By Chelsea Patton
From a very young age, I had a hearty appreciation for food. I was adventurous and willing to try nearly anything offered to me. I was blessed with a mother whose passion for food and cooking was shared with me. Looking back into my childhood, I recall fresh from the oven artisan breads, romaine salads before every meal, and something Mediterranean on my plate for every meal.
Irish, English, German, Russian, Scottish, and Native American blood all run through my family, yet absolutely no Italian or Greek. Why then, does my family eat so much Mediterranean food, and what traditions have been derived from my family’s heritage?
I sought my grandmother, Linda Zwetzig, for an answer. When I recall eating at Grandma’s, I recall a traditional English fry up, with bacon, or sausage, eggs, toast, garden tomatoes, the works. However, since my mother was deemed the family cook, she would take over the cooking from there. My grandmother’s cooking was otherwise unknown to me.
‘We ate a lot of beef’
I decided to ask her what foods she was raised eating in rural Nebraska in the 1950s. “We were pretty much a meat and potatoes family,” she told me. “We ate a lot of roast, meatloaf, a lot of salads, fruits, but really a lot of beef.” I was surprised to find so much beef in her diet, since I was raised on far less, but at last I could see where my salad before dinner tradition had formed.
“Why so much beef?” I inquired.
My grandmother just laughed, and with her usual striking energy, joked, “This is Cattle Country! If you took my beef away, you might as well shoot me!”
Finally, I inquired about the tradition of a hot breakfast every morning, and this is where the story begins to find conflict. According to my grandmother, it was just an economical thing she did when she married my grandfather, and it’s something she has been doing the same way for the duration of their marriage. However, my mother seems to recall eating a different breakfast. “[I was served] really nasty eggs with ketchup, which she used to microwave,” she scoffed. I could hear in her voice that her repulsion over the food had softened into a laugh over time when she joked, “No wonder I don’t like breakfast now! She didn’t love us then.”
I was beginning to see very little insight into the reasons behind my family’s eating habits by asking my grandmother, who as it turns out, wasn’t the primary cook for the household. I asked my mother about her nanny Dianne. If my mother had learned to cook from anyone, it was Dianne, who had even taught her how to bone a chicken, much to my mother’s horror at the time. “I would have just as soon cut off my fingers than cut that chicken,” my mother recalled. “If I thought it would get me out of it, I probably would have.”
The tradition that wasn’t catching
However, Dianne’s specialties were “farm foods.” I had reached another dead end in my investigation. I decided to search further back. Perhaps my great grandmothers had been influential. “Grandma [Betty] Beckley never let me cook with her,” my mother remembered. “It was always done. She was a real ‘Betty Homemaker,’ and the queen of make-ahead food.” As I thought I had reached another dead end, my mother began to shed light on what turn out to be some of the only family recipes, and more importantly, the very foods which make up my holiday memories.
My mom uses my her grandmother’s recipe for “Freezer Mashed Potatoes,” a mashed potato made ahead of time, and kept in the freezer until needed, then baked. Her seven layer salad sits on my table every year, but most importantly, I look forward to the cool, sweet, and texturally unique “Frog Eye Salad.” This was the dessert I would eat for days and days after the holiday.
While I was pleased to find some sort of long-standing tradition in my family, I still was no closer to finding the origin of my daily food choices. With no options left, no family member left out of our conversation, I finally resorted to asking, “Mom, why in the world do we eat all of these artisan breads, and light foods? Who taught you to make these?”
The answer was so simple. I was not eating secret family recipes. I was raised on the traditions of several celebrity chefs, expertly tweaked by my mother. Indeed, the Food Network taught my mother the art of artisan bread-making, and light flavorful meals. “[Mediterranean food is] healthy and fresh, and I’m health conscious,” she so simply stated.
I recommend we all question our eating habits, and their origins. While I uncovered no rich culinary history, passed down from generation to generation, it’s possible I uncovered my predisposition to hyperbole, passed down from my grandmother, to my mother, and to me, and one day, this flair for the dramatics, and the tweaked Food Network recipes will be passed down to my children.
Grandma Beckly’s Frog Eye Salad
Yields about 24 servings.
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups pineapple juice drained from pineapple
2 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 (16 ounce) package acini di pepe (pasta)
3 (11 ounce) cans mandarin oranges, drained
2 (20 ounce) cans pineapple tidbits, drained with juice collected for sauce
1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained with juice collected for sauce
8 ounces frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 cup miniature marshmallows
In a sauce pan, combine flour, 1/2 teaspoons salt, sugar, pineapple juice and eggs. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened. Remove from heat; add lemon juice and cool until it reaches room temperature. Cook pasta in 3qts water using remaining salt until pasta is al dente, then drain. Note: pasta will cook very quickly. In large bowl, combine pasta, sauce, and remaining ingredients. Mix well, and then chill the salad for at least 4 hours.