|
The Thanksgiving Family Table
I am on day three of preparing Thanksgiving dinner
and bored with the shuffle of ipod music so I turned to the
computer for kitchen entertainment while cooking. Then
I remembered your Hidden Kitchens series on NPR and thought
it would be a perfect accompaniment to my kitchen tasks. While
making the stuffing and apple pie I was listening to stories
of civil rights cooks, candy made in prison and burgoo. The
one that hit home the most was the story of the forager Mr.
Garro. My grandfather, born in Spain, was very much
like Mr. Garro and listening to this story made me nastalgic
for grandpa and his foraging for mushrooms and berries and
hunting pheasant and deer. Then remembering my grandmother
who's cooking was always wonderful and inspiring. What
a nice way to lead into the Thanksgiving family table. Thank
you for such a lovely series. Happy Thanksgiving!
Dawn Polvorosat
November 22, 2006
-----------------
BioWillie
Dear Kitchen sisters,
I thoroughly enjoyed your BioWillie story. I'm highlighting
it on the Society of Professional Journalists' News Gems
blog, which features the best in American journalism. You
can check out at www.spj.org/gems.
Keep up the great work,
Jon Marshall
Alaska's Hidden Kitchen
Hello Kitchen Sisters,
I just wanted to pass along what I, and
others, think is a fascinating hidden kitchen. In Alaska
everyone knows what subsistence is and most people who live
here practice it to one extent or another. People still hunt
and fish to fill their freezers every year here, we subsist
on the land and waters, and the environment is intact enough
and the population small enough that it is a viable way to
feed our families. This is especially important in the Alaska
Native communities in which susbsistence is both about food
and cultural integrity.
Currently, I live in Sitka, a beautiful temperate rainforest
town of about 8,900 people situated
on Baranof Island, hundreds
of miles from a connected road in southeast Alaska. The community
is comprised of an eclectic mix of people of Tlingit (Alaska
Native), Euro-American, and Phillipine heritage. People here
depend on the ocean, and its fish especially, for both commercial
and personal subsistence. All five species of Pacific salmon,
halibut, black and ling cod, shrimp, dungeness crab, and
herring are the backbone of life and food. Everyone has their
own version of brine for smoking their fish and most people
eat the relatively unusual delicacy of herring roe, spawned
from herring here every March during an exciting few weeks
when the ocean waters
of Sitka turn turquoise from the eggs
being laid on the shoreline. Fish are life here.
So, I know that Alaska is often the forgotten place on the
map of culture in the U.S., but communities here are close
knit and very colorful. I think this place would make an
excellent hidden kitchen. And if it helps, our local NPR
station, AKA Raven Radion, is our great link to the world
and is a unique mix of all the music and cultural tastes
of the community. Raven Radio is extremely well supported
by the whole town, so you'd find a great partner in them
if you came here to do a story.
Thanks for listening.
- Lisa
Grandmothers Kitchen
Dear Kitchen Sisters,
You've probably heard of this "Hidden
Kitchen."
You won't find it on a map, you can't get directions, no
one can tell you how to get there, but it is THE most incredible
Hidden Kitchen ever! It is my grandmothers kitchen which
now only exists in my mind. It is a place of great warmth,
love, generosity and understanding. Many a fine meal was
served there but mostly
love was the sustenance of the
day.
Amazingly,after all these years it's still there........serving
up fresh, warm memories on demand. I caught your interview
on KERA (Dallas). Your work is wonderful. Thanks for helping
me remember.
- Robert Coburn - Plano, Texas
Rutabager Lunch
Our family
friend Keith Patterson has been cooking up "Rutabagers" every
week for decades. Keith calls his dish "The Elixir
of Life" and claims it is responsible for his great
health and vitality at the age of 85.
Keith lives in Nederland, Texas. He grew
up in the East Texas piney woods and moved to Southeast Texas
to work in the Mobile Oil refinery. Nederland
is the only Dutch-founded city in Texas but, it's richly flavored
from all the Cajuns in the area as it lies about a half-hour
drive from the Louisiana border and the Gulf coast.
My dad and Keith have been friends for over thirty years.
They became friends through their love of antiques (especially
clocks), plants, pet birds, and good food. They get
together most every week for a rutabaga lunch and Keith often
invites the church staff, he calls "The Revs",
over to partake. One day the church preacher decided to try and cook the rutabaga
dish at his home and his wife threatened him with divorce
if he ever did it again. (Rutabagas are pungent.)
Like my dad says, Keith is one of the most alive men
I know. He is full of incredible stories, hilarious
coloquialisms, and a real love for life. It
must be the rutabagas.
- Ben Jones
Dallas, Texas
The Iron Range Food of Minnesota
My 98-year-old aunt recently moved to a dementia care facility
but she was renown for her
apple strudel. She used
to make several for her family of brother's and sisters,
13 in all, and then went on to be a concessionaire at the
Memorial Building in Hibbing, Minnesota. (During
the early years there, she developed and sold the first
ice cream bar covered in chocolate and rolled in nuts.) When
I visited her 6 years ago, I photographed the process she
used and wrote down her recipe. The Iron Range of Minnesota, where she is from, is a mix of
cultures and has food specific only to that region.
Aunt Mary Collyard used a strudel recipe brought by her
mom from Slovenia. It begins with
non-yeast dough that is rolled and shaped until it is "so thin you could
read the newspaper through it." (You really could!) It
would drape over the table on all sides like a tablecloth. Then
she rubbed it with butter, covered it with toasted breadcrumbs,
sugar, spices, and finally layered it with raisins and slices
of apple. It was then rolled and coiled and put in
a very large pan and baked. Served warm or cold it
was a delicious treat.
Another food item
indigenous to the Range is porketta. It is a boneless
roast of pork cut so it could be rolled around a mixture
of fennel leaves and chopped fennel, then coated with spices. This
is also served hot or cold and can be found at any Iron Range
event. Thank you for the opportunity to share these foods
that are disappearing from our culture. My daughter
is immersed in the culture and sociology of food. She
has often expressed a concern that someone needed to record
the foods of America. Thanks
to the Kitchen Sister, someone has!
- Patricia Foote
Dutch Ovens
Dear Sisters:
I hope you haven't left Texas
before checking out The Lone Star Dutch Oven Society at www.lsdos.com.
We exist for the purpose of keeping Dutch oven cooking skills
alive. We have many local chapters around the state that serve the purpose of teaching these skills. There
is also fun, food, and fellowship at these (usually monthly)
Dutch oven gatherings (DOGS). Once a year we have a "Big
Dog" in central Texas where all the chapters get together. Anything
you can cook on top of and in a stove, you can cook in a
Dutch oven. We share recipes and skills. Nobody
leaves hungry. One of the most valuable pieces of equiptment
that pioneers took west with them was the Dutch oven. Colt
wasn't the only "iron" to win the West!
-
Cheryl McRoy
Mennonites Ovens
"Dutch Oven" is a restaurant
run by Mennonites. All food is made from scratch. The menu
is
the Americana you remember from childhood. The staff
wear small caps and full sleeves, according to their creed.
Local people stand in line to wait for a table. It is located
on North Carolina Hwy 118, between Grifton and Vanceboro.
The immediate surroundings are farms and pasture, for miles
around. The restaurant used to be known as Bakers Square,
but Bakers Square relocated to New Bern. They share a building
with a hardware store. The hardware store sells furniture
crafted by Amish. Neighbors told us about the restaurant.
This sounds like the kind of kitchen you have in mind for
your show.
- Lloyd Arno
Hidden in the Home
Message: I would like to visit kitchens
in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and other Texas cities mentioned
on your July 20, 2006 show. It was so much fun to hear
your discussing these "kitchens." I'm from Louisiana
and lived in New Orleans during college. There were always
private homes in residential neighborhoods where one could
drop in for a meal. We loved it.
I have fond memories of going to the village next door with
my mother to have lunch with my father in one of the widows'
homes who provided meals. We dined in the garden on picnic
tables, under the shade of tall pine trees and took naps
on the grass. Makes me feel all cozy inside!
-Dorothy Davis
Mississippi Memories
I'm a transplanted
Northwesterner but was born and raised in the Mississippi
Delta. My father was a small town doctor; he began his practice
in the 1940's (I was born in Cleveland, MS in 1953, one of
seven children). Many of my father's patients were poor and
paid him for his
services in home grown vegetables.
I remember well waking up on a sweltering, humid, Mississippi
summer morning, to find paper bags full of ripe corn, beans,
tomatoes, turnip greens, cucumbers, green peppers, peas,
and everything else imaginable. We ate our dinner at noon
every day - hot plates of vegetables, cold bowls of salad,
and piles of steaming rice. Supper was our evening meal.
As my daddy used to say, "The Delta grows cotton and
vegetables out of this world."
To this day, I'm a vegetable lover. I'm always amazed at
how kids today don't eat vegetables. I passed on the habit to my own Northwestern-raised children and they know well
how to steam turnip greens and flavor them with hot peppers
and vinegar. And they know how to cook "two
fingers rice" - this means you put your rice in a pot
and cover it with 2 fingers-width of water, then boil it
till the water is down to the level of the rice; turn off
the burner, put on the lid, and let it sit for 15 minutes.
As children, we learned a more valuable lesson than just
how to eat vegetables. My father taught us respect for the
hard working farmers and we knew that they left the vegetables
on our doorstep before daybreak, out of pride. We never saw
their faces, but Daddy knew who they were.
- Margaret Fitzgerald Evans
Rainbow Kitchens
Message: Upon my very recent
visit to a "Rainbow Gathering" in
N.West Colorado I ate in many "hidden kitchens" and
was reminded of your NPR broadcasts. THe "Rainbow Family" is
a counterculture group of people who meet nationally once
a year (as well as regionally and internationally throughout
the year) to share in prayer for peace in national forests.
THis year the gathering drew about 20,000 people all of whom
were fed by these kitchens.
Food is donated and prepared
in huge pots without modern stoves, ovens or running water.
Kitchens build fires, earthen stoves and run water from
the creek or dig and then boil and purify it. All kitchens
are non profit and volunteer run and pretty darn amazing!
Rainbow family recently helped feed many hurricane victims
as well with similar set ups in parking lots. There is
no formal "leader" or
representation of the rainbow family but perhaps you could
do some research and check out their website. Thought you
might be interested.
- K.Lemos /Austin, TX
Muliigan Stew
I
listened to our St. Louis NPR station this morning on my
way into work and learned of your new series about hidden
kitchens. . So you must hear about the mulligans I was
used to at our family gatherings when I was growing up
on a farm in Illinois near the town of Mascoutah, Illinois.
My father and his brothers & nephews & son
in-law (all the MEN of the family would meet at one of
the family's farms to start cutting up fresh vegetables for
a mulligan stew. In brief "mulligan" - this
was cooked in a big 50 gal or bigger cast iron pot (reminded
me of what witches would cook their brew!)...While my mom & dad
still lived on our farm, every fall dad would say:" it's
time for a mulligan!" and he would set a date. My
3 brothers and the sons-in-law and perhaps a few of my
uncles would also help!!!
The women were not included in preparing
the mulligan. It was strictly a male-bonding time for the
men folk...they would meet at dawn to start the wood fire
under the kettle of water. First they would cook chicken,
beef & sometimes even turtle meat if they could gig again
from the Kalkaska River or one of the farm ponds in the
family. When the meat was done it was taken out of the hot
water & cut
off the bones and chopped into small pieces or sometimes
put thru a meat grinder and put back into the pot.the raw
vegetables were added too.fresh heads of cabbages sliced
into small slivers, raw potatoes into small cubes, fresh
carrots & celery, cans of canned tomatoes, peas fresh
or canned, raw onions, greenbeans, fresh or canned, lima
beans, fresh or canned, and mostly any vegetable you can
think of that would make the mulligan taste good.
Dad controlled
special spice bags made of cheesecloth tied with a long
string with a concoction of the secret recipe. It was always
flavorful & good
and by the time it was ready to eat. The meat & vegetables
were cooked so well, you might see a hint of orange that
resembled a chunk of carrot or a white small chunk of potato.
It was a think this soup of well cooked vegetables & meat
(very little fat) that was cooked for hours & hours
is so delicious (we even fed it to the toddlers in the
family because the meat was so finely ground or chopped!!
as a little girl I remembered watching the men stir the
kettle of mulligan with a big wooden paddle that resembled
an oar for a rowboat!! if I was lucky they allowed me to
stir a few times!! it was eaten with saltine crackers or
the small salted oyster crackers.
My father is 85 yrs old
and still makes 5-10 gallons for our family when we visit
him on the holidays or his birthday but he now cooks it
on top of the stove in his kitchen in restaurant size soup
pots. Most of us kids like to put a little spot of his
home-made ketchup in our bowl of mulligan...I like to eat
crackers & cheese
with my bowl and fresh radishes from the garden on the
side. In the old days, the men drank their beer while they
stirred the pot and believe me the stories were told around
that pot. The women all brought a baked pie or cake or
dessert! That was our meal...mulligan crackers, a glass
of beer on the side and home-made pie or cake for dessert
with coffee...in our town the Mascoutah volunteer fire
dept still cooks mulligan every fall as a fundraiser.
Believe
me we do not miss the chance to g o down to buy a bowl
of mulligan & a
cup of beer. Most of the townsfolk wouldn't miss the event
(the firemen still cook the mulligan, but use gas powered
fires instead of wood fires nowadays; the women still bring
their freshly baked cakes & pies. Just like our Friederich
family used to do...the fire dept even sells the mulligan
by the gallon if you bring your own gallon container. My husband & I
wouldn't miss this fall community event! Hope you can visit
this fall when the firemen have their annual event.
- Joanne Jun
Masonic Bikers BBQ
My parents belong to a Masonic lodge that schedules its BBQ
during Daytona's Bike Week. The lodge is in a very small
town and the lodge is near the intersection of two state
roads. The intent of the club members is to entice the bikers,
who come to Daytona from all over the country,
into buying the BBQ
chicken as they pass by the lodge while touring the countryside
with their friends. The wives bring desserts and sides (My
mother makes an incredible lemon marangue pie). I thought
that you might be interested in this type of very Americam
tradition.
- Rob Overly
King's Candy
Dear Sisters:
I was and am ecstatic about your series—an exquisite
respite from the daily war in Iraq, the pain and struggling
of evacuees making their way back home: New Orleans, Pakistan,
Africa. I just wanted to say that I love the series
and ask if Mr. Wilkerson is no longer making candy. If
and when he does again would you be so kind as to let those
on your mailing list know about it? I think it would
be a perfect gift for those of us still fortunate enough to
be able to give something to our friends and family at holiday
time. Thanks again for your work as artists and activists—reminding
me that I need never feel hopeless and that a single person
can forever make a difference.
Best regards,
Sharon Carpentier
Another Hidden Kitchen Story
Hello Kitchen Sisters,
It was fun to hear the radio spot about your hidden kitchen
stories. I wish I could have contributed my own experience
when I worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad as a welder in
the repair shops in Holidaysburg PA. I was a young woman
about 27, the rest of the 2000 workers were men. Part of
the repair work on the railroad cars required driving hot
rivets with an compressed air gun. It was a good skill that
I learned from one of the old timers. The rivets were about
4 inches long and an inch thick. They were heated to
white hot in rivet furnaces, which were hand made miniature
blast furnaces with an inside space about a foot or two cubed.
Turned on, they were like a little view of hell, loud and
screamingly fiery. Turned off, they eventually cooled off
and served as - ovens. The men would bring in game wrapped
in foil with lots of butter. Depending on the season they
brought squirrel, rabbit, woodcock, quail, pheasant, or venison.
It was an art to know how long to heat the furnace so that
when it was turned off, the meat would cook slowly over 3
or 4 hours. What came out was fall off the bone tender, rich
with butter, variously flavoured meat that I always looked
forward to tasting when offered by the generous hunters.
It brightened up the long days spent in that noisy grimy
factory.
Sincerely,
Betsy Wertz, Bedminster, PA
Gathering
Story
We’ll be on the road searching for new hidden kitchen
stories for our NPR Morning Edition series and we want
to hear yours. We hope you’ll come visit us and if
we’re not coming to your town SEND US
an email with your hidden kitchen story.
Tell us, who is cooking on your street corner, in your neighborhood? Who
are the local kitchen pioneers and visionaries? Who glues your community together
food? What unusual or significant kitchens
should we know about? What kitchen traditions
and are disappearing from your family, your neighborhood,
the planet and need to be chronicled before it
disappear or change beyond recognition?
Notes
from along the road
- October
2005
Things are a little different around here at the
moment Kitchen Central. Along with working on a
new cycle of Hidden Kitchen stories for NPR's Morning
Edition, we
are about to embark on our first nationwide book tour for
our first ever book, "Hidden Kitchens: Stories,
Recipes and More from NPR The Kitchen Sisters.”
Memphis, Tennessee:
We chose to start our book tour in Memphis, Tennessee, because it
is sonic ground zero for
The Kitchen Sisters and the
source of much of the inspiration of our earlier
national collaboration, Lost & Found Sound. Three
of our most cherished pieces are about some of
the sonic pioneers that come from there, Sam Phillips
and the Memphis Recording Service: We Record Everything,
Anywhere, Anytime, R.A.Coleman’s Electronic Memories,
and WHER – 1000 Beautiful Watts.
After we had made our travel arrangements it turns
out that we had picked the 50th anniversary of launch
of WHER. So, our book event at Davis Kidd Book
Store will also be a celebration of the women
of the first all-girl radio station in the nation in
October, 1955.
Read
More
> “What’s New” from The Kitchen
Sisters (pdf)
Memphis, Tennessee:
We
chose to
start our book tour in Memphis, Tennessee, because it is sonic
ground zero for The Kitchen Sisters and the source of much
of the inspiration of our earlier national collaboration,
Lost & Found Sound. Three of our most cherished pieces
are about some of the sonic pioneers that come from
there, Sam Phillips and the Memphis Recording Service:
We Record Everything, Anywhere, Anytime, R.A.Coleman’s
Electronic Memories, and WHER – 1000 Beautiful
Watts. After we had made our travel arrangements it
turns out that we had picked the 50th anniversary of launch
of WHER. So, our book event at Davis Kidd Book Store
will also be a celebration of the women of the first
all-girl radio station in the nation in October,
1955.
The
Original WHER disc jockettes
Reunion of the WHER gals in NYC at the Museum of Television
& Radio, 2000
Marge Thrasher and Wanda Martin, WHER discjockettes at the
Memphis Book Reading 2006
|
|
