Gladys, we need more bars!

What really spurred this whole blog idea was a conversation I had with my Memamaw a couple of weeks ago. It had recently occurred to me that, as I've mentioned before, we didn't eat like other southerners. When I was a little girl, my friends' were always talking about going to their Big Mama's or Granny's for Sunday dinner, which consisted of things that I'd only ever really heard of. I only recently learned the magic of the ham hock. Now, my Dad, he's originally from Alabama, so I'm sure his side of the family was eating all this good, southern stuff, but we never really did. I'm honestly not all that close to Dad's side of the family, so... yeah, when we ate something delicious and homemade, it was at my Memamaw's. She makes delicious potato soup, Swiss steak, and the best fried pototoes, Anyway, I decided to call her up and ask her, where are we really from, anyway? (I also asked her at this point to send me some cookbooks, if she didn't mind.)

It turns out that her parents are from Iowa, and they moved to Kansas at some point. My great-grandfather, Jim Yount, was a lobbyist for the Labor Unions in Kansas. There was recently a book published outlining his role in helping the unions form, and from what I understand, he also handed out pro-union balloons at county fairs. (The logic being, although some parents didn't like unions, they wouldn't tell their kids they couldn't have a free balloon.) He was also active in the First Christian Church in Valley Falls. I know this because one of the cookbooks my Memamaw sent me is from the First Christian Church, and he wrote a the foreward! (He also wrote a really awful book called "Colored Water", that was published but I could never get through. I think my mom's read it.)

The recipes in this cookbook, being a 125 anniversary addition, are extremely old-fashioned, and look really cool. I'll have to get into those later, though, because a lot of them feature things that I might have to go a-searchin' for, like a squirrel or grade A corn from the feed store.

For blogging purposes, I am starting with a recipe that I'm familiar with. It's my great-grandma Lola's Maple Nut Bars. We used to make these once a year for Christmas only, because they require a flavoring not readily available in Alabama- burnt sugar flavor. My Memamaw had a small stash that we eventually ran out of- and I think maybe once some one sent her another bottle, but at any rate, I don't think she has any anymore, and we haven't made Maple Nut Bars in quite a while. I thought that maybe Virginia was far enough North to have burnt sugar flavor in the grocery store, but it turns out it isn't, so I had to order some from the Spice Barn. Lo, it arrived some time yesterday, so that makes today THE DAY!

The second obstacle I ran into, after righting my lack of burnt sugar flavoring, was that the recipe calls for plumped raisins. I didn't really know how to plump a raisin. I don't remember plumping raisins. After looking it up online, I discovered that you can soak the raisins in any liquid- fruit juices, liquor, or water, depending on what flavor you want for your raisins. I just wanted regular raisin flavored raisins, so I soaked the raisins in warm water. (This is just riveting so far, right?) Also, the recipe calls for margarine, but all I had was butter. Mmm, butter.

The recipe also calls for three other types of flavorings- maple, butter and vanilla. I tried to look up when artificial flavors were first invented, but the internet came up bupkiss on that topic. I was curious because I'd like to know about how old the recipe is. Alas, if the internet doesn't know, who does? (Just kidding, I know it's probably in a book somewhere. Finding it would be the trick. Any librarians in the house?)

Once I creamed and blended and folded everything together, and spread it in the pan, I wasn't sure I had done it right, because the mixture wouldn't spread all the way out to the edges. But, once it was baked, it spread right out. Grandma Lola had noted that it might not look done after 20 minutes, but it looked perfect when it came out- golden brown and slightly crispy around the edges.

One of the things I'll probably appreciate the most about the recipe, is that my Memamaw made hand-written adjustments to it in the cookbook. I'm thinking my Grandma Lola may have been in her later years when she typed the recipe up, and some of the amounts seemed a little crazy. For example, as printed, before Memamaw corrections, it calls for a whole tablespoon of maple flavoring. That seems a little excessive, and apparently it was, because Memamaw fixed it. I just think it's neat that the recipe has been loved and worked with and adjusted.

A challenge I had was that Grandma Lola described a "thin icing of hot coffee, oleo, vanilla, and powdered sugar" which was to be drizzled over the top of the bars. No amounts listed, what so ever. I gave it my best shot, but I ended up soaking the bars in a sweet coffee butter mixture, which didn't turn out too bad, but now there will be no slicing and stacking the bars. They must be consumed from the pan.

I'm really pleased with my first attempt at baking a family recipe. They didn't turn out exactly like I remember, but still, they're delicious. Daniel says he didn't know how yummy raisins were once plumped.

Fork Me Some More Of That Ham, Ya'll.

"Too much pork. Just one fork. Won't you pass that apple pie?" ~ SCOTS

So, I want to start out by saying that I think the name of this blog sounds dirty. Dirtay! But it's good for a giggle, yeah?

I'm T's sister. And before this is over and done, I will probably be chastised for revealing too much information. Like real names. Need to work on this whole secret operative blogging thing the sis' has going. Espionage with a side of mashed potatoes, ya'll.

Food -- I like it! I eat it. I don't think much about it. Because I don't really have time to think much about it. And because I'm single and my idea of great cuisine is eating out at my favorite places in Birmingham. I blame my mom for this. I blame my mom for a lot of things. Hi mom! For the record, I also would like to thank McDonald's Happy Meals and my grandmother for this. Hi Mooma!

Interesting that T -- almost spelled it out -- wants to start a food blog about our family. Because recently I've been thinking about food at it's basic element. What is it? What is it's real purpose? How do I reprogram my brain to appreciate food, respect food, and respect my body with the food that I put into it?

I think another interesting area of exploration is to figure out how we have managed to jump so far from our, uh, "culinary roots." Because I'm pretty sure those roots didn't include my current staples of off-brand nutri-grain bars, raviolis with chicken and bottled primavera sauce.

I can tell you what it DID include though. The love of my life: Schweet tea bama biotches! Roll Tide!

Oooh....I think I feel a story or two coming on.

Searching

First, let me start off by saying this: I have spent a long time in my adult life thinking that I have no real interests. Or rather, no really interesting interests. I have always felt sort of average in this respect. I mean, I LIKE things, but other people seemed to be way more knowledgeable and passionate about all this important STUFF. My husband, for example, loves many, many incredibly interesting things, like history and genealogy and technology and robotics and programming and geocaching and electronics. He researches, and solders, and programs, and comes home with travel bugs and is just so darn covered up in hobbies it makes me fume with jealousy. How can he be so INTERESTED in STUFF and I'm just not? Recently, we had a son, and I was sort of shocked to learn that a section in his baby book was set aside just for parental hobbies. That section is still blank for me. I had no idea what to write down.

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in my job, which is teaching 6th grade. I want to know how to do my job better. And I'm definitely passionate about my son, who is precious and amazing and just so darn cute. But all of that is sort of generic. Doesn't EVERY teacher want to know how to do her job better, and doesn't EVERY mother just LOVE her own child. I've also labored under the assumption that everyone is equally interested in food and eating. But they're not. I mean, I think everyone is interested in not being hungry, but a lot of folks are just as happy with a frozen pizza as they would be with a fresh basil and tomato pizza with pesto and fresh mozzerella . Me, I am really tuned into what tastes really good- fresh, home-made, local. Not that I'm always successful at eating fresh, home-made or local, but I do appreciate those qualities.

I'm almost sort of embarrassed to list that as an interest. FOOD? EATING? It feels incredibly taboo to say it. In our health obsessed country, saying someone "likes to eat" is basically just a nicer way of saying they are a big mamma jamma. If I could place it on a continuum, I would say that "likes to eat" is on the bad end, with "watching TV" and "growing plaque in my arteries" while "likes to run marathons after competing in the iron man" is on the completely moral end of the line. But, if I am to be completely honest with myself, I am interested in food. Very interested. So interested, I plan to write about it. Hopefully a lot.

I grew up in Alabama, and for a long time I felt very deeply Southern. I am very much still in love with the deep South, even the heat. However, growing up, my family relied a lot on convenience cooking, and later we did a lot of low-fat dieting. Most of our eating was very modern, and had little to do with how my grandmothers and great grandmothers fed their families. While this kind of diet allowed for me, on the one hand, to be a very adventurous eater (dieting encourages you to try all sort of exotic fruits and veggies) and, on the other hand, probably allowed my mom to keep her sanity, I do feel a little disconnected from what I've termed my culinary roots- I know know very little about what my family has been eating for 100's of years. A lot of other people, whether they know it or not, are extremely connected to their histories simply by what they choose to cook and eat. I don't think I have that connection, and I would like to.

So, I'm setting out to try to learn a little bit more about my history through what was cooked where I'm from. I plan to try some old recipes from the midwest from my grandmother's cookbooks, and to try to learn from my Dad what the Alabama side of the family noshed on back in the day. Also, I'll probably add in some of my opinions about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I'm just excited to try and start learning a little bit about my family history through our cuisine. And I believe that's what this blog is about.