Remembering The Old Country

[launderess]

Reading various posts over the years it seems a good many members had parent, grand-parents or other family members from the "old country" (Europe), this and or have moved about within that place. Was wondering what if any household arts (cooking, cleaning, etc...) do any of you keep up that you got from your "elders".

 

[petek]

My folks emigrated from the UK in 48. Mom brought with her the traditional English cooking method..  Boil everything to death.   The only spices were salt and pepper.   LOL

 

My good friend here in town is Polish.  His mom made everything prety much from scratch,, pierogies, kapusta, you name it.. It was him a 2 brothers, no daughters so when she died they had never learned how to cook anything, nothing. They rely on the old Polish ladies at the hall to make batches of things and pay for it.   I've been practicing making the kapusta and its turned out really well... I like it and it seems to help settle my irritable stomach  

 

[toploader55]

My Grandmother's

Laundry  Whites, Hot Water, Detergent and Clorox.  Colors, Warm Wash, Detergent, Warm Rinse.

Cleaning Copper with Salt and Vinegar. (Twinkle or Copper Glo was too expensive)

Cleaning the Oven before it gets dirty

Turning Pillowcases inside out. Then reaching inside the pillow case to grab the corners of the pillow and folding the pillowcase over the pillow to insure the corners of the pillow were in the corners of the pillowcase. (Whew)

Saving a Metal Can to pour fat leftover from cooking so it won't go down the drain.

Always use a Wooden Spoon when cooking.

Washing/Soaking Hairbrushes once a week in Hot water and ammonia. 

 

That's it for now.

 

[arbilab]

Can't help you much. Family has been in this country longer than it's been a country. 'Keep your wagonwheels greased and your horse fed' are still valid principles, after translation.

Most family wisdom dates back to the depression: Don't buy anything on credit except real estate.

 

[billiedyer1954]

grandparents

my grandparents were from Slovenia. they did not wear underwear. my granda made her own lye soap and everything was cleaned with it, cloths walls floors and cloths and dishes. she had a big garden and they ate a lot of cabbage. they made there own saurkralt also they would make turnips the same way, it was called rapa. nothing was bought at the store but flour, sugar, coffee tea, and yeast. they were catholic and my grandma had 3 kids. her birth control was just not having sex. one time she was arrested for picking up coal of the railroad tracks. she was very resourceful and believed the most terrible sin was to be lazy. when she was in her 80s she still chopped her own wood for her warm morning stove. she never cut her hair in her whole life and wore it in braids wrapped up on her head. my dad was her youngest kid and played the acordian like his dad did. we were taught to strive to be the best we could be.

 

[frigilux]

My mom was from Italy (Veroli). Her dad was Italian; her mom from France. My dad was English (Wolverhampton). They married in Italy in 1946, them came to the US in 1947, settling in Watertown, SD, where several other Italian war brides resided.

My mom's cooking was very northern: Mildly seasoned; emphasis on maximizing the quality of simple flavors. I still make lasagna the way she did, using chopped hard-boiled eggs in the filling rather than whisking raw eggs into the ricotta. I'm no longer eating pasta (gasp!) but when I did, it was always very lightly sauced. She was of the school that the pasta should dominate, not the sauce. A bottle of wine was on the table every night, although a 2nd glass was fairly rare.

I still like to eat meals in courses, as that's how we ate when I was growing up.

[this post was last edited: 11/1/2015-14:30]

 

[sudsmaster]

Well, to me the old country is New England/New York...

 

Mother was first generation American and seemed to embrace mainstream American habits, including cuisine, so I don't remember much in the way of seeing her emulate how her parents might have done things way back when. I think the Betty Crocker cookbook was her kitchen bible.

 

My dad was also first gen and on the rare occasion he got busy in the kitchen he'd make a delicious bread. Don't know where he learned that, though. The closest taste to it I've enjoyed since then is the Pugliosi bread that Costco occasionally carries.

 

 

 

[davey7]

My dad came from Poland (via Romania, Vichy France, Franco's Spain [was in prison there] and the UK with various WWII adventures) and arrived in the early 50's. His biggest imports are haggling and making sure their house was well cared for (or their co-op as the case may be). My mom's family can be traced back to before the War of Independence (PA mostly) with various central European additions along the way (mostly on the other side of the family).

My dad's parents stayed very continental - only rented apartments (my dad and his brothers all owned homes, though my uncle didn't buy a house until both of his adult children had already done so), dark wood furniture (and some faux Scandinavian when that was trendy) and white walls with rugs on the walls. Despite living in Detroit they always had British cars (Turquoise and white Nash Metropolitan and after a move to Dearborn a Ford Cortina).

 

[norgeway]

Im not sure when

Dads people came, but I do know Mothers family"Powell", came to Lenoir from Culpepper Virginia in 1774 and the land I grew up on was a land grant from England that year.

 

[gusherb]

The "old country" for my mothers family is the south side of Chicago. Bridgeport neighborhood for her mother, and the Southshore neighborhood for her dads family. The ancestors from my grandmothers side have been here since the 1860s from Poland, and my grandfathers side I'm not exactly sure but probably came from Poland around the 1880s, definitely before 1900.
Now that I think about it, the Polish heritage and traditions have stuck very strong in my mothers family, to this day even.

My dads side we don't know a ton about, he's adopted, but he found his biological mother back in the mid 90s and found out he was Scottish, Irish, German and not Polish like they thought he was, and was raised as. I do know his biological family came to the US quite some time ago as well.
My grandmother that actually raised him was Polish, and my grandfather was Hungarian. I believe my grandmothers parents were from the US but the prior generation was from Poland. My grandfathers parents were from Hungary. My grandma was very Catholic and also very traditional Polish, more so than my mothers family.

 

[norgeway]

My Dads people, the Craigs, My last name

Were Scottish, I do know that but supposedly descended from the Picts, My Mothers Mother was an Icenhour, which was descended from other spellings, Eisenhower and Isenhour, and were of German descent, Dads mother was a Story and I have no idea where they were from.But the Powells, my Mothers people she traced back to England.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

My dad's family is a strange lot. The family history is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Nobody ever seemed to have any solid info on where they came from. They claim to be Irish and German but have blue-black wiry hair the men were all obsessed with straightening. They went through Groom n Clean by the barrel! They also tan jaw-droppingly quickly in the sun..... and they get dark, really dark. Irish and German? OK, Dad, if you say so.

Mom's family is just the opposite. Grandpas' family (both sides) came from small villages in the Suwalki area of Poland, bordering Lithuania. Story is one got his last name (Przelomiec - sword breaker) because he could bend/break a sword with his bear hands. A later Przelomiec earned enough $$ to buy property from working as an interpreter for the local aristoracy. Story is he could read and write several language and verbally translate several more. nearly all my cousins in Poland in that branch today are linguists, editors, teachers, translators, etc.

Grandma's family was fairly well off but lost their money from funding failed insurrections against czarist Russia. The family store did well and my great grandmother's parents were able to afford forged papers to hire illegal Polish teachers when she was a kid. Poor girl had an 18hour day: Russian school in the morning, working in family store in the afternoon, and Polish school at night. They guy she married was from a Plock and worked in a funeral home in Warsaw. He was able to use those skills here in the U.S. and get himself a decent job. Then he went on a bender and bought a farm in Colchester Conn. and dragged his wife and kids up there. I assume he had a decent education as well because my grandmother, born here, would blow people away with her Polish. The caretakers she and my grandpa had all insisted she spoke like a Pre-WWI baroness. Grandpa, who actually had a polish language education, wrote like an aristocrat but talked with the red-neck hillbilly Suwalki accent of his parents.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Mother's family was from what was then the Austro Hungarian Empire, actually some corner of land claimed at different times by Serbia and Croatia. I guess the most distinctive thing she prepared was coleslaw with oil and vinegar dressing, no mayo. Today the deli calls that health salad. Every meal but breakfast we had tossed salad dressed with oil and vinegar. She told me that she was a senior in high school and eating at a teacher's house before she ever saw or tasted bottled salad dressing, Kraft French.

 

[toploader55]

Health Salad.

We had a German Deli in our town that made Health Salad. Wow. I haven't thought about that for a while.

 

It was like Cabbage, celery, green peppers in a vinaigrette similar to what you described. Mom's side was Austro Hungarian. Dad's was German.  Lots of Gulasch, Paprikas, Spaetzle, and heavy Braised meats and Chicken.

They fried in Lard and Chicken Fat, used tons of Butter and Heavy/Sour Cream.

 

Most of the family died of old age. Not Heart or Cholesterol issues. (Who in the hell heard about cholesterol back I the 30s, 40s, and 50s ?)  They were always working and active people. They never had coffee in bed with their laptops like me. LOL.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

My grandmother did that with potato salad. She learned it from her mom (the "poor girl" mentioned above) whose family store made and sold it. She referred to it as "German style" so I do as well to this day.

 

[turquoisedude]

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but my father is Latvian.   His tastes in food got passed down to the rest of the family and were pretty typical of Eastern European cuisine - sausages, sauerkraut, roast chicken, and ground meat dishes.  But like other Eastern Europeans, Latvians love their deserts - rich cakes, pastries, and tortes.  Cookies were less frequently demanded by my father, but over the years I learned how to make some traditional Christmas spice cookies.  

 

I suppose the biggest influence the Latvian heritage had on me has been the propensity to hoard... LOL  Trust me, Latvians of my father's generation don't throw ANYTHING away!

 

[warmsecondrinse]

I suspect the foods of the whole Baltic region are similar due to the Vikings and all the trading that was going on even before the Hanseatic league. The climate is similar and AFAIK nearly 100% of the population has the genetic mutation of NOT being lactose intolerant.

Is there a lot of dairy in Latvian cuisine? There is in Polish. I remember these cookies. I swear it was made from butter, eggs, sour cream, sugar and just enough flour to hold it together. They weighed a TON, lol.

Jim

 

[turquoisedude]

Dairy in Latvian cuisine is definitely popular.  I think my father still goes through a tub of sour cream every couple of days...   I've had arguments with Hungarian friends about whose cuisine uses more lard, eggs, and sour cream... LOL

 

[norgeway]

Re Food and health

I still believe its not what you eat but whats in the things you eat and the way its processed, for instance, My Grandparents raised hogs and chickens, The hogs were fed table scraps, peelings etc, commonly known as slop in the South, the chickens ran around and ate bugs and worms and also were fed corn, no antibiotics, no hormones, They killed the hogs once a year, usually at Thanksgiving, then it was cold enough, usually at or below freezing, They salt cured the hams and shoulders"I have the recipe for the cure"and rendered all their own lard, Grandmother never bought any form of shortening until the mid 50s when they quit keeping hogs, They had a milk cow and Grandmother churned all their own butter,and of course with chickens they had fresh eggs, and of course they had a huge garden and canned all kinds of stuff, this diet, while certainly not healthy by todays standards, was in truth very healthy because there were no additives or preservatives, no hormones and no antibiotics..And no fried chicken has ever tasted as good as that chicken freshly killed and fried in a iron skillet with lard.Really, about all they bought was flour, sugar and corn meal.