandmother, who lived near us, was a good cook and a better baker, in the Eastern European Jewish tradition. (My paternal grandparents lived in San Francisco, and we visited them infrequently.)
WWII had recently ended, and rationing as well as the Depression years were not far behind in memory. Frugality was the rule.
I don't remember much about my maternal Grandma Ann's cooking, other than hearty meat soups with dried lima beans and the requisite chicken soup with matzoh balls. I'm not especially fond of matzoh balls. Rare beef is not allowed under the rules of Kashruth, so I don't remember any juicy rare steaks. Similarly, hamburgers were always made with breadcrumbs, egg, sometimes minced green pepper and onions in the meat mixture. At the time, that was normal fare in our house, but now I prefer hamburgers of unsullied beef.
Grandma Ann's baking, however, was miraculous. (Her mother {if I have the story correct} was a pastry baker in a wealthy Vienna home.) She would scrub the kitchen table clean and heap a small hill of flour on it, make a crater, crack in some fresh eggs, add oil, salt, sugar and yeast and plunge her arms in, then start kneading with muscle power. The resulting challahs were magnificent. Sour rye breads were bought on a daily basis at the bakery just down the street.
Grandma Ann's specialty baking surpassed even her challah. There were rugelach, apple and fruit fludeln, and the greatest treat: crisp and flaky fruit or cheese filled strudels, made the classic Viennese way, by stretching an exceedingly well developed dough over a tablecloth until tissue thin, brushing it with butter, sprinkiling it with toasted nuts and crumbs, placing a ridge of filling and rolling it up with the tablecloth.
My mother wasn't an especially good cook when she and my Dad married. But she was curious and eager to learn, and got better. I endured some pretty unappealing concoctions, such as a dense split pea soup accented by tiny bones. Dried out, well done lamb chops, smothered in ketchup, were a a treat when I was a child.
But my Mother got better with experience and picked up recipes and ideas, as well as techniques from our Italian American neighbors downstairs, Minnie and her family. That had a lot of good effect on my tastes. We were introduced to sharp aged cheeses, pastas, olive oil, generous amounts of garlic, fresh parsley, red wine with meals; calamares baked with breadcrumbs, Parmesan and OO. Damn, that was good.
At that time, the late 40's and the 50's, pizza was mostly sold as simple slices in Italian bakeries or as more elaborate whole pies in Italian restaurants. I'm writing about an area of Brooklyn, our small world, not anywhere else. At first, my Mom was revulsed by the look of pizza, but when she overcame that, she became a big fan.
She also overcame her religious strictures and was delighted by shrimp, clams and especially lobster. She wouldn't then or now eat any pork products. I had no inhibitions or strictures at all.
I have to mention, at least in passing, the wonderful Kosher-style delis and the "appetizer stores" which sold pickles and pickled herring of several types, and smoked fish. These were redolent with mouthwatering aromas. They were not for everyday fare, but mostly for Sunday morning breakfasts. (The word, "brunch" hadn't been invented yet.)
My Father's oldest sister, Norma, was an adventurous sort. She took me to New York's Chinatown and the Nom Wah Tea Parlor, where I had my first dim sum. That hooked me on "real" Chinese food.
My Grandmothers and my Aunt Norma are gone now, but my Mom cooks on, at the age of 91. Her activity is somewhat reduced but she still cooks, with a little help. When we visit my family, I become her surrogate in the kitchen, and she directs from her seat on the couch, but also actively participates, albeit in a limited way. I'm still working on how to balance that situation in a viable manner. I hope I can be at least that active if I attain that age.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2009 13:39:14 GMT
That's a great story, DC. Mixed Brooklyn neighborhoods in the 'black & white photo years' are part of American mythology, reproduced in so many movies. I don't know if the movies got it right, but I can imagine the clothing, the conversation and agitation and the fantastic smells in the kitchen, as the camera pans out to the street to show kids playing stickball while old ladies carefully walk their fat dogs.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2009 14:09:13 GMT
Wonderful reminisce Don C.! My own memories of trips to NYC with my family as a child come ringing to the forefront. The rugelach....my goodness,yes,recall so well. Challah,blintzes and the like,so vivid in my mind. And a particular recall of my first Jewish rye bread. The Italian food recall very much also a part of this memory mix. Thanks so much for this!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2009 14:47:28 GMT
Fishing was a very large part of my early life in Mississippi, as well as crabbing, frogging and floundering, but that’s a story for a different zone.
It was when we got home that I would always realize how much work it was to make what we had caught fit for consumption. Most of it was pretty disgusting, so of course I wanted to watch, just like when my French grandfather was gutting the rabbits.
The first thing was to cut the heads off the fish and make a slit along the length of their belly, to pull out the stomach and intestines. Whenever they had a full stomach, I always wanted to see what was inside, particularly the stomachs of the bass or speckled trout which were a treasure trove of tiny crabs, minnows, sometimes the bait we had used and of course “weird gunk.” Then the fish would have to be scaled, which was a slippery and smelly activity. There were often 20 or 30 fish to do – green trout (bass), bream, bluegills, pumpkinseeds, croakers, perch… when we had gone fishing in the bayous.
When we fished in the gulf, it was speckled trout that we caught. After the cleaning process, there was a big mess to clean up on wet newspapers and then most of the catch would go into the freezer. We would usually eat some fresh the same evening, shaken in a bag of corn meal, salt and pepper and then fried. I actually was not a big fan of fried fish. Bones! Little kids hate dealing with fish bones! I’ve gotten better, but that fare would still never be my first choice, as much as I love fish.
When we had gone crabbing, usually off one of the piers or breakwaters, either in the gulf or in the back bay – Bayou Bernard, Tchouticabouffa (pronounced locally Chooticabuff), the Wolf River – cleaning the blue crabs was a totally different adventure, because they were very lively and they were very angry! We used crab baskets filled with rotten chicken necks, and the crabs hated being deprived of their feast and thrown into a cooler unexpectedly. When we got home, it was a cooler full of rage and evil clicking claws.
We generally used the kitchen tongs to catch a crab and pin it from behind. The next step was to grab the claws from the back and rip them off. The eyes would twitch on their stalks in helpless fury, because the creature would begin to understand that it was done for. Then a quick pull would rip of the belly shield and the legs would go calm. The dead man’s fingers (or lady fingers) would be removed, along with the guts, the eggs if any, and anything else that wasn’t flesh. And then it was back for another combat in the cooler. Every now and then, they would manage to pinch somebody, or make a temporary desperate escape across the kitchen floor, but we humans would win in the end.
These would quickly become the object of a fantastic crab boil in a giant pot full of spices – the odor was always heavenly. And even though eating crabs was even more work than eating fish, I didn’t mind it at all, because they were so much better. Usually we just remained our small family unit of 4, but sometimes there would be long tables in the back yard for a shrimp or crab boil with the family from Handsboro or the ones from Biloxi – aunts and uncles and cousins. Since both of those families had a mildly retarded child (as well as a shitload of other children), I guess that my brother and I lucked out at genetic roulette.
After we left Mississippi, I never saw any of them again.
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Post by tillystar on Dec 29, 2009 17:08:20 GMT
Well I have never had them and Mr Star hasn't heard of them but in Northern Spain at least the midnight meal on NYE is called Medianoche and things very so much from region to region that those sandwiches are probably a tradition somewhere! Whereabouts did you live?
I am glad you liked your parcel Don! Mr Star's grandma died shortly after we sent it and you had one of her last jars of tuna. She had been so fascinated with the idea that the tuna she had canned had gone from Spain to London to Mexico!
I love this thread, so many interesting stories. I see baking is in your blood Don!
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Post by Don Cuevas on Dec 29, 2009 20:41:57 GMT
Well I have never had them and Mr Star hasn't heard of them but in Northern Spain at least the midnight meal on NYE is called Medianoche and things very so much from region to region that those sandwiches are probably a tradition somewhere! Whereabouts did you live? I am glad you liked your parcel Don! Mr Star's grandma died shortly after we sent it and you had one of her last jars of tuna. She had been so fascinated with the idea that the tuna she had canned had gone from Spain to London to Mexico! I love this thread, so many interesting stories. I see baking is in your blood Don! Actually, Tilly, we ate the home canned tuna last before moving to Mexico. The azafrán lasted a little longer. Al was much appreciated. Was it to you that I sent cornbread and hushpuppy mix?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2009 20:47:13 GMT
Hush puppy mix -- I used to have some of that in Paris. Perhaps I will buy some more soon.
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Post by cristina on Dec 30, 2009 5:48:09 GMT
I had to give this a lot of thought because my culinary habits seem so normal to me that I am sometimes surprised when others don’t embrace my feelings with equal enthusiasm. My mother is from Newfoundland, Canada, which from a culinary perspective might be the black sheep outpost of Ireland. My father was from Spain, but grew up, for the most part in Buffalo, NY. They met and married in Newfoundland and then immediately moved to Spain (where I arrived about 9 months later). Both of my parents were born during the Depression era. My mother had a very narrow experience with cooking but like Don Cuevas’ mom, she was curious and I think really relished the new experiences she had with eating in Spain and other parts of Europe. She was also fortunate to have patient teachers in the form of family and family friends. But I think her best teacher was my father. He had traveled a bit before they met and introduced her to foods in Europe that she had never heard of. (Like lentils. ;D ) She told me last night that the very best meal she ever had in her life was in Alsace. Maybe that was the night my brother was conceived. She didn’t elaborate. My mother is the very best cook that I know to this day. She isn’t afraid to try anything. But she does get mad at me when I try to go all nouvelle with paella – (mostly to accommodate my vegetarian son.) And she still insists on loving some rather yuck (to me) foods of her youth. Like fried liver. Blech. But I still love her, despite that. Both of my parents liked to cook and when my father wasn’t away for work, they usually cooked together. We also had a number of rituals, especially around Sunday dinner, when my father was sure to be at the table. We generally finished dinner with cheese and fruit. (Sweet desserts were normally reserved for birthdays or holidays.) My father had the large cheese board at his place at the table, and the rest of us had smaller versions of the board. He would slice off our individual portions of cheeses or apples etc, which we would then cut down to bite size on our own boards. I have kept my cheese board, even though it isn’t terribly useful as it’s so small, but holds a lot of memories for me. My parents were both pretty firm on the “one bite” rule. We weren’t forced to clean our plates, but we couldn’t dismiss a food unless we tasted it first. I remember a year when mashed potatoes made me ill just to look at them – and then getting mashed potatoes on my breakfast plate because I hadn’t taken that one bite the night before. We were also taught, like many, not to turn away from food served at our friend’s homes. Growing up in the Washington, DC area, with a fairly international population, many of my neighbors, classmates and friends were from other countries so I experienced, whether I wanted to or not at the time, a lot of different cuisines. This probably defines my roots more than anything else. My mother was not a baker, though, outside of perhaps cookies. My father made our birthday cakes, and decorated them too. He was really rather artistic. But my real baking education came from my grandmother – my mother’s mother. She was the one who taught me how to make bread. She would pack flour in her suitcase because she thought Canadian flour to be superior to US flour. When my grandmother came to visit, she made bread almost every day. But she always reserved a bit of dough to fry. I think this was to appease all of us children who wanted to cut into the bread as soon as it came out of the oven. Since that is not a good idea for the rest of the loaf, she would fry these little scraps of dough, which we could eat right away, dripping with butter and marmalade. In Newfoundland, these are called toutons. And I have been known to forgo the loaf of bread in my dough making and just fry up the lot. Writing about this has made me nostalgic. I miss my Nana, who died the day I learned I was expecting my first child. And I miss my Papa, who died when I was 11. But along with my mother, they both taught me an awful lot about food, in their own ways, in a very short bit of time. Some fun things my father taught me: How to pour a beer properly How to enjoy a martini soaked olive (no, he didn’t feed me martinis, but he always saved the olive for me) How to enjoy roasted beef marrow (that was “our” treat as my mother and brothers never really liked it) How to frost a cake How to make and enjoy a fried bologna sandwich, with yellow mustard (the truth comes out about my defense of yellow mustard) on, hold on to your hats, Wonder Bread. OK, it was the 1960’s, after all. But man, I could eat one of those sandwiches right this minute and be happy. And reading about Kerouac’s crabbing adventures, and a crab boil in particular, evokes even more memories. Although those were mostly in college for me, and involved copious amounts of alcohol and possibly other things. My specific recollections might be a wee bit fuzzy.
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