Remembering The Old Country

[washabear]

My paternal grandfather came from Genoa, Italy, but didn't bring any traditions that endured from what I know. He married a German American woman, who apparently ruled the roost, although I don't know that for sure either because he died before I was born, so I can only go on hearsay. My father's personality characteristics certainly seemed to come more from her than him.

As far as culinary traditions, my maternal grandfather came from Crisfield, Maryland, and owned a carry-out seafood place in Baltimore at one point before my time, so there was a love of seafood in our family, which I didn't really like until I got older.

As far as household arts, I developed what little skill and methods I have on my own.

 

[gusherb]

Hans

I have to agree with that. I go for quality foods instead of what the general population considers as "healthy" (which some of those things clearly are NOT healthy!) Fatty foods and such don't scare me. Processed foods and non organic scares the crap out me of me. What we call organic and non GMO was just called "food" back then. Hahaha.

I spent 2 weeks in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico for Christmas about 6 years ago and the food was just so clean and delicious! I hadn't felt that good in a long time, had no digestion issues. Certainly didn't get sick or anything. Around here on a normal basis I have to carefully watch what I eat because I will react badly to anything not "clean"

 

[lordkenmore]

>I have to agree with that. I go for quality foods instead of what the general population considers as "healthy" (which some of those things clearly are NOT healthy!) Fatty foods and such don't scare me. Processed foods and non organic scares the crap out me of me. What we call organic and non GMO was just called "food" back then. Hahaha.

I've come to believe there is a lot to be said for processed crap being the real evil.

Indeed, last night, in a weak moment, I was looking at a frozen turkey dinner. Half considering it for Thanksgiving since it's almost certain I'll be alone like always for the entire holiday season, Thanksgiving on. (I don't even get a neighborhood holiday party to look forward to. Sniff.) And the ingredients on that dinner...yikes. I didn't even get past the mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes would, logically, be potatoes. Maybe some butter. Maybe some salt. Maybe if the cook is feeling adventurous a touch of garlic. Instead, these potatoes had a whole bunch of chemicals that would only be recognizable to those with a BS in chemistry.

 

[askolover]

I know my dad's family has Scotch/Irish blood...his paternal grandmother was a McMasters and they all have red hair, freckles, and fair complexion.  His mother's side came from England and Germany.  Daddy's mother could cook up a storm in the Southern tradition, all home grown stuff from my grandfather's HUGE garden!  She was a wonderful seamstress as well as knitting and crocheting.  His father was a woodworker as is my dad...he can make some really beautiful furniture. 

 

Mother's side of the family we don't know much about, they have always been in and around Alabama.  I know some of them were here long before the colonies were even thought about....Cherokees.  Some of my relatives still have the black hair, dark complexion, and high cheekbones.  I saw a picture of my great-great grandmother and she looked like a full-blood!  But we don't know much else.  People on this side of the family also cooked in the Southern tradition and made fabulous sweets....maybe why they all had diabetes (American Indians have a predisposition to diabetes) and strokes.  Most of the women on my maternal grandmother's side were excellent seamstresses and could make beautiful knitted and crocheted items.  Tatting was also a favorite craft that you just don't see anymore (I know how to do some of it).

 

[iej]

I think you have to remember "the old country" for many people is also a snapshot in time as well as a physical place. It's also often interpreted through romanticised and highly filtered memories (positive or negative) that are often refiltered by stories repeated by parents, grandparents, communities and so on.

I grew up in Ireland but I've elderly American relatives who emigrated to Ireland from the US in the 50s and 60s. They've kind of a "frozen in time" view of the US and actually find trips back to Boston and New York a little odd now as things have changed and in many ways the differences are far less noticible as things have become more globalised. Also, Ireland became a lot richer over those years and little things like American cars and European cars don't look as different as they used to.

They tend to still assume that 1950s / 60s American food is still unchanged and so on. They're even upset that cities physically look different when they go back to the US.

Then I've Irish relatives who moved to the US in the 1960s who've attempted to reintegrate here in 2010s and were actually deeply upset that things had changed - things like the cities and towns are much bigger and busier, there are motorways (expressways) linking places and the culture changed rather dramatically towards being very liberal, much more diverse and so on - a lot of the changes that I would see as very positive, they just saw as different from their memory and jarring.

In one case the Irish American relative actually felt so disconnected with Ireland that she went on a rant about how "the Americans are more Irish. This isn't Ireland". Everything to her mind was wrong/different - people didn't share her attitudes (which were very conservatively right wing Catholic) and she came out with a few things that caused jaw dropping reactions - just really dinosaur stuff)
Also everything else was "wrong" - food was too "pretentious and foodie", supermarkets were too big, too many cars, too many houses, farms looked different...

Then she had a brief identity crisis where she felt "not American" and "not Irish". Eventually she sort of adjusted and was fine. It was culture shock more like a time traveller might have felt.

Many of the changes she was describing would have been as profound if you compared 1959 Boston to 2015 Boston. She just had made odd assumptions that when you move, time stops in the old place.

No where stands still for 60 years, or even 5 years and I think those kind of "old country" memories can easily become a bit of an idealised and distorted fantasy, a bit like a faded old postcard.

 

[lordkenmore]

There was no "old country" in my family as such. The newest arrival to the US that I know of would be one grandfather's parents, although he was born in the US. Both grandmothers were born into families that, as far as I know, had been in the US some time.

I can't really speak for what happened in the past with my ancestors. But in general, I think there was pressure to "become American". And I also assume that the changes of the 20th century had influence, as the world shifted from "old" ways to "new" ways. Both grandmothers, for example, probably started out using a wringer washer, but saw the dawn of automatics.

And there were probably some losses going into my parents' generation. I guess I could say my maternal grandmother lived in a certain small town America "culture." Meals were meat and potato, nothing fancy, and absolutely NOTHING foreign. Clothes were dried outside in summer. And everyone used the back door of the house--the front door was "saved for good."

My mother jettisoned a lot of the above. She used a dryer year round. Her cooking included ethnic dishes, and vegetarian dishes. And the back door was only used to go to the backyard, usually to take the dog out. How much of the above changes were my mother rebelling? Who knows? It was probably a mix of things. Some rebellion. Some "this method works better than the method I grew up with." Some my father. (Apparently, my mother made one small town dish for my father, once, and he took one look, and asked something like: "What the hell is this?") Some were undoubtedly practical. Why go to the back door when there is much easier to reach front door, positioned mere yards from the driveway and garage?

One "old America" touch that survived...for a while to my memory was having a vegetable garden. We had one in all but one house I grew up in (that one house was only a 1 year "get established in a new area" rental). Both grandparents had a garden (and both kept it running as long as possible). But it eventually went away in my parents generation. I can't remember if it happened before my family fell apart, or not. But certainly after my father left, the garden went idle. My mother wasn't interested in keeping it going--or interested enough.

 

[lordkenmore]

Another loss over the years: my grandmothers both did something like knitting, and one supposes sewing. (One grandmother did have a sewing room/guest room.)

My mother sewed a bit--a lot of my clothes when I was young were made by her. But eventually this faded. Hit my generation, and I can't sew, apart from replacing a button. I sometimes patch with needle and thread, but only on clothes that don't matter, and the job looks horrible.

However, one of my cousins has kept knitting alive. Not sure if she got started or influenced by Grandma, or what.

 

[askolover]

My sister

learned to crochet from our great-grandmother before she died.  She later as an adult picked up sewing, but it must be in her genes too because she is an excellent seamstress...I mean bridesmaids dresses and such.  I guess I got the cooking gene because I am a mean cook and love to do it.

 

[launderess]

Like crochet

Because it is faster than knitting. My Italian-American friends mothers/older relatives and even themselves could crochet the most beautiful things including "lace". My eyes cannot handle such things today. *LOL* Whenever a new baby was expected in the family out came the crochet hooks and skeins of cotton to make blankets and other things.

 

[angus]

I still have a few throws that my mother and Aunt Jennie crocheted and can't part with them. While I don't use them much, they represent a vanishing commitment to homekeeping and focus on family. To be sure my mother always worked outside the home in a factory working harder than some men. I worked there in summers and saw it first hand. But her focus was on her family and maintaining our house. Which leads me to some of the "old country habits" that I learned from them. They ran their homes like a business with strict schedules of what was done on which day (and windows were done weekly since we lived in Brooklyn) and of course everything had to be done a certain way. From the kitchen I learned that nothing was wasted, you purchased the freshest available in season (or grew it if you had a little plot), preserved for the winter and the diet included plenty of vegetables, beans and occasional meat/fish and dairy (they were after all poor Italians). In the rest of the house, you cleaned up after yourself, in the bathroom you wiped down the shower walls, the vanity or sink top after every use and closed the toilet lid and it went without saying one bathed daily or more as the situation required. Laundry was its own category and probably the most meticulous. Hottest water possible, some form of blue detergent - either Cheer, Rinso Blue or Ajax, Aqua Lina (local Brooklyn brand of bleach) on whites, warm or hot rinse, bluing in the final rinse and of course wet starch for anything cotton- Daddy;s work clothes, our school shirts/blouses, cotton school pants, etc... Then everything was hung outside and when dry, sprinkled for ironing and stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.