Nearly all of my early family food memories seem to 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. With their penny-wise upbringing and frugal lifestyle, my grandparents embraced the idea of hard work and the simplicity of daily life, which was reflected in their style of food preparation and home cooking.
Grandpa Young’s grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1800’s. They settled in southern Indiana, and over time acquired many acres of land and most of their large family made a living farming. The timeline thereby places my grandparents as young adults during the Depression years. 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 are not 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 or four 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 do not mean the Country Crock spread stuff we think nothing of buying at the grocery store today either. Honest to goodness butter. Despite the warmth of the bread, how come that solid white butter never seemed to melt?
As far back as I can remember there were always chickens on their farm, so that meant plenty of free fresh eggs. I even had my very own little red metal bucket, today displayed in my foyer, for gathering the eggs that Grandpa would pull out from under the laying hens in the nests that were lined up in rows along the walls of the chicken house. Occasionally my cousin Dan, who lived next door and was an early riser just like me, joined me at their house, and we sometimes asked Grandpa to cook eggs for us instead of having toast. That was one of the few times Grandma would 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 that is one skill I sure did not acquire!
Grandma was famous for her kuchen, which is German for coffee cake. Kuchen is made from staple ingredients like flour, eggs and brown sugar. What a wonderful way to create a treat like kuchen by using only the most basic of ingredients! That recipe was brought to America by my ancestors, and I am proud to say that each generation of our family has stayed true to it all these years.
My aunt and grandmother were both active in the little Methodist country church in Elberfeld, Indiana. Both were the church’s pianist and/or organist. At different times throughout the year, our church’s congregation cooked for the Kiwanis men’s club and also had bake sales or rummage sales. I knew when there was a church event of some kind happening when I went to Grandma’s on a Saturday. One look around at the 100 plus kuchen cooling throughout the kitchen, living room and front room told me she had been asked to supply the kuchen for an occasion of some kind.
My grandparents saved many things and reused them (they were recycling even before it was cool to go green!) For example, empty metal coffee cans kept saltine crackers airtight and fresh. And plastic sacks from bread and hot rolls were no exception. Those were cleaned and saved throughout the year, and that is what all her kuchen were individually wrapped and taken to church in.
Being farmers, my grandparents naturally had a large garden. Grandma spent many days in the hot kitchen, with only one old-fashioned black metal fan to circulate the heavy air, canning tomatoes, green beans and corn. Family members spent summer evenings under the big sycamore trees in the back yard snapping green beans for her to can the next day. It was a lot of work, but my grandparents’ priority was ensuring not a single vegetable went to waste and that there would be enough food to get through the coming winter months.
Fresh fruit made its appearance each summer. When peaches were in season, my aunt might stop at an orchard and bring home bushels of peaches for canning. How sweet those were the following February, unlike anything most people had ever tasted. Just like with the vegetables, canning fruit in such large quantities was viewed as being the cost-effective choice as well as giving my grandparents the security of knowing there would be enough food.
While there was very little spare time, the men in the family managed to get in some hunting. Hunting was viewed as much as a necessity for the meat as it was for the sportsmanship. Grandpa would clean what was killed and soaked the meat in salt water, changing the water out two or three times. Grandma then took over, and by the end of the day there awaited a meal of fried rabbit or fried squirrel in homemade grease 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 to others.
In conclusion, my grandparents’ hard work and simple lifestyle was displayed in their manner of home cooking. Only the passing of time has made me come to realize and fully appreciate how much their old fashioned ways in the kitchen shaped so many of my childhood memories.
Grandpa Young’s grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1800’s. They settled in southern Indiana, and over time acquired many acres of land and most of their large family made a living farming. The timeline thereby places my grandparents as young adults during the Depression years. 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 are not 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 or four 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 do not mean the Country Crock spread stuff we think nothing of buying at the grocery store today either. Honest to goodness butter. Despite the warmth of the bread, how come that solid white butter never seemed to melt?
As far back as I can remember there were always chickens on their farm, so that meant plenty of free fresh eggs. I even had my very own little red metal bucket, today displayed in my foyer, for gathering the eggs that Grandpa would pull out from under the laying hens in the nests that were lined up in rows along the walls of the chicken house. Occasionally my cousin Dan, who lived next door and was an early riser just like me, joined me at their house, and we sometimes asked Grandpa to cook eggs for us instead of having toast. That was one of the few times Grandma would 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 that is one skill I sure did not acquire!
Grandma was famous for her kuchen, which is German for coffee cake. Kuchen is made from staple ingredients like flour, eggs and brown sugar. What a wonderful way to create a treat like kuchen by using only the most basic of ingredients! That recipe was brought to America by my ancestors, and I am proud to say that each generation of our family has stayed true to it all these years.
My aunt and grandmother were both active in the little Methodist country church in Elberfeld, Indiana. Both were the church’s pianist and/or organist. At different times throughout the year, our church’s congregation cooked for the Kiwanis men’s club and also had bake sales or rummage sales. I knew when there was a church event of some kind happening when I went to Grandma’s on a Saturday. One look around at the 100 plus kuchen cooling throughout the kitchen, living room and front room told me she had been asked to supply the kuchen for an occasion of some kind.
My grandparents saved many things and reused them (they were recycling even before it was cool to go green!) For example, empty metal coffee cans kept saltine crackers airtight and fresh. And plastic sacks from bread and hot rolls were no exception. Those were cleaned and saved throughout the year, and that is what all her kuchen were individually wrapped and taken to church in.
Being farmers, my grandparents naturally had a large garden. Grandma spent many days in the hot kitchen, with only one old-fashioned black metal fan to circulate the heavy air, canning tomatoes, green beans and corn. Family members spent summer evenings under the big sycamore trees in the back yard snapping green beans for her to can the next day. It was a lot of work, but my grandparents’ priority was ensuring not a single vegetable went to waste and that there would be enough food to get through the coming winter months.
Fresh fruit made its appearance each summer. When peaches were in season, my aunt might stop at an orchard and bring home bushels of peaches for canning. How sweet those were the following February, unlike anything most people had ever tasted. Just like with the vegetables, canning fruit in such large quantities was viewed as being the cost-effective choice as well as giving my grandparents the security of knowing there would be enough food.
While there was very little spare time, the men in the family managed to get in some hunting. Hunting was viewed as much as a necessity for the meat as it was for the sportsmanship. Grandpa would clean what was killed and soaked the meat in salt water, changing the water out two or three times. Grandma then took over, and by the end of the day there awaited a meal of fried rabbit or fried squirrel in homemade grease 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 to others.
In conclusion, my grandparents’ hard work and simple lifestyle was displayed in their manner of home cooking. Only the passing of time has made me come to realize and fully appreciate how much their old fashioned ways in the kitchen shaped so many of my childhood memories.
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