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.

One Dish Wonder

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Well, it’s not too secret a secret but it was my strategy for saving face when in the dating scene. Yeah, OK, it was a few years ago. I’ve laughed for years saying that when I met a man I made sure he cooked before I dated him in case it got serious. I grew up eating good but basic dishes. The word cuisine wouldn’t have applied unless someone has lumped pot roasts, tuna casseroles, pork chops and gravy, hamburgers and beef stews together giving them their own category in the fancy food world. Though thriving on these good though basic dishes, for some reason I didn’t learn to cook. My mom cooked and once came in second on a statewide bread-baking contest. My Dad enjoyed cooking. As a widower he made killer huckleberry pies and was very popular with the ladies at senior center potlucks. My Grandmother, who lived in walking distance, loved to cook and I still savor the memories of brown beans and ham bone served with her amazing potato salad made creamy with an addition of thick cream. My cousin Donna, a sister to me, loved to cook. Each Easter she would make me bunny rolls, home-made rolls in the shape of bunnies. Donna was the first to introduce me to scalloped potatoes with cheese which, to me, was an amazingly sophisticated dish. The only cheese my mother ever allowed to touch a vegetable was the melting of cheese over a head of cauliflower.

Ok, back to my strategy of saving face for my lack of cooking skills. Meat was particularly challenging. I never bought expensive pieces of meat because I had no instincts whatsoever about cooking meat correctly. I suppose I should have taken a cooking class. (I did take a whole foods cooking class once, but that’s another story surrounding a temporary side step attempt to become vegetarian. Forgive me, it was the 1970’s). As a young single gal dating, there were times when my cooking skills or lack of would come up. What to do, what to do? I remember perusing the red and white Better Homes And Gardens Cookbook. I guess I was hoping for an epiphany. Page turning along in the meat section, I came across a recipe for Beef Stroganoff. Hm, I thought, it didn’t look too complicated. The ingredients stretched me a bit. I’d never used fresh mushrooms, consommé, or sour cream in a dish before. Guys generally liked meat dishes and it looked sort of like a “meat and gravy” dish with a kick, I thought. So, I set out to buy my first piece of sirloin steak and when the dish turned out amazingly good, I hit on something. I could become expert at this dish, and I did. It would turn out perfect every time. And, I never met a guy who wasn’t impressed and who didn’t think me a fabulous cook. Alas, the only trouble was I could only have them over for dinner once. So, I ended up with a guy who cooks, he seduced me with stuffed pork chops on the barbeque grill. I still make my Beef Stroganoff and it still comes out perfectly. It is, though, the only time my husband will let me get near the stove with steak of any kind.

Beef Stroganoff
adapted over many years from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Ingredients
2 lbs. beef sirloin sliced in ¼” strips
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
4 Tablespoons oil
1 large onion, chopped
8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced

4 Tablespoons butter
5 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 cans Campbell's Beef Consommé

Sour Cream to taste

Instructions
Slice beef and dredge in flour salt and garlic powder.
Brown quickly in oil.
Remove meat and brown onion and mushrooms for a few minutes.

Remove onions and mushrooms. Melt butter and flour mixing well into a roué. Stir in the tomato paste. Add consommé and cook till bubbly gravy consistency. Return meat, onions and mushrooms to pan, stirring into the sauce.

Stir in sour cream when ready to serve. Serve over wide noodles.

Modifications over the years:
I push the mushrooms and onions to the side of the pan and make the roué in the center.
I use Johnnies Seasoning instead of salt.
When sirloin is selling cheap I make a double batch cooling it and freezing it in Ziplocs before adding sour cream. It freezes well.
I cook and freeze wide noodles making for a quick fix dinner.

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