While on Facebook, I received an invitation to participate in the GeneaBlogger’s Picnic this week. I had to think about this one.
My family was never big on picnics that I can recall. I grew up in Northwest Texas and picnics were more trouble than they were worth. Between the wind blowing everything off the table and the dirt getting into the food - well, we just stayed home. If the weather was nice we’d go out to the back yard. If the wind picked up, you could easily move indoors. Even at Aunt Jewel’s house we’d just pile up at the kitchen and dining room tables. The player piano was in the dining room anyway. You couldn’t beat that.
So I don’t remember much when it comes to family cooking. Uncle Wayne liked to fish so we ate rainbow trout at his house. Uncle Winston had working bird dogs that we weren’t allowed to play with so we ate quail at his house (the one with the player piano).
Closer to home, I remember sitting down at my grandmother’s table one night, eyeing the mashed potatoes. I got a huge helping. It was mashed turnips. She made me eat the whole thing. I never ate a turnip again.
She had a dish she called goulash. Now we’re not what you would call an ethnic family of any sorts so it wasn’t true goulash, in the Hungarian sense anyway. When I would ask my grandmother “what we were” she had a standard answer, “English, Irish, Scotch and French”. She never elaborated but I found out years later that she was dead on. Anyway, back to the goulash - all she did was brown some hamburger meat with onions and bell peppers, add some noodles, canned tomatoes and cheddar cheese. I craved that stuff and still make it today.
Her specialty, however, was smothered steak. I think that was what she served with the mashed turnips that fateful night I mentioned earlier. It was simply round steak browned with onions and simmered in gravy for about an hour. I still cook that as well.
Now I also loved her roast beef with potatoes, carrots and gravy but I always knew what came the next night and I hated it - hash. She would put all the leftovers from the previous night together and serve over toast. I couldn’t stand for the toast to get soggy (from the gravy) and I would eat as fast as I could, which got me in trouble, of course. But wouldn’t you know, now I love hash. She had a good thing going after all.
Tags: Genealogy by admin
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