Food Memories

Some of my favorite books have been books with recipes on them. It is fascinating the way an author uses food to reveal a character's personality, soul and history. Well, who has not been shaped up by food or the lack of it.

I was raised by my grandmother while my mother would work and her cooking was exceptional. Simple recipes with simple ingredients. Staples on the everyday menu were of course, beans and flour tortillas. The best flour tortillas I have ever had; freshly made for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. She would not make us eat a reheated tortilla. If for any reason, a couple were left from the previous meal, she would try to slip them on the stack of freshly made ones but we always could tell them apart. Reheated flour tortillas smell and taste different than fresh ones (a connoisseur is talking here). No food was ever wasted; her second attempt would be to fry them and put beans on top. We loved them like that. My grandmother would be cooking flour tortillas and bringing them to the table from the stove as we were eating. She never sat down with us to eat. She would eat at the kitchen, standing or at the table after all the family had eaten. I probably asked her once why wouldn't she sit with us and she probably brushed me off with a comment of how she preferred it that way. My mother now does it with her grandchildren but she sits with the adults after she is done cooking.

My grandmother could whip up a meal for 5 with one egg, a tomato and plenty of "chile piquin" (those tiny red hot peppers) from her chili plant. I remember that she would make a very hot sauce and add it to the scrambled egg. Now, I laugh of her resourcefulness. We would dip our tortilla on the "egg salsa" and spoon some beans with it. We would say "esta picoso, guelita" and kept eating. How I miss her cooking, specially those tortillas.

Some books with recipes I have read:

-Like water for chocolate. I have prepared the "Codornices en petalos de rosa"

-Afrodita by Isabel Allende. A collection of memories and recipes.

-Secrets of the Tsil Cafe. A novel about a boy growing up around his mother's and father's cooking; includes 26 recipes.

-Hallelujah! The Welcome Table. This is more of a recipe book with stories. Love the banana pudding, caramel cake, braised cabbage with ginger and the best one of all, smothered chicken.

May 1927 Needlecraft Magazine Recipes

Ok, time to share some recipes from my personal stack of old magazines. The article is titled Special Recipes for Simple Foods and they list recipes with potatoes, apples, rice, etc. Pretty simple ingredients, ah?
A Potato and Onion Soup, Full of Food Values
1 cup chopped onion or leeks
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons bacon fat
2 large potatoes
1 bay leaf 1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons tomato catsup
1 stalk chopped celery
1 quart cold water
salt and paprika to taste
Cook onion or leeks in the fat for five minutes, but do not brown. Add the cold water and seasonings, cover and let simmer for twenty-five minutes. Add tje potatoes pared and diced and cook until they are soft. Then pour in the milk; thicken with the flour smoothed with the cold water, and stir until smooth. Serve with toasted whole wheat bread, and stewed fruit and cookies for dessert and you have a supper fit for a king and so good for a child!
Apple Indian Pudding
2 cups quarted apples
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup molasses
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups milk
cinnamon and nutmeg
Scald the milk, and pour it over the cornmeal; add the remaining ingredients, mux well, pour into a buttered baking dish and cook in a slow oven about three hours.
This last recipe makes me think of winter. I love the smell of cinammon and nutmeg during Christmas and it sounds like a great way to warm the house when is cold outside. I have to believe that up north days are still cold during May bacause there is no way I am preparing this recipe here in Texas where our days run in the 90's F. at this time.
Now, this next one sounds not very appetizing to me; never mind an adolescent. Yes, I remember how selective I was with my food.
An Iron Soup for Adolescents
Put three slices of graham bread, two heads of lettuce and a slice of onion through the bread chopper. Simmer for half an hour, covered, in four cups of water or meat stock. Thicken with four egg yolks well beaten (do not boil) heat over a low flame for 2 minutes. Just before serving add the stiffly beaten egg whites, salt and pepper and half a lemon sliced.
If you try it, let me know how it turned out.

Happy Mother's Day!

I've decided to take the blogging matter easy. I will post as I feel comfortable. It is certainly not easy to find interesting things about what I do all day. Mostly is taking care of my two princesses. I am as many may say an overdoer on the mothering role. I believe in constant supervision, I mean constant. I wish I was not the anxious kind and be more relaxed but I am working on it. My poor first child was never put on the floor until she was almost 9 months. I was affraid she would slip and bang her precious little head. Her pediatrician had to tell me "She will be fine." But I most say in my favor that, eventhough my heart is constantly jumping, I decided a long time ago to evaluate and observe until they get into a not so safe situations for me to interfere. That I've become good at. My wish of wanting to transmit confidence to my children is greater than my fears.
I want to wish a very Happy Mother's Day to all blogging Moms which I must say inspired me to start my own blog. Also, Feliz Dia, Mama! Te quiero y tus nietas tambien.
I am proud to say I was raised by two wonderful women. My grandmother, Lupita and my mother, Juanita. My grandmother was a lady with strong convictions of what she wanted for her children, specially her daughters. She had 5 daughters and 2 sons. She learned to earn her living since she was five from her mother who was not exactly a loving or kind woman. She was poor and overworked for a good portion of her life. Living in a time,place and class status, where everything would stand against a woman, she managed to provide trades and education to all her children. A natural born economist, she always provided plenty of food,clothes and shelter to all. She worked from home making flour tortillas (the best I've ever tasted), bread, sewing, washing clothes, ironing (yes, coal iron)and anything that could make a decent peso. My mother remembers that my grandmother would often miss school presentations because she did not own a good pair of shoes. Poor and with so many needs but she never sent her daughters to clean other people's homes where they could be abused and molested by the owner. A risk she would not take.
My mother is my other hero. A woman that inherited her mother's strong convictions and honesty. Add to that generosity and servitude and you have a woman with a big open heart. She helped her mother to provide education for her younger siblings from the time she was 15 and started studying to become a teacher. A hard working woman who had her share of struggles thru life but decided to always present a brave face to us, her children.

April 1921 Needlecraft Magazine recipes

I always have loved to read cooking books. I do not cook much but I like to read recipes as if they were short stories. Now, that I have a good selection of old magazines, I love to see what women used to prepare for their families. It surprises me how simple many of these recipes are. Here are a couple of them.
Egg-and-tomato Entree
Heat to the boiling point one cupful of canned tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and add a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, a saltspoonful of bicarbonate of soda (cooking-soda). Two cupfuls of grated cheese and three-fourths of a cupful of milk and cream. Stir until the cheese is melted, take from the fire, add two well beaten eggs, pour into individual casseroles or into one large baking dish. cover the top with bread-crumbs and brown in a hot oven.
Celeried Oysters
Cook one pint of oysters in their own liquor until their are plump. Drain and then strain the oyster-liquor and to it add enough cream to make one and a half cupfuls. Melt six tablespoonfuls of butter, add five tablespoonfuls of flour and stir to a paste. Pour in the liquor gradually and beat until creamy. Season with salt, pepper and celery-salt. Add the parboiled oysters and cook until just at the boiling-point. Season with salt and pepper. Pour this over slices of hot buttered toast and sprinkle with finely chopped celery.

Old time recipe

Last year I bought about 50 Needlecraft magazines ranging from the 1920s and 30s. I love them they are full of crochet, tatting, embroidery and old time recipes. My only frustration is that many of the sewing and embroidering patterns are only advertised and not explained. Still they are pretty to look at.
Here are a couple of recipes from the March 1920 issue.

On Cooking for the Sick.



Ordinary Beef-Tea



Take one pound of rump-steak and remove all fat and gristle, cut into strips and shred it by scraping on a board with a knife until all the pulp is removed, and there is only a stringy white mass left in the hand. Put the pulp into a bowl and pour on it one pint of cold water and allow it to soak for twenty minutes or half an hour; then pour it into a jar and cover it securely, first with the lid, then with strong paper. If there is no lid to the jar, then with strong, greased paper. Stand this in a saucepan of boiling water for three hours (by cooking in this way it never boils). When done, stir it once or twice, then pour it off against the lid, not strain it, which would remove the brown particles. Remove the fat by drawing soft paper over the surface, or if it is left until cold it will come off in a cake. Serve in a cup with toast on a side.

My grandmother would make us chicken soup when we were sick but I had never heard of beef tea until now. I found very similar recipes called English beef-tea, no wonder I never heard about it growing up. I think I would love it on those days after a stomach flu. Or even now when I get bad nausea, I will add my Mexican taste to it and squeeze a few drops of lemon and maybe a slice of jalapeno, just for a bit of fresh spiciness.



Peach-Foam

Peel and cut in small pieces three or four choice and very ripe peaches; or you can substitute canned ones of the best grade. Put one cupful of this into a bowl, with a half cupful of powdered sugar, and the white of one egg. Beat with a fork for half an hour, when it will be a thick, perfectly smooth, velvety cream, with a delightful peach flavor.

I am not sure I would like this if sick. But I know I will not like to prepare it if it takes half an hour of beating.