WHAT GRANNY COOKED
Penny for Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker
One thing I enjoy doing is cooking. I love looking at new recipes and trying various food preparations in the kitchen. Now I am going back to the 1950s and what food Grandma cooked for us. My Mom, brother and I lived with grandma and grandpa until I was 15.
We lived in the country and we always had a garden. Grandma put on a big sun bonnet and an apron and started her garden in the spring. She always planted and served Kentucky Wonder Beans. Oh they were beautiful, long and delicious. We all helped pick those Kentucky beans and then sit on the porch and cleaned (or snapped) them. She would cut up some ham and potatoes and cooked along with the beans. It tasted so good, I thought I had died and went to Heaven.
Another delightful dish grandma cooked was dandelion greens. She would pick the dandelion leaves when they were young and tender. Then after cleaning them, she boiled them and wilted them in bacon, vinegar and some sugar. I have never cooked dandelions or ventured out to pick them. But I do know I liked them and they were also very good.
Kalikamash was another staple dinner item. It was just a simple dish consisting of canned creamed corn and kidney beans, but when you served it over bread and butter, to a little kid, it was great. We ate cube steak, pork chops and these favorite Chicken and Dumplings. I posted a recipe online for Granny’s Chicken and dumplings and lots of people thought it was too lazy of a way to make them.
The dish was really good and I have continued to make them throughout the years. The recipe she used was 2 cans of chicken noodle soup brought to a boil and the dumpling recipe on the Bisquick box. The dumplings are big and fluffy and served over mashed potatoes. Yum!
Granny also made sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, and chocolate cake. Popcorn was a good snack, but we did not have not have microwave popcorn then. We took an old seasoned iron skillet, added a spoonful of lard or bacon grease let it melt, added the popcorn, put on a lid and for some reason we shook the popcorn skillet as it popped. It was so good for a snack with a big red juicy apple.
When I got married, my husband’s mom did not cook food like my family. Things like eating dandelions, kalekamash, dumplings, Shelled Kentucky Wonder beans and even the way we made chili he didn’t care for. Grandma put macaroni in her chili and that was a no-no but it made it go further. So, I got a whole new cooking lesson and combined what I knew and what I didn’t know.
When growing up we never had Spaghetti, baked potatoes, tacos, pizza, and the only fish I knew existed was fish sticks. Grandpa always bought bananas when they were ripe and black . I thought they looked and tasted awful. So then I believed all bananas were black. Now I love bananas as long as they are just ripening and even a little green.
In fact when dating my husband, I had never eaten shrimp before. So he took me out for a shrimp dinner and I did not know any better and I ate the tail too. Well he told me not to eat the tail, but I do love shrimp.
It is so funny how new foods and kitchen equipment changes through the years and how people cook different foods.
Well since we had the big snows this winter, I think of making Snow Cream. It is basically ice cream made from snow. Have you ever made it for your kids? One key to good snow cream is to make sure when you put your snow in the bowl that it is clean and white. Here is the recipe:
SNOW CREAM
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Dash of salt
• 12 cups clean snow or more to your desired taste
• Just stir it altogether and enjoy.
You might call me a “Foodie” and I guess I am. Basically all of our events and activities are based on food. Well it’s lunch time and it’s too early to get dandelions greens and most of the snow is melted, so I guess I will have a banana slathered with peanut butter.
What did you eat when growing up? Do you have any old recipes that you still make? Are you a foodie too? Let me know and I’ll give you a Penny For Your Thoughts!
