An Unexpected Cooking Lesson

It’s curious how common items either go out of use or their intended purpose alters. One of those is the nutcracker. Most people nowadays think this term refers to a seasonal ballet where they might enjoy watching children or grandkids dressed up as old-fashioned ornamental German nutcrackers wearing military-style hats or as dainty sugarplum fairies. Others may store treasured family heirlooms until they retrieve them to decorate their tree. I recently had occasion to realize that actual nutcrackers frequently found in auction boxes serve a real purpose.

As a kid, my family bought whole nuts at Christmas time and offered them in a decorative bowl along with a metal pincer-style device and a silver pick for getting at hard to reach nutmeats. This practice continued a custom both my parents grew up with during the Depression. Their frugal families passed on a ritual long followed by their ancestors.

At our house, one of those traditions included filling Christmas stockings with an orange, an apple, and either some unshelled peanuts or whole nuts. Knowing many generations practiced this holiday tradition reminds me of a time when fresh fruits and nuts were luxuries one enjoyed only on special occasions. Despite knowing I’d see nuts every holiday that required a special opener, I never considered the nutcracker tool an essential kitchen utensil until I recently received a 5 lb. bag of fresh pecans.

An Oklahoma friend lives near the many groves in Eastern Oklahoma and shared his bounty. When I first saw lumpy grocery sack, I imagined it full of ready to eat pecans. When I opened this treasure trove, I realized my mistake. This freshly picked harvest had gone through a mechanical cracker to make it easier to extract the tasty center. However, I had to peel away shattered outer husks and separate the two pecans halves each shell once protected.  

It didn’t take long to understand why nuts are holiday treats and why some people esteem pies, cakes, cookies, candies, and butters made with them. As a person who considers walnuts, pecans, peanuts, cashews, and almonds edible only when served by themselves but not in baked goods, I missed this message growing up.

After I spent a couple of hours freeing nutmeats from shells, I understand why I find nutcrackers at almost every auction I attend. They were essential in old time kitchens. Cooks didn’t go to the store to buy a sack of already shelled nuts. They roamed creek banks to harvest nature’s encased proteins and then spent hours extracting meats from hulls. Knowing how my grandmas made use of everything, I’m sure they saved the inedible material to create fabric dyes or enrich garden soils.

This lesson humbled me. I’ve enjoyed preparing family recipes from scratch for decades. I never considered how I take for granted buying already-ground flour or churned butter quarters at the market. This nutty experience reminded me that not-so-distant family cooks would consider such easy access to ingredients an extravagance.

In Praise of Wild Game

A fellow hunter recently posted an invite to his and another friend’s 23^rd annual wild game feed. We won’t make it this year, but seeing the reminder began a lively conversation at our house. We couldn’t help but talk hunting and its rewards—healthy, delicious meat, friendship, and great stories. That’s what this wild game feed is all about. Longtime companions joined by newcomers share their best recipes and swap tales as an October sun sets over Cedar Bluff.

As a cook, I love arriving at a cabin overlooking steel grey waters, red and sere grasses, and golden cottonwoods to discover counters and tables laden with overflowing pans and platters of meat. Old standards like grilled bacon-wrapped dove breasts or fried pheasant or quail tease nostrils and eyes as guests first arrive. Presentation gets creative. Innovative cooks deliver casseroles of wild turkey tetrazzini and enchiladas for those who like ethnic foods. We’ve had Asian variations and twists on McDonald’s McNuggets. Brave appetites savor rustic offerings like fried chunks of snapping turtle or rattle snake and the occasional mystery meat.

One year, a trapper froze some of his harvest in anticipation of this event. He and his wife marinated and grilled meaty strips for us to sample. A line of folks with empty plates kept him busy at a Traeger preparing second servings. Diners enjoyed debating the source of this food until he eventually told us we’d eaten slivers of bobcat steaks. Once he shared this info, several diners lost their appetites for this dish. I’m guessing they owned house cats. At first, I shared their response until I recollected reading trappers’ journals from the 1800s. Many of these historic writers praised cougar meat over elk or moose. I’d always wondered about this. After trying this smaller cousin of the big cat, I decided these old- timers’ praises had merit. 

While native game serves as the focal point of the menu, several cooks specialize in homemade jellies from wild fruits. One of the participants spends time in Montana every summer where he competes with bears to pick gallons of native huckleberries. His jellies and cobblers always get rave revues. Another friend brings her wild grape jelly that she makes in years when she can beat birds to the purple orbs. For those who’ve never tasted this treat, they’re missing out. Others offer chokecherry and wild plum syrups and jellies to slather on homemade rolls and biscuits. No one leaves hungry.

One of the organizers worked with a news writer who also contributed to Saveur foodie magazine. After attending as a guest, he joined us one year specifically to gather information for an article. He’d grown up in eastern Kansas and wasn’t yet a devoted hunter, angler, or wild game cook. After reading his article and seeing that he clearly understood the conservation ethic driving the efforts of these sportsmen, I was glad he shared their story. I hope his essay opened people’s minds about harvesting and preparing wild game.

While food is the focal point of this special event, the shared hunting stories make it memorable. This good friends’ feast weaves our lives together through shared hunting and fishing tales.

Grandma's Cooking Secret

As a self-appointed foodie, I often watch Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives for cooking inspiration. Guy Fieri’s success at seeking out eateries with reputations for amazing fare motivates me to look for excellent dining on road trips.  Because of my research, I have a list of favorite restaurants. However, none of these culinary institutions matches the quality or flavor of my all-time preferred place to eat, Grandma Lottie’s kitchen.

I suspect every one of my readers has a family member who manufactures unforgettable meals out of a bit of nothing. That person in our family was an apron-clad Mrs. Santa look-alike who could turn the simplest ingredients into  feasts for kings.  I can’t think of anyone whose salivary glands didn’t kick in overdrive just thinking about a meal at Lottie’s table.

She’s been gone for more than a decade, so I’ve had time to consider what made her food so memorable. Her ingredients were common staples: eggs, flour, butter, dried beans, inexpensive cuts of beef, chicken, ham hocks, milk or cream, and sugar.  She would have been uncomfortable in a big city deli-grocery with aisles displaying fish, adobo, or wasabi sauces.  A trip past a meat department show-casing octopus, squid, or raw sushi ingredients would have left her shuddering.

After seeing a Face Book post requesting Grandma’s hot roll recipe, I think I’ve identified what made her cooking noteworthy.  She made everything from scratch.  She cracked the eggs and added the flour that turned into noodles and dumplings she added to her chicken or beef broth. Her combination of meat, broth, and noodles ladled over a heaping mound of hand-peeled, hand-mashed potatoes was the true ambrosia of the gods. She created everything filling the huge bowls setting in the middle of her table.  Nothing came from a jar, can, sack, or box.

I recall standing beside her  as she kneaded her famous bread dough that turned into airy dinner rolls, comforting bread slices that were palettes for homemade jellies, or legendary cinnamon rolls.  I’d ask for her recipe, and she’d say, “Oh, I use a little of this and a bit of that and mix it til it sounds like I’m patting a baby’s bottom.” 

It took me 1000s of mistakes before I understood I didn’t have to use exact measurements when cooking.  I, too, could mix a little of this and a lot of that to create breads, noodles, dumplings, and pies that reminded me of Grandma’s.  All that practice was an opportunity to feel like a girl again, watching Lottie transform Gold Medal flour and eggs into golden strips of rich dough or whisking eggs, milk, sugar, and cocoa together to turn an empty pie crust into a chocolate meringue wonder. 

Grandma couldn’t afford fancy ingredients or kitchen gadgets.  She made do with inexpensive recipe components and trusted that her sense of taste and touch would turn those into something special to feed family and friends.  Those of us lucky enough to sit at her table will confirm she succeeded time after time at proving she was a wizard in the kitchen.

The lesson for those who knew her was that it isn’t sophisticated ingredients that make a meal tasty. It’s time spent making dishes by hand that creates family legends.  Every moment I stir, roll, cut, and otherwise produce meals connects me to a woman who blessed so many with her gift of turning the common into the uncommon. The pay-off for preparing homemade food is life-long memories.