Christmas Eats
Jana Richards
http://www.janarichards.com
My
maternal grandmother wasn’t happy unless we cleaned our plates.
Actually, she wasn’t happy until we’d stuffed ourselves silly and could
barely walk out of her house. She showed her love by feeding us, and
she loved us a lot.
Never did Granny show us more love than at
Christmas. In our family, cabbage rolls, tasty packets of ground pork
and rice, seasoned with salt, pepper, onions and garlic, and stuffed
inside leaves of sour cabbage, were staples at every function.
Depending on what had been raised the on the farm that year, we had
turkey or goose for Christmas dinner, expertly roasted by Granny to
crispy brown perfection. The bounty of Granny and Grandpa’s gigantic
garden the previous summer meant that we always had bowls filled to
overflowing with fluffy mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. In the
“not from the garden” category were salads made from Jell-o and canned
fruit cocktail, or perhaps Jell-o and mini marshmallows. Sometimes we’d
have lettuce salad, but the quality of fresh vegetables in our 1960s
small town store in the middle of a Canadian winter was hit or miss.
Always
accompanying the main dishes were homemade breads and buns that melted
on the tongue. The aroma of freshly baked bread filled Granny’s house,
making this simple staple a highlight of the meal. Next came an array
of pickles from the extensive collection in Granny’s cellar. There were
always pickled cucumbers, preserved with dill, garlic and tiny chili
peppers to give them a spicy bite. Granny also pickled beets, pearl
onions, carrots and beans in various combinations in a range from sweet
to spicy. If it grew in the garden, Granny pickled it, canned it, froze
it or preserved it in some manner.
And then, if we could
expand our stomachs just a bit more, along came dessert. The baking had
started weeks before with the fruit cake, stuffed with dried and
candied fruit in a moist, dark batter. Once baked, the fruit cake
needed time to age and ripen. Granny wrapped it in brown paper and
stored it under the bed until it was ready. There were cookies of all
kinds including jam-jams, two layers of moist cookie with homemade
raspberry or strawberry jam sandwiched in between. Then came Granny’s
famous butter tarts, a delicious concoction of butter, brown sugar, egg
and raisins baked inside a flakey tart shell. I have a memory of my
cousin and I sneaking into Granny’s freezer and stealing the tarts she’d
made for a special occasion. We got into trouble but it was worth it
for a taste of mouth-watering, sugary goodness.
But my favorite
dessert of all was strudel. The strudel was also made weeks before
Christmas and required a team to assemble. My mother, one or two of my
aunts, and perhaps a neighbor lady or two, arrived and the work began.
Granny mixed up a batch of dough for the strudel, a kind of phyllo
pastry that could be worked and stretched like a rubber band. Despite
its flexibility, the delicate strudel pastry required careful handling;
too vigorous a pull would result in a tear. Granny and her team gently
stretched the pastry, slipping their hands underneath and carefully
pulling and kneading until the pastry reached every corner of Granny’s
dining room table, an area about six feet long and four feet wide.
Sometimes
I was allowed to help spread the pastry with chunks of peeled apple,
raisins, generous sprinkles of cinnamon and sugar, and dollops of
butter. Once that was finished, I stood back and let the team begin the
delicate task of rolling the strudel. With one aunt on each end, one
working the middle, and Granny supervising the whole operation, the
strudel was rolled, jelly roll fashion, until it was a long tube
consisting of layer upon layer of paper thin pastry with pieces of apple
and cinnamon sugar trapped in between. Granny cut the strudel into
family sized portions, giving several sections to her helpers and
popping the rest into the freezer to be eaten at her own Christmas
dinner.
I looked forward to the strudel every Christmas. It didn’t feel like Christmas until the strudel had been served.
Our
family followed the German tradition of celebrating on Christmas Eve.
After the Christmas Eve children’s concert at the church, in which my
cousins and I recited our memorized parts and received a brown paper bag
filled with candy and mandarin oranges for our efforts, we all
congregated at Granny and Grandpa’s tiny house to open presents and eat.
Delicious cooking smells mixed with the cold night air as we entered
the front door. Pungent sour cabbage intertwined with roast turkey and
cinnamon and apples. Every window in the house fogged from the cooking
heat and steam. The house was filled to capacity with aunts, uncles,
cousins, grandparents. Though all the leaves had been placed in the
dining room table, we still had to eat in shifts, the men and children
going first and the women last. Granny would hover over us through both
shifts, refilling empty bowls, clearing dishes, and always exhorting us
to “Eat, eat!” We did our best to comply.
Granny’s been gone
now for many years, as are my father and grandfather and several of my
aunts and uncles. I live far away from the cousins I grew up with, and
don’t see them as often as I’d like to. Life now is far different then
it was in my childhood, and so is Christmas. It’s time to make new
traditions.
My daughters and I have attempted to recreate
Granny’s cabbage rolls, with mixed results. They might not be as good
as the originals, but the joy we get from making them together makes up
for whatever they lack in taste. We’ve replaced salads made Jell-o and
tiny marshmallows for ones with lentils, beans, and arugula. Apple pie
is substituted for apple strudel, the recipe for my favorite dessert
having died with my grandmother.
But one thing will never change.
Christmas means getting together with friends and family over a
sumptuous meal. For me, food is synonymous with love. When I find
myself telling guests to “Eat, eat!”, I think of Granny and smile.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Love memories, Jana! Now I'm hungry. I made cabbage rolls the other day which is a dish that always reminds me of my own grandmother.
Some of my fondest memories are of food! I'm not sure what that says about me, but they're happy memories none the less.
My husband actually made cabbage rolls this year, all by himself. My only function was as official taster. He did a great job!
I have wonderful memories of certain foods my Grandmother used to make... her special Italian dumplings and homemade pizza... just to name a few. :)
Oh my, that strudel sounds yummily delicious.
Foods do tend to trigger cozy memories...so I say bring it on!
Oh, yum, Jana! I loved your post.
I sure miss my mom's, grandmom's and aunt's cooking! Also all the fun we had when I was a child! I lost my parent's when I was a teenager, but I sure did have fond memories of all our holiday get togethers!
Post a Comment