My paternal grandmother was a farm wife from Kansas and most of my memories of her involve the kitchen and food. She loved to cook and was a really good cook. Pies were deep dish and cookies were monstrous big - nothing stingy about sweets in her house. I also remember her making noodles and draping them over chair backs and curtain rods on clean white dish towels. And my dad and his brothers would cut all of the crust off a fresh loaf of her homemade bread and eat it before anyone else had a chance. That brought scolding from her, but also a smile. She taught my dad how to cook and passed along that love of cooking to him as well.
My maternal grandmother lived a block from my Minnesota childhood home and I saw her almost daily growing up. Very few memories of her involve food. I don't think she enjoyed cooking. But she did enjoy gardening, knitting, playing cards, and watching the Minnesota Twins play baseball on TV. Grandma always had Schwans strawberry ice cream in the freezer which she would generously share, and I also fondly recall eating cinnamon toast for breakfast when I stayed overnight. Heavy on the cinnamon, just the way I liked it. She made cottage cheese - which I thought was pretty gross, straining it in cheese cloth over a bowl in the kitchen. But the worst thing I remember her cooking - frequently - was something she called New England Boiled Dinner. It involved ham hocks, parsnips, and cabbage. And probably other things too, but I mostly remember I didn't like the way it smelled or tasted.
So now that I've had my trip down memory lane, what foods do you associate with your grandmother?
3 comments:
I didn't know either of my grandmother's as both died long before I was born. I do remember Mom making noodles and draping the dough over chair backs to allow it to dry and rest a bit. Mom also made delicious bread. To this day, I prefer the heel of homemade bread over anything that comes in a plastic bag.
Autocorrect certainly does interesting things with punctuation. Aargh!
new england boiled dinner? we ate it often, a one-pot meal usually ham, cabbage, potatoes, carrots; sometimes turnips and beets....my grandmother was a pastry cook...pies, rolls, biscuits, bread, cookies, donuts, cream puffs, etc.
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