Exploring my Mother’s Recipe Box
Dear readers,
As mentioned earlier, I am creating a hybrid autobiography and cookbook from the best of my three years TarteTatinTales posting. While I piece this puzzle together, working with the edited copy provided by my diligent friends, Jan Hazard and Beth Cotenoff, I propose offering you a glimpse into how the book will look. Once the text is sent off to the publisher, I will resume writing new material. Up first will be a posting on how our taste buds change over time. Think Nutella to Jacques Torres Chocolate.
Enjoy this chapter about my mother’s recipe box.
Family heirlooms comes in all shapes and sizes. My all-time favorite is a small, wooden box, faded red in color and hand-painted with quaint Pennsylvania Dutch flowers. Its contents? My mother Helen’s recipe collection.
In my family, food was serious business. But just imagine my surprise when I recently opened the box and pulled out the first hand-written index card. It read:
“In case of my death, this recipe box and all the recipes inside will be given to Marsha Palanci-Lauber with the stipulation that any recipes that her sister Sharon Palanci-Boss wishes will be copied for her.” That’s keeping all the culinary jewels in the family!
Taking a deep dive
In a moment of nostalgia, I decided to spend some quality time with the contents of my mother’s recipe box. Pausing for a moment, I thought about the laborious nature of her collecting and writing out each recipe by hand. In contrast, today, all we need to do is search online and gather our favorite recipes using a special program or an app like Paprika.
Reading through my mother’s neatly categorized cards was like perusing a book on recent American food history. Except for family recipes handed down from multiple generations, most of what Helen collected was from the 1950s. This post-WWII era was one which welcomed a new age of prosperity in America after a period of government rations and lean pantries. GIs returning home from tours in Europe and the Pacific introduced their wives to new, exotic flavors. American food companies rushed to “Americanize” the dishes soldiers had experienced abroad: lasagna, pizza, and barbecued meats covered in Polynesian sauces.
The advent of convenience food
This was also a time when manufacturers devised all sorts of new convenient food items as well as cooking gadgets to reduce homemakers’ (as they were called back then) time in the kitchen. These trends were vividly reflected in my mother’s choice of which recipes she saved, the type ingredients she used, and the cooking method.
Back then, recipes were mostly culled from friends and family who liked to cook and show off their culinary prowess. My mother also clipped ideas from local newspapers, women’s magazines, as well as the back of packaged goods like Campbell’s soup. Some of the standout recipes which fascinated and/or amused me included:
· Bavarian Party Dip: Braunschweig mixed with sautéed onions, cream cheese, and black pepper.
· Crunchy Chicken Casserole: Cubed chicken combined with canned Stokely’s “finest sweet peas,” sliced celery, mayonnaise, grated onions, and lemon juice topped with grated, pasteurized, processed American cheese (a food oxymoron) and crushed potato chips.
· Italian Gnocchi de Patate made with Idaho mashed potato granules.
· Raspberry Poke Cake: A Duncan Heinz white cake mix baked and poked with a fork, then filled with raspberry Jello and topped with Dream Whip.
When my mother’s recipes called for fruits and vegetables, they were mostly canned or frozen. Why bother with fresh—which often was out-of-season or hard to find—when you could take a shortcut?
Discovering a new way of eating
I was struck by some of the frequently used ingredients such as canned soups, oleo margarine, canned grated Parmesan cheese, dried onions and garlic powder, boxed puddings, and Miracle Whip. As a young child, I thought Miracle Whip was just another brand of mayonnaise in a jar. I had to wait until my junior year abroad in France to taste the real thing.
Today, we’d likely scoff at using so many processed foods. Instead, “fresh, fresh, fresh” has become our mantra. Those of us who claim to be serious “foodies”—a term which certainly didn’t exist in the 50s—opt instead for seasonally-available produce at CSAs, local farmers’ markets, or high-end specialty food stores. We make our own broth. We seek out artisanal producers of cheese, bread, and charcuterie. We like to think that our food choices, preferably organic, are best.
Hints from Julia and Heloise
But I digress. My mother’s recipe box was filled with clipped articles carefully pasted onto index cards. She was partial to what Julia Child had to say in her popular Parade column. One of my favorites was Julia’s column “Beans & the Toots Effect.” In it she recommends that you soak dried beans in three times their volume of water— “or ten times, say the scientists, if you are feeding a serious tooter.”
Helen was also a devotee of the “Hints from Heloise” weekly newspaper column. One of her recipes caught my attention: the one for exterminating roaches. Don’t laugh, Heloise guaranteed it worked! Since many of us New Yorkers face the problem, I am sharing this with you. Pay attention.
“In a large bowl, mix 16 ounces of powdered boric acid, one cup flour, one quarter cup sugar, one small, chopped onion, and one-half cup shortening. Add water (a small amount at a time) to form a soft dough. Shape into small balls and place them throughout the house in places normally inhabited by roaches but KEEP THEM OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN AND PETS. —Hugs, Heloise”
Delicious family heirlooms
Please don’t think that I am making fun of my mother’s recipe collection. Not in the least. They also included some delicious recipes from my grandmothers, aunts and cousins—all talented home cooks— for Italian pasta sauce, biscuits, meatballs, scalloped potatoes and more. These index cards have been ear-marked to try later. The best of what I discovered, however, which I had to make immediately, was the family’s “secret” recipe for applesauce cake. It’s included in this book. Don’t miss it, it’s a keeper.