More Thoughts on Recipes

Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, lettuce salad with tomatoes and Italian dressing; what I would consider now to be too much trouble, too time consuming to prepare on a week night, was regular fare on our table when I was a child. Beef stroganoff, thick with sour cream and tomatoes, served over plump egg noodles was a special occasion meal; my sister’s favorite birthday meal.

Fried salmon croquettes, fried potatoes, stewed tomatoes and cabbage slaw with a vinegar and oil dressing was a routine Friday night meal before Vatican II got rid of the no meat on Friday rule. Creamed tuna on toast was a Lenten favorite I crave to this day, but never prepare. It was made in the electric skillet. One of the few recipes that warranted pulling it out from underneath the kitchen cabinet and searching for the cord that seemed to be always missing. Creamed tuna bubbled in the skillet while slices of store-bought white bread were perfectly toasted. My mother cut our toast into triangles. I followed my Father’s lead and ate my meal with Heinz ketchup. Today it sounds disgusting, but I know it would taste delicious.

The first meal I ever cooked was browned steak and gravy, another weekly staple in the home of my youth. My mother was in bed recuperating from surgery and I couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. Every step I took in my new culinary experience was double checked with her. I was instructed to cut up the round steak into serving size pieces. This was the first time I had touched raw meat. I can still recall the cold, firm texture and almost smell the copper blood scent mixed with the standard refrigerator odor. Each trek down the hall to my mother’s bedroom gleaned detailed instructions on what my next step would be. Use the silver metal meat cleaver to pound the meat on the scarred wooden cutting board, sear the meat in the Dutch oven in a little Mazola oil, season with salt and pepper – three or four shakes, cover with water and put the lid on. Making the gravy was easy. I had seen mother do this hundreds of times. Use the glass peanut butter jar with the screw-on lid. Shake up water and flour until there are no lumps, add to the pan with the steak and stir like crazy until it thickens. I am certain my first attempt at gravy was full of floury lumps, but no on mentioned it, or if they commented I have forgotten. This meal was also accompanied by mashed potatoes, canned green beans, and a salad of iceberg lettuce. I didn’t know there was any other variety of lettuce until I went away to college. When the potatoes were served with this meal you had to make a well in the top of the potato mound to spoon the gravy into.

Comfort food is what we call these meals today. I prepared them occasionally when my children were young or when my father came to visit after my mother died of lung cancer at the age of 57. On one of dad’s visits, after I had proclaimed I would no longer fry food in my house because I didn’t want the smell to linger in my new custom made mauve (it was the 80’s) drapes, he tried to trick me into making one of his favorite meals, chicken fried steak. When I asked him what he would like for supper that evening, instead of asking for the chicken fried steak he knew I would refuse to prepare, he said, “Well, why don’t you get a little round steak and dredge it in flour and cook it up in a skillet with a little oil.” I would like to think that he got his chicken fried steak that night, but I truly don’t remember. It is more likely that we went to a local restaurant that was famous for their chicken fried steak.

When my children were young I mostly prepared food on the run between ballet lessons and play practice. Hamburger Helper, canned or jarred spaghetti sauce, bean burritos or tacos. There were many evenings we drove through a fast food hamburger joint or had pizza delivered. I shudder to think of the food legacy I have left my children. But interestingly enough, in spite or because of me, both of my daughters love to cook.

My oldest daughter lives in New York and has created a close-knit family of friends she prepares a meal for almost every Sunday night. My youngest daughter is a vegetarian and has developed quite a repertoire of phenomenal dishes. I am very proud of them and of their cooking and nurturing abilities; I know my mother would be, too. I wonder if my sister has mom’s recipe for beef stroganoff. I suddenly feel like cooking.