Okay, let's test your taste bud memories! Several of you have mentioned "Herb" and his hamburgers and chili ... how bout yo mama? What were the specialties that set her apart from all the others, (then and now)? It would likely make her proud to hear you brag of her culinary delights (and/or) allow her a smile should you tell of her occasional failures.
10 comments:
Well, I remember so well, walking into our little back porch, opening the door, and smelling the unmistakeable aroma of a lemon merangue pie being baked in our white, porceline stove!
One of two things, either we were having company or something "special" was happening in the Shaffer household! Whatever the occasion, that lemon merangue still causes my taste buds to react, in a most positive way, I might add! All of this causes this little poem to appear! Enjoy!
PIE
Something there is when you talk about pie,
Strangers and friends find a common tie,
Accepting differences in the outside crust,
Respecting the strength of the inside trust,
The mixing and melting, the nurturing and kneading,
Gives rise to fulfillment, a soul's gentle feeding,
The saving and covering for someone to savor,
Memories and thoughts are shared in the flavor............
Something there is when you talk about pie,
True to its tasting, it tells not a lie,
These words say "THANKS!" for the pie that YOU shared,
It's taste I'll remember,
and the SOMEONE WHO CARED!
My Mother made the best rolls. I have the recipe, in her handwriting. She calls them "Mrs. Bluejacket's rolls". The amazing thing to me is the note Mother wrote on the bottom of the page:
"Mrs. Bluejacket worked for me in Wichita for $1.00 and street car far a day. She cleaned, ironed and made rolls each time."
1932-33
Some of the names in this handwritten recipe book:
Mrs. Borrum, Peter's sisters, Marjorie Minor, Mrs. Babcock, Mrs. Jamieson (friends in Wichita who thought I was the sweetest thing ever),Helen Walker (remember Olive Baird's daughters, Helen and Jane),Mrs. Uhls (from Hewins),Mrs. Tom Bell. My favorite thing she made was Bread Pudding. I don't have that recipe.
Mom was a frugal lady and that was reflected in her kitchen creations.
One memory is Jersey milk and all the by-products. Clotted cream, home made cottage cheese (with cream mixed back in), and hand churned butter. Oh yes, and buttermilk.
A specialty of hers was Home made whole wheat bread and it was wonderful. Plump loaves with thick crust. The aroma would draw me from far down the block and my reward was always a crust slab with plenty of that jersey butter. There was usually home preserved pear honey or grape jam to slaver on top.
Mom sometimes made pies but when it came to pies it was my grandmother Cox who lived three doors down the street who got the blue ribbon. Peach cream pie with lattice top (made with that jersey cream) was a memorable favorite. I've never found anyone who makes it like that since my boyhood. Moms favorite pie to make was gooseberry. A friend, Mrs Bowen, had lots of gooseberry bushes in her garden and mom would drag me down there where we had picking rights, and we filled buckets with those things. Many got canned and some made into a pie right away. The canned berries assured that GB pie was available periodically during the year. This particular berry is an aquired taste I guess. I never could make the aquisition.
Phil, you didn't tell us about yo mama's cooking.
OOPS ! I forgot one memorable dish my mom made back in those depression years. Pressed Chicken was the label on the recipe, we alwys grinned and called it "Squooze Rooster".
When poultry raisers would thin out the rooster population, the birds could be purchased for a nickle or a dime if they weren't given away. It was a rather long process to get from live rooster to "Sqooze Rooster", but mother would kill, skin, and clean the birds, then they were boiled down in water for a long time. I think things like bay leaf and garlic were in there but I wouldn't swear to it. The feet were in there I know cuz they were rich in the natural gelatin that this dish required. Finally, the meat was removed from the bones and ground. This was combined with the right amount of stock and pressed into loaf pans. After chilling, one had a loaf of tasty, excellent protein which could be used to make a hearty sandwich or as a main course on hot summer days. I loved it.
My Mom baked on Saturdays, she put the big yellow tupperware bowl with the dough on top of the warm heating stove to rise and baked it in the wood cookstove. It always smelled so good. It made 3 loaves of bread and either a big pan of crusty rolls with butter melted on the top or cinnamon rolls with raisins. While waiting for the bread to rise she would make an apple pie. Or during peach harvest she would make peach pie from tree ripened peaches. She would take the extra crust, spread butter on it, sprinkle sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon and bake it. She would break it into pieces and we could eat it warm from the oven, flaky brown and soft and so good with a big glass of cold milk. Grandma Call made the best sugar cookies, thick and soft, she took the bottom of a water glass, dipped into a bowl of sugar, it made them flat with sugar on top. We used them under strawberries for shortcake too. Mom made the best drop biscuits and hamburger gravy for breakfast. The biscuits were also good for dessert with butter and strawberry or wild blackberry freezer jam on them, with a thick slice of cheddar cheese along side. My wife makes a lot of my favorite meals that Grandma or Mom made when I was growing up. Mom made toast in the oven on a cookie sheet, so some days there was leftover toast. Dad would eat it, sometimes days later or Mom would make bread pudding with raisins with it. The best thick and crusty baked potatoes skins were made in the oven of the old wood cook stove, we dug the potato out of them and ate the skins with butter and salt and pepper or filled with cottage cheese and salt and pepper.We worked hard on the farm so I guess everything tasted good with a big glasses of fresh cold milk....James
Such wonderful cooks are being documented!
Don Shaffer, you gave a quite fine testimony to your mother and her pies along with the accompanying poem that allowed even more deserved praise to the culinary creativity of your wonderful mother.
Pat, it doesn't surprise me that your mother would make scrumptious rolls. The story of the recipe has interesting and historical relevance.
Don Cox, the "Jersey" milk references are important for the milk was sooo rich. No doubt the cottage cheese and churned butter that your mother crafted from this product was excellent. Her peach cream pie (with Jersey milk) as you described simply makes my mouth water. As far as your grandmother's gooseberry pie ... that is my all time favorite pie but sadly it has all but disappeared it would seem. A couple (or three) pressed chicken sandwiches on some of that warm home-made bread would make a wonderful lunch ... or breakfast ... or dinner.
James, the wood cookstoves are certainly remembered and it amazes me that your mother and others could use them to create such wonderful dishes. Your descriptions of those items show that your memory is keen. I can see why her bread and rolls still bring back such good memories.
My mother was perhaps born a bit too soon as she wasn't a particulary consistent homemaker. She was talented and intelligent and perceptive but may have been better cast in another role. At the same time, her chocolate cake was delicious and I can remember consuming some tasty cake out of the oven with an enjoying glass of cold milk. She also was good at preparing roast beef or pork.
My dad was a good cook with a quite limited menu. He loved round steak and longhorn cheese and many of our meals revolved around that fact. He made our breakfasts of homemade biscuits and all the things that make breakfast more than endurable. Most of the time he would make fresh orange juice and spice it up a bit with apricot nector. He also enjoyed breaded tomatoes and would in season consume many tomatoes fresh off the vine. During times of lean supplies of meat, he and mom would provide freshly prepared wild rabbit or squirrel accompanying (as I remember) with mush.
My grandmothers were excellent cooks and it isn't difficult to recall some of my favorites. (Some of this may have been touched upon in an earlier blog.)
Grandma Foust cooked on a wood stove and the results were quite good. Her fried chicken was on the bill of fare quite often in the summer and was delicious. I also remember her homemade bread and freshly churned butter.
Sally (Britton) was at the top of my list in many ways including her meals. She was meticulous in her preparation and even her luncheon snacks were to be remembered. Sally was a person who enjoyed fishing and she could fry catfish as perfectly as I have ever tasted. Somehow the crispy outside and the moist inside always came out in a manner that even "Long John's" can not duplicate with their excellent white fish, (perhaps cod). Her raised fried chicken product was of the same ilk and the "Colonel" could perhaps have been even more successful had he secured her recipe. Her simply scrumptious baked macaroni and cheese have never been dimmed from my memory.
In the summer she and my grandfather almost continually made homemade ice cream with Jersey milk and cream. No one did it better! She would take me to blackberry patches (probably at her insistence) and then prepare something more than wonderful ... blackberry cobbler. She also made an all-time favorite of mine, (gooseberry pie).
Though I had only a few tastes of Pat's Grandmother Fiechter's cooking I still remember her meatballs and noodles. She was a no-nonsense lady of Swiss descent but she knew her way around a kitchen.
With the reports of the cooking prowess of our bloggers "mamas" it is easy to see why and how they grew strong and aged and appreciative of that which pleasures the stomach.
I guess we could have a discussion about whether Jersey cream was better than our Guersey cream, which was hard to beat. I remember visiting my grandmother Neill shortly after I was married. She was not a great cook, having raised seven or eight kids on a shoestring, but the low point was when she served us a dish of ants when we visited. She was so blind that she couldn't see the ants in the bowl of applesauce. We didn't say anthing to the poor old thing, but did not eat the ants. Wayne
Well, Guernsey is quite good as I remember learned folks discussing. Also, milk production is reportedly better with your breed. Our sons were in 4-H and we had a small acreage in the hamlet of Oketo, Kansas. One of their projects involved Guernsey calves. One of them became quite ill but Graham nursed her back to health. Vince and Graham took their critters to the county fair and though they were not quite the same quality as their competition they were proud of their red and white ribbons. (Graham's calf was quite guant.) Later, they sold their calves as more mature animals at a nice profit to a local Guernsey dairyman.
Pat once baked cookies that perhaps had a similar background as your aunt's applesauce. She and a neighbor baked some worms and included them in cookies. An Avon lady came "calling" about the time they were finished and remarked how aromatic the freshly baked cookies were ... and so they allowed her a couple of them without telling her of the ingredients. She complimented them though I have wondered if she secretly questioned the "bits" of something that she consumed.
Post a Comment