From Turkey To Chutney With Loving Grandparents And Huckleberries Along The Way

We are going to my sister-in-law's for Thanksgiving and she wants to do all the cooking. From me she wants hors d oeuvres including the family fav - deviled eggs. I think I'll do a platter of eggs, exotic olives and other unusual things for light and interesting munching. (Any ideas out there? Comment away!) I've never cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal in my life and have never cooked a turkey. That could be a sad commentary on a deprived upbringing but no, it was just being around people all my life who loved to cook and, most likely, not having children. I think I might try to see if sis-in-law would like me to bring a dessert like an old family recipe of Pineapple Ice Box Cake (vanilla wafer crumbs topped with a butter/powdered sugar/egg mixture topped with whip cream and crushed pineapple mixture and topped with more crumbs).

The Pineapple Ice Box Cake goes way back in my family and is purported to have been created by my Grandma Allen. The town newspaper even interviewed her once about her cooking and published the recipe. Funny--local fame. She and my grandfather (LD we called him, short for Lorenzo Dow) were such good folks; I don't remember anything negative related to them. Grandma's thing was cooking. During the war years, when ingredients were rationed, people would save their ration coupons and give them to her and she would make wedding cakes. Growing up, I lived in walking distance from my grandparents. She had one of those white enameled "baking centers" where flour, sugar, etc were in built-in bins that pivoted forward. They had a root cellar, entered by a trap door from the kitchen, lined with shelves of goodies that were "put up" when in season, mostly fruit and jams and jellies. I remember my mother telling me about her brothers being able to eat a whole quart of peaches in one sitting. I remember Grandma lamenting how hard it was to get gooseberries like she used to pick in the back woods of Idaho. Of course, Huckleberry Jam (made from Idaho's Blue Mountain Huckleberries picked on family excursions) was "gold standard". Huckleberry pies were featured at all big gatherings and a slice of huckleberry pie was a common daily offering to friends who stopped by for pie and coffee (something that happened often). Apricot jam was a favorite of my Grandma and lots of pickled beets (yum-I still love them and they bring back fond memories.) They always had a huge garden and I remember her loving beet greens. I didn't appreciate them at the time and have been meaning to make some to try. I don't remember her or my folks making relish but I bet if they had known of the Indian concept of Chutney (combining fruit with onions and ginger - a sweet/savory mix) they would have liked it. Spices, though, didn't go beyond salt, pepper, (and maybe onion powder later on) and the "holiday spices" of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves - ah, they did use cloves in the pickled beets).

To my Indian friends, American middle class folks seem so spice-deprived. It’s true, and our family certainly never "developed a taste" for them. My husband still has trouble getting his taste buds to "embrace" a lot of the Indian spices. I've evolved and love a lot of the more "exotic" tastes. I was reading a cookbook last night featuring Ayurvedic (eye-your-vay-dick) recipes (it's a "healing regimen" originating in ancient India still practiced today that centers around food and different spices or ingredients for different constitutions and different conditions.) Spices are a prime component and tied to health. I wonder how Americans got so bland, maybe it was our roots in England - a cuisine I hear is pretty bland. (How did British cuisine not get influenced by Indian cuisine with all their occupying of the country? I do hear, from friends who hang out in Britain, though, that Indian restaurants are more prolific than others and have fabulous Indian dishes. So they must have developed a taste for it.) If I would have walked into a house as a kid and smelled the concoctions I now make, I don't know what I would have thought; I would certainly have been intrigued.

Well, food stream-of-consciousness this morning. I do, now, finally get the thing about reading cookbooks like novels. So much culture, history, etc is reflected through food.

A Salad Afternoon

I just read a great essay on the history of the salad in Saveur (in my opinion, the best of the food magazines) . It seems the French sort of began the trend but served them after the main course. For me, Iceberg lettuce, a can of shrimp, a teaspoon of lemon juice and Best Foods Mayonnaise, is a favorite salad. Or, Iceberg lettuce, a can of tuna, grated cheddar cheese and Best Food Mayonnaise another favorite. OK, one more – Iceberg lettuce, julienned salami, julienned Provolone cheese, chopped hardboiled egg and a very tangy homemade Italian dressing I make. I know that Iceberg lettuce has been referred to as “the polyester of vegetables” but I was raised with it and love its hearty crunchiness. Some of the other greens just seem wimpy. If they are done well, though, I always like a green salad of any type.

For a personal salad memory, my husband turned me onto mixing dressings – try French and Blue Cheese sometime. Lately I’ve been keeping a plastic tub in the refrigerator with things like Mandarin oranges, black olives, black beans, hard-boiled eggs, dried cranberries, cheese of some sort, Feta cheese and other goodies ready to add to the greens. Whipping up a salad is easy and, Yum City! Eating out, one of my favorite salads is from the Red Robin Restaurant, Barbeque Chicken Salad – Iceberg lettuce with strips of barbequed chicken, black beans, avocado slices, tomatoes, with Ranch dressing and garlic toast on the side.

Growing up never once, that I remember, did I have a salad as a main dish. And, other than a can of shrimp sometimes added to Iceberg lettuce (with Best Foods Mayonnaise, of course) no piece of fish or meat every touched the lettuce unless the main dish pork chop somehow sidled over to the salad on the plate.

According to the history of the salad article, they really didn’t take off in America until after the middle of the last century. Some fancy restaurants had them regularly, but middle class dinner tables didn’t sport them much. Olive oil was sold only in small amounts in pharmacies for medicinal purposes and softening skin. A “history of the avocado” article in Saveur said that an avocado, in 1920’s America, would have been the equivalent to $9.00 in today’s money. Maybe it was things like that that held up salad’s popularity.

Currently my plastic salad tub is stocked salami, Provolone slices, Feta, Cheddar and a couple hardboiled eggs. With black beans, olives and dried cranberries in the cupboard I'm ready to go. Maybe one day I’ll branch out beyond good ole Iceberg. A while back I had a lobster salad with some chopped cabbage mixed into the salad greens along with the most intriguing salad accoutrement I’ve had in a while - candied pecans – now there’s something I’ve got to remember to add to my salad tub!

My Favorite Tangy Italian Dressing
(This is supurb for a Chop Salad mixture of salami, provolone and chopped egg)

1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. sugar
3 pressed Garlic cloves
½ teas. dried oregano
¼ teas. dried basil
¼ teas onion powder
¼ teas salt

Campbell's and Ketchup

Food and it's preparation is such a compelling thread in most people's lives. Something that is a shared experience. It would be fun to be a food historian. My husband Hank has enjoyed writing his food columns for eight years celebrating good food and humorous tales of food and life. We attended an author lecture last year by a woman who's book "recommended staying as close as possible to the origins of your food." It was quite an interesting historical look at how people have gotten further and further away from the origins of the food they eat. When canned food first emerged in the early part of the last century, people were extremely wary of it, largely shunning it. I guess it didn't take long, though, to get swayed by convenience. Campbell's Soups and ketchup must have been amazing culinary short cuts for 1950's cooks.

I've been spoiled over the years with my husband's creativity as a cook. He loves food and cooking and experiments a lot with herb and sauce combinations. Interesting because he/we grew up in an era, the 1950's, where Campbell's soup was the amazing new ingredient. His mom's collection of recipes had a bunch using cans of soup. (I typed them all up as family gift one year - and actually crossed stitched covers for the cookbooks!) She really got into the "new" recipes of the 1950's. She had clipped recipes from sides of boxes and from magazines, a couple written on the back of bowling score sheets. It was fun typing them all up. Hank remembers Golden Mushroom Soup over pork chops. For variation and a 'special' version she would use Cream of Celery Soup. The only soup his mom made from scratch was potato soup with about "12 cubes of butter" added. Her clam chowder would be clams in the potato soup. One of his favorite of her dishes was roasted red potatoes baked then roughly mashed with gravy and meat slathered on top. When she made shish ka bobs, for dipping she made her special "Indian sauce", ketchup with curry powder mixed in. Her green salads (tomato and lettuce) were dressed with mayonnaise, when she got fancy, she mixed ketchup into the mayo for Thousand Island Dressing.

I can't remember my folks using Campbell's Soups in recipes. Maybe because Cream of Mushroom was the "magic" new ingredient and they didn't like mushrooms. (Not realizing it doesn't taste like mushrooms when in most dishes.) A cream base for a dish was accomplished by shaking some flour into some bacon grease and adding milk (probably half and half), sort of a Bechemel with flavor. That was the base of tuna casserole, with cheese added. That was the base of SOS (made with chipped beef and served over toast). I'm trying to think of a "fancy dish" my folks made......(thinking).....Well, I guess they didn't experiment much and just stuck to the tried and true. I remember new potatoes and fresh peas in cream sauce (their Bechemel with flavor). Scalloped potatoes were made with potato slices layered with flour and butter chunks throughout then topped with milk and baked. Fried chicken was a favorite but merely dredged in salted flour and fried in bacon grease or Crisco in an electric frying pan.

Ah food, it surprises me how intrigued by it I've become in the second half of my life.

Question of the post (click on the word "comments" below)....Did your family keep bacon grease for cooking and, if so, in what and where?