It’s All About Grandma and GrandpaYoung!

Nearly all of my early family food memories revolve around being at Grandma and Grandpa Young’s house, whether it was a family gathering or just a couple of us. Spending hours and hours at their house meant I had the great fortune to eat many meals with them. It is only with time and raising my own family that I have grown up enough to fully appreciate the magic that was created in the kitchen.

Grandpa Young’s grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1800’s. They settled in southern Indiana, and over time most of the family made a living in farming. The timeline thereby places my grandparents as young adults during the Depression. They knew what it meant to make do with what little they had. They knew how to take a little and make enough. They knew what it meant to do without.

Fast forward in time to my grandparents becoming grandparents. Having grown up in the country and living across the road from their farm meant I was blessed with spending countless days at their house. Most kids looked forward to sleeping in on Saturday mornings. Not me; I got up early and was usually knocking on their back door so that I could have breakfast with them. Their breakfast rarely varied from corn flakes; you know, the kind that come in that giant box from Kellogg’s that has the big green and red rooster on it and that aren’t fit to eat without a few spoonfuls of sugar dumped on them first. Even at today’s prices, I think you can still get that same oversized box for about three dollars. Interestingly enough, I never joined them for corn flakes. Instead Grandma fixed me one or two pieces of toast loaded with chunks of real butter. I don’t mean this Country Crock spread stuff either. Honest to goodness butter. Despite the warmth of the bread, how come that solid white butter never seemed to melt? My cousin Dan was also an early riser, and if he joined me at the back door in time, we might ask Grandpa to make us an egg sandwich instead. That was the only time we could get away with asking Grandma to step aside in the kitchen as only Grandpa could make The Perfect Sunny Side Up Egg. He could fry it fast enough that the edges were crisp, but the center of the egg oozed bright yellow yolk. To this day I still do not know his secret, and one bite of my eggs would convince you that is a skill I sure didn’t acquire!

Grandma was famous for her kuchen, which is German for coffee cake. Kuchen is made with very basic ingredients like flour, eggs and brown sugar and baked for about 15 minutes. I am proud to say that the same recipe from the 1800’s that my ancestors brought with them to America is still being passed down in our family.
My aunt and grandmother were active in our little Methodist church in Elberfeld, Indiana. Both were the church’s pianist and/or organist. At different times throughout the year, our church cooked for the Kiwanis men’s club and also had bake sales. I knew when there was a church event of some kind happening as soon as I got to Grandma’s on a Saturday. One look around at the 100 plus kuchens cooling throughout the kitchen and dining room told you she had been asked to supply the kuchen for a church event of some kind.

My grandparents saved many things and reused them (they were recycling even before it was cool to go green!) And plastic sacks from packages of hamburger buns were no exception. Those were saved throughout the year, and that is what all her kuchens were individually wrapped and transported to church in.

Being farmers, my grandparents always had a large garden. Grandma spent days in the kitchen canning the tomatoes, green beans and corn that would be eaten during the winter months. The adults in the family spent many summer evenings under the big sycamore trees in the back yard snapping green beans for her to can in the pressure cooker the next day. I have read that home canning is on the rise again as people long to go back to a simpler time. Canning was a necessity and a way of life for past generations whereas today I question whether the motivation is the purely for the novelty.

Seasonal fruit made its appearance each summer at their house. What a treat when Grandpa made a trip all the way to some far away place called Posey County and brought home a watermelon! The whole family would gather for slice. When peaches were in season, my aunt would stop at the orchard and bring home bushels of peaches for canning. How sweet those were, unlike anything most people had ever tasted.

While there wasn’t much spare time, the men in the family managed to get in some hunting. Grandpa would clean what was killed, and when there was enough meat, at Grandma’s kitchen table we were likely to find a meal of fried rabbit or fried squirrel in gravy. From the reaction of my friends, I can tell neither of these appeared on most people’s dinner tables, but to us it was perfectly normal and as common as a baloney sandwich, only better! By the way, squirrel and rabbit taste like chicken.

Holidays were celebrated at my grandparent’s house. Thanksgiving was a family affair as we gathered for the traditional meal of turkey, home made dressing, corn, green beans and hot rolls. After candlelight services at church on Christmas Eve, the family would gather for a simple meal of barbeque sandwiches before we were tucked in bed to await Santa’s arrival.
In my family, my memories of food always seem to center around me being at Grandma and Grandpa Young’s house, enjoying simple but wonderful fare as a family or maybe just me and my grandparents.

Post 1-The Family Cook
Ask anyone from my generation on back, and I think most everyone will say that their grandmother was the family cook and memories of their grandmothers from that era center around her cooking and her kitchen.

The cooks in my family were both of my grandmothers. While I can name off any number of things that Grandma Powell was “famous” for, my memories are almost always of Grandma Young. Grandma and Grandpa Young were third generation descendants of German immigrant farmers who settled in southern Indiana. I lived directly across the road from them growing up, so I was fortunate enough to spend hours and hours at their house. And obviously I spent a lot of time eating there!

Remember, this was in a time before microwaves and frozen ‘convenience’ foods which are so much a part of today’s daily life. Grandma Young cooked most everything from scratch. I don’t recall her cooking anything that I would necessarily consider “her dish”. But there was always something in the oven; a pot cooking on the stove. A lot of time was spent canning vegetables from the garden. Grandpa would stop by an orchard and bring home boxes of peaches for her to can for winter eating. Having lived through the Depression, she knew how to use basic ingredients efficiently and sparingly. Sauerkraut and ribs and kuchen were frequently on the menu, keeping true to our family’s German roots. Going to town on Fridays and bringing home a watermelon in the summer was a treat like no other!

The men in the family have always been hunters. If there was enough game during the season, she nearly always fixed a big meal of fried squirrel or fried rabbit for anyone who cared to partake.

I only wish now that I would have appreciated now how hard she worked and had been able to ask her to pass down to me some of her recipes and tricks in the kitchen.

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School lunch...
I just don’t recall lunch time during my early grade school years! Maybe that is a blessing, huh? I do know that by my later grade school years (6th through 8th grades), my mom was packing my lunch pretty much every day because it was considered not cool or kind of gross to eat the school lunch.

As part of the back to school shopping experience, getting a new lunch box was part of the school supply list of must have’s, just like a box of 64 Crayolas and the Elmer’s Glue. I had all these dumb lunch boxes like Holly Hobby or a metal yellow box that was supposed to be shaped and painted to look like a school bus. The thermos was laid on its side in the school bus lunch box, and one morning my mom didn’t get the lid screwed on tight enough. Next thing I know it is leaking all over the bus (the one we were riding to school AND the lunch box shaped like one!) My whole lunch box was flooded, my lunch was gone and I think I even started crying as my best friend at the time walked the whole mess up front and dumped it out the door.

It’s hilarious that the people in class today brought up the Grade School Pizza. That is the only day that I bought my lunch! It must have been good at the time or maybe it was cool enough to buy pizza. But rectangular pizza is pretty weird now that I think about it. Also, I must have nearly dehydrated on those days because seriously, who the heck drinks milk with their pizza anyway?? Yuck!!

Hash Brown Casserole

One of my favorite dishes is hash brown casserole. Most people think of hash brown casserole as one of Cracker Barrel’s claims to fame. But luck was on my side, and before the building of the restaurant in both Evansville and Henderson, I was a hash brown casserole DIY’er.

I first discovered hash brown casserole at a Cracker Barrel in Nashville, Tennessee, as my family was passing through to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Up until several years ago, Evansville did not even have a Cracker Barrel locally or even within a reasonable driving distance. So stopping there was a southern treat, something that happened only on special occasions like vacations or visiting friends in Tennessee. It was during a trip down south that I had my first helping of hash brown casserole, and I was hooked!

One of my best friends, Janet, had moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, during our junior year of high school. We kept in touch with occasional letters and cards (this was before email became commonplace). One day I received an envelope in the mail from her, and to my delight, when I opened it, inside she had sent me a recipe card for hash brown casserole. Not just any recipe; she said this was in her Sunday Tennessee newspaper as the honest to goodness hash brown casserole recipe used by Cracker Barrel restaurants!

Obviously, I had to try that recipe over and over. While it is not hard to make, it does take a little time and there are certain ingredients to have on hand. It is simply not something I make frequently. Gradually over time, it has become a tradition at my house to fix a big breakfast on both Christmas morning and on New Year’s Day morning featuring a highlight of none other than hash brown casserole!

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I'm Darla P. This is my second semester at USI; I'm a nontraditional student returning to pursue a Bachelor's degree in either CIS or Finance. Currently I work in ONB's Marketing department, and I maintain the content and graphics on ONB's intranet and internet sites. Since I have a somewhat technical position at a bank, either degree will be of benefit!

I also work one week per month on call after hours for our ATM department. Luckily we don't have too many problems with our ATMs, so I don't have to go on a whole lot of runs. But sometimes receipts jam and I have to fix that or a machine runs out of cash and my partner and I (dual control when handling money!) have to refill it.

So working full time, part time, having kids and going to USI means I have zero life of my own. But if I did, I would probably like to spend more time in my garden and yard.