Free preview of In Grandma's Kitchen: Food and Family
in Olden Times
by Maria Cattell
Chapter 7
Grandma's Cookin'
"Food always tastes better if someone else cooks it," Mom liked to say. She knew about that, as she did most of the day-in, day-out cooking for our family.
Mom didn't need written recipes for everyday dishes. Her grey metal filebox of 5"x8" cards was primarily for recipes requiring more careful measurements, especially desserts, and for the new recipes she continued to add throughout her life. In the 1970s she and John's wife Maroulla experimented with a variety of breads and lower fat, lower calorie, more nutritious dishes. In the 1980s, when she lived with John and Maroulla in Rochester, Minnesota, Mom exchanged recipes with neighbor Pauline Erickson. Pauline's recipes included Whole Wheat Honey Bread (?Chapter 38), Baked Beans, and Five Hour Beef Stew (?Chapter 40), the latter cooked in the oven and thickened with bread crumbs.
Years later, Mom's box and many of her recipes found their way to me. It included recipes for English Muffins and Poached Eggs from Julia Child's 1978 TV show, recipes such as Mincemeat Bread and Uruguayan Gaucho Bread (?Chapter 38) garnered during visits to my sister in Oklahoma in the 1970s and 1980s, and many other recipes new to me.
Sometimes as she served a variety of leftovers, Mom would ask: "Will you have chicken, squirrel or quail?" Not because she was offering us those particular items but because once she'd been with a friend faced with unexpected visitors. The friend rummaged in her fridge to see what she had. She came up with the remains of three different dishes, which she offered her visitors with the question: "Will you have chicken, squirrel or quail?" That always seemed exotic to me, even though we ate our share of all three of those critters. But I doubt we rarely had them all at once, even as leftovers.
The Pie Woman Supreme
Mom told us Dad taught her to cook. But Dad didn't teach her pie-making. He made cakes and candy, never pies. Pies were The Queen's realm. She was the queen of pies: a pie woman supreme! Her crusts were light and flaky, her fillings rich and generous. Mom taught her grandson Kevin how to make pies. She told me, "Kevin's pie crust is better than mine." Kevin demurs: "Not better. But it's just as good." (We think it helps to have big hands to handle the pie dough. "Kev paws," we call them.) And Mom would have been proud of her great-granddaughter Madrid, whose pastry cook and pastry chef jobs at several Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurants (Quince, Mourad and Michael Mina) and a San Francisco cake bakery, Butter&-have involved creating elegantly beautiful pastries.
Mom made wonderful fruit pies, especially apple, blueberry, cherry and peach from our own trees and bushes. She gave her grandson Kevin her rule for sugar in fruit pies: "Never use more than 1 cup of sugar for a pie, going by the sweetness of the fruit." Why? Because too much sugar kills the fruit flavor.
Pie making had its adventures. One day Mom put a couple or three pumpkin pies in the oven and sat down at the kitchen table to relax. A moment later she jumped up, gasping: "I forgot the pumpkin in the pies!" Out came the pies, lickety-split. Mom dumped the custard into a bowl, stirred in the pumpkin, returned the custard to the crusts and the pies to the oven. Another time she was making lemon meringue pies and cut her finger. Blood spurted into the lemon pudding. She scooped out the bloody spots and carried on. All the pies were fine. Trauma did not disturb their tastiness.
When my brother John was little, we called him Bill or Billy (from his middle name, William). When Billy was three or four years old Mom baked pies for dinner guests and put them on top of the fridge to keep them safe from Billy. Billy was climbing everything but Mom figured he couldn't climb as high as the fridge. Well! when she went to get the pies, she found that a giant mouse (couldn't have been Billy Boy) had nibbled the pies. Just goes to show that among mice or men, or small boys, there's nothing like a home-made pie.
GRANDMA ANNE GLEATON'S PIE CRUST
It's the crust that makes a pie a pie. This recipe produces flaky tasty crust, worlds away from the imitation cardboard you get in most commercial pies.
I have borrowed Kevin's version of his grandma's pie crust recipe from his Begged, Borrowed and Stolen Cookbook. He says one batch will do one pie with a lid or you can squeak out two bottoms for lidless pies.
Stir together:
3 cups pastry flour, sifted before measuring
1/2 teaspoon salt
Work 1/2 cup lard into flour with your fingers till it's the consistency of cornmeal. Lard should be soft so get it out of the fridge ahead of time, but not too soon in really hot weather. You want it soft, not runny. Same for the butter.
After lard is mixed in, work in 1/2 cup softened butter till you get pea-size lumps.
Now sprinkle a scant 1/2 cup of ice-cold water over the surface. Use as little water as possible, just enough to shape the dough into a crumbly ball. It doesn't need to be 100% mixed; it will finish mixing as you roll it out. The less you work the dough after water is added, the more tender it will be! And never re-roll the dough-guaranteed to be tough if you do. Just make Grandma's Cinnamon Pastry Crisps with the scraps.
Roll dough about 1/8" thick into a circle big enough to cover the pie pan and hang over the edge a bit. Transfer circle into pie pan. With your fingers, shape pastry to fit snugly into the pan, then trim off excess dough with a knife. Make a fancy edge by pressing dough with a fork, or flute the edge by going around the pan with your thumb, pressing on the dough and turning it over-and-down with each move. Or try making a small braid from the dough and laying it around the edge. For a lidded pie, flute the edge after you've added the filling and the pastry lid.
For a baked pie shell: bake at 400° for 5 to 10 minutes, till ever so slightly browned on the edges.
GRANDMA ANNE GLEATON'S CINNAMON PASTRY CRISPS
When these come out of the oven, put them on a rack and step aside. The kids have been waiting impatiently for them. The crisps won't even have a chance to cool before they disappear. My son Chazz says he liked Grandma's pies but these treats excited him even more than the pies.
Take leftover scraps of pie crust and lay them on a baking sheet. Don't reroll them, just use them in any shape they come. Spread the scraps generously with softened butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar-not too much sugar or the pastry won't be crisp. Bake at 400° for 5 to 8 minutes, till golden. Watch closely so they don't burn.
LEMON MERINGUE PIE
I liked all of Mom's pies but my favorite then and forever is lemon meringue. It's my idea of a heavenly way to celebrate my birthday. My grandkids think it's funny that their grandma shows no excitement about things chocolate but gets all lit up at the mention of lemons. Too bad chocolate snagged Theobroma cacao-"food of the gods"-as its botanical name. I think lemon is more deserving of a divine appellation.
In the Catholic calendar my birthday, August 15, is Assumption Day, the day another Mary, the Virgin Mary of Christendom, was "assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." It's a major feast day in some Christian churches but Assumption Day didn't excite me, even though I share my name with the Virgin Mary. Things changed recently: August 15 was named National Lemon Meringue Pie Day. Now there's a day for me!
Making an LMP is a three-stage process: make the pie shells, fill them with Divine Lemon Pudding, top with Crowning Glory Meringue. Again I'm borrowing Kevin's recipe. Kevin advises: "Don't be stupid, just make these for your Mother or your Grandmother." Now there's a son for me!
Pie Shell
You need a baked pie shell for a lemon meringue pie. A glass pan is good because glass won't react with lemons' acidity
DIVINE LEMON PUDDING
Kevin wants to acknowledge that while his Grandma taught him to make pie crust, his big sis Kharran taught him how to make the lemon filling. For my birthday, Kev usually makes three pies at a go, one for the party, one for the after-birthday "share pie," and one for my private and personal pleasure. He and Paula double-team to quicken the process. Paula processes the eggs and lemons while Kev makes the pudding. My job is to lick the pot.
This recipe suffices for one pie, though when I queried Kev about the measurements for a one pie version of LMP, he replied: "What one pie version??!! It is not possible to make only one and should never be attempted! Do you know my mother? You daren't mention only one to her."
Never mind. Just remember: I get to lick the pudding pot.
Do this first:
Get 3 tablespoons butter out of the fridge to warm up.
Separate 3 eggs. Save whites for meringue
Grate 3 tablespoons rind from 2 or 3 lemons.
Squeeze 1/2 cup lemon juice from the lemons.
Mix together in a heavy saucepan:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
Gradually add while stirring:
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups milk
Mix well. Then cook on medium heat, stirring constantly with a flat-bottomed implement until mixture thickens and starts to boil. Reduce heat and cook 5 minutes with the lid on, stirring a few times.
Meantime, lightly whisk the egg yolks. When the pudding is cooked, whisk about 1/4 cup of the hot pudding into the yolks to temper them. Whisk briskly. This raises the temperature of the egg yolks gradually so they don't curdle. Then add the yolks all at once to the pudding in the pot while stirring briskly. Mix thoroughly. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and stir in the butter, lemon juice and lemon zest. While it is still warm, pour the pudding into the baked pie shell. Give the pudding pot to your mother to lick, then make the meringue.
CROWNING GLORY MERINGUE
Beat until they start to stiffen:
3 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Continue beating while gradually adding:
1/4 cup sugar
Beat to stiff peaks. Cover the pudding with meringue. Make the meringue in the center deeper. Create peaks here and there by dipping a rubber spatula into the meringue and slowly pulling it straight up. The peaks will make a spectacular-looking pie.Bake the pie in a preheated 350° oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until the meringue is golden-brown. Let the pie cool completely before serving, so the pudding becomes firm.
YANKEE BAKED BEANS
Later in life Mom tried baked beans with ketchup and other ingredients, but these were the beans we ate in our early years on The Farm. Not as sweet as some versions but mighty tasty. It's a good idea to use soft or distilled water if your water is hard.
Mom followed the New England tradition of long, slow baking. In earlier days, housewives put the beans to bake on Saturday night so no cooking needed to be done on the Sabbath. Mom soaked hers overnight and started cooking them early the next day. From Mom's morning letters to me: "Can you...smell the slightly acrid smoke from the woodfire built to cut the morning 52° chill and to give those good old baked beans a good start?" (10/2/1953), and "I must set bread, start beans for baking, and do the dishes before I can paint" (10/10/1953).
This recipe will satisfy a hungry horde of six or eight people, especially when served with Mom's fresh baked yeast bread or her Golden Cornbread. We liked to accompany the eating of the beans with the old playground chants: "Beans, beans, musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot" and "I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, I feed my horse on corn and beans."
Wash l pound white beans such as navy, pea or great northern beans. Put beans in a pot with 1 tablespoon salt. Add water until 1" of water covers beans. Stir. Let beans soak overnight.
In the morning, drain and rinse the beans. Return them to the pot with 1 teaspoon salt and enough water (or meat or vegetable stock) to cover the beans by 2". If you like, add any or all: carrots, celery, garlic, sprigs of herbs such as rosemary, sage, thyme.
Bring everything to a boil, then let simmer about 40 minutes, till the beans are tender and their skins break when you blow on a few beans in a spoon. Drain the beans, reserving the broth. Put beans back in the pot.
Make the cooking liquid by mixing together:
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 teaspoons Dijon or brown mustard
Pinch of salt
Generous amount of freshly ground black pepper
Add enough broth from the beans to make 2 cups, stir to mix well and pour over the beans in the pot. Now sauté in a skillet:
1/4 pound salt pork, chunked, or a few slices fried bacon or some ham
Generous amount of chopped onion (1/4 to 1/2 cup)
Add this mixture to the beans and stir well. Add enough reserved bean broth so beans are barely covered. Bring to a simmer. Put beans into an oven-proof dish with broth to barely cover. Smooth out the top. Bake uncovered in a 325° degree oven.
Check beans about every 30 minutes, stirring and adding broth (or water) to barely cover. The aim is to have the top layer of beans develop a tasty brown crust which gets stirred into the beans. For the last hour, add no more liquid unless the level gets too low. And don't burn the beans! Total cooking time: about 4 hours, till the beans are very soft and some are starting to burst.
Remove beans from oven. Stir well. If too dry, add water; if too wet, simmer on stovetop to reduce liquid. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. Serve with Mom's Golden Cornbread and chopped fresh onion.
MOM'S GOLDEN YANKEE CORNBREAD
"This is your great-grandmother's recipe for cornbread," I told my grandson Czar when I served it with chili. "And a damn good recipe it is," said Czar, reaching for another piece.
Mom's cornbread is made with yellow cornmeal and baking powder and is slightly sweet. It is golden, soft and puffy, in contrast to Dad's flat, crispy, crunchy South Carolina cornbread made with white cornmeal and no sugar or leavening, and cooked in an iron skillet on top of the stove. We devoured Dad's cornbread with boiled blackeyes or green vegetables and their potlikker. We especially liked Mom's with baked beans and chili.
Mom's recipe is basic to this type cornbread but I've changed a few things. She had less sugar; I prefer a bit more as the corn tastes cornier. She called for 4 teaspoons baking powder, but less will do. And I like to make 1 1/2 times her recipe for a 9" square pan because the cornbread is taller. Or double the recipe and bake it in a 13" x 9" pan. The big pan takes 5 to 10 minutes longer to bake. But don't worry about that. Just bake till done. You can also bake cornbread in an iron skillet.
I make it with Indian Head stone ground cornmeal, but use whatever you prefer.
Sift or whisk together in a bowl:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup AP flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix together and add to cornmeal mixture:
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup melted butter or any cooking oil (I prefer butter)
Beat not longer than 1 minute with an eggbeater, as Mom says, or with a fork-my preference. A fork does as good a job and is quicker to clean than a beater. Mixture may be barely combined or a bit lumpy or gloppy. Don't worry. It'll be fine. Pour into greased and floured 8" square pan and bake at 400° for 20 to 25 minutes, or 25 to 30 minutes if you're baking a once-and-a-half recipe. Always just till done.
SOUR CREAM CORNBREAD
Cornbread made with sour cream is more tender. I learned this when I opened a container of sour cream which was curdled but tasted fresh, though it hadn't reached its "sell by" date. So I used Mom's recipe with a few changes.
For the milk, substitute:
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
Also, add to the dries to account for the acidity of the sour cream:
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
KATE SCOFIELD'S LONG ISLAND CLAM CHOWDER
This is the chowder with tomatoes. The creamy chowder is New England style. Though she grew up only 40 miles from Manhattan, Mom thought of herself as a Connecticut Yankee, a Nutmegger, a New Englander. But she used her mom's recipe for Manhattan Clam Chowder, aka Long Island Clam Chowder.
The recipe calls for grinding the clams and veggies; I've substituted chopping with a knife, but grind away if you prefer. Mom and Nannie served their chowder with pilot crackers-big, round, unsalted crackers. If you can't find pilots, try oyster crackers. Or saltines. And a parsley garnish is nice. The soup is good reheated and freezes well.
You'll get 6 to 8 servings, especially if your diners know that a good New England dessert of apple or blueberry pie awaits them and they refrain from seconds on the chowder.
For about eight servings, buy 2 dozen chowder clams: large, rounded, hard-shelled clams. Put in a large pot:
2 cups water
2 dozen chowder clams
Bring to a boil and steam, with lid on, till the clams open up. Discard any unopened clams. Save broth; you'll have about 1 cup. Set clams aside to cool. When they're cool, remove clams from their shells and chop fine.
In a soup pot, fry till crisp 1/4 pound salt pork, diced into very small pieces. Or substitute 3 or 4 slices bacon, fried till crisp, then crumbled. Put fat bits aside.
In same pot sauté 1 cup onions, chopped fine, till onions are translucent.
Add clams, clam broth and salt pork (or bacon) to the pot along with:
2 cups water
1/2 cup celery, finely diced
1/2 cup potatoes, finely diced
2 carrots, finely diced
Black pepper
Do NOT add salt: clam broth is salty
Optional, any or all: 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme; 1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1 or 2 bay leaves Taste. Then add about 1/2 cup tomato juice. You want just a soupçon of tomato flavor; you don't want the chowder to taste like tomato vegetable soup. Simmer till veggies are done. Let soup stand a bit for flavors to meld. Serve with pilot crackers, oyster crackers, saltines or biscuits.
MOM'S SAUSAGE SAVORY
Like many family favorites, this recipe was in the cook's head, not on a piece of paper. Probably at a grandchild's request, sometime in the 1970s, Mom wrote the recipe on an index card for her recipe file. The amount serves only four people. Surely not enough for the six of us! And I recall that Mom cooked her savory in a certain pot on top of the stove, not in the oven.
I always thought "savory" referred to the tastiness of the dish, but my son Davey says Grandma taught him to make savory and that her recipe included the herb savory, either summer or winter savory. She didn't include savory on her recipe card, but that's no reason not to include it.
Slice sausage for 4 people and cook slowly in an iron skillet. Peel and slice onions to make 1 cup (more or less) and add to sausage. Cook onions only to translucent stage. Pour off excess fat and transfer sausage and onions to a large casserole.
Stir in 1 1/2 cups rice and 3 cups canned tomatoes or tomato juice. Put lid on dish. Bake an hour or two in 300° oven. Or cook on stovetop at low heat for 20 to 30 minutes until rice is ready.
MARIA'S SAUSAGE SAVORY
Since for years I didn't have Mom's recipe, I created my own version: a bit different, just as tasty.
You can use any skillet or pot with an ovenproof lid, or do the sausage and onions on the stovetop in an iron skillet and transfer them to a lidded casserole dish. Or cook everything in a heavy pot on top of the stove, which is what I usually do.
Cuban oregano's botanical name is Coleus amboinicus or Plectranthus amboinicus, depending where the botanical name-changers (aka nomenclaturists) are at any given moment. For myself, I think of it as Plec ambo.
Sauté enough sliced sausage (sweet or hot) for your crew. Remove most of the fat from the pan, then sauté in remaining fat till translucent:
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup sliced celery
Add to pan and bring to a boil while stirring:
1 1/2 cups rice
3 cups liquid: tomato purée or juice or even tomato paste (mix with water)
1 teaspoon salt
Optional seasonings and veggies:
Fresh bay leaves
Chopped leaves of Cuban oregano
1 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped sweet peppers
Chopped hot peppers And of course, if you like:
Summer or winter savory
Stir well, put on tight-fitting lid and either cook on top of stove or bake in 300° oven for an hour or so, till rice has absorbed the liquid and is done. If more liquid is needed, sprinkle it over the rice.