immigrants and those who directly descended from immigrants came to america with their own food "legacies". we have all heard of grandma's red sauce simmering for days in her cozy, well-equipped kitchen. maybe christmas dinner consisted of hand-ground cornmeal transformed into spicy tamales? perhaps your father trapped lobster and crabs which were then artfully crafted into a rich and bubbly broth? if this sounds familiar to you, count yourself amongst the lucky and well-fed.

my family's gastronomic history is pretty much about avoiding flavor, texture and technique. my
heritage is that of generations of plain, old, homogenized, white people. please don't take offense, i am sure that there are a lot of plain, old, homogenized people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, as well as many plain, old, homogenized, white folks who would be offended by my referring to them as such. but i- being a plain, old, boring, white person, can speak only from my experience.

both of my grandmothers cooked on a tight budget for crowds of farmers, throngs of unexpected
country callers, large numbers of offspring- and apparently ALL of them with deadened taste buds.

my paternal grandmother served hungry and undemanding farmhands meals with the flavor and texture boiled right out of them. on only two occasions did my widowed grandmother make me anything other than toast.

the first is a rather embarrassing tale showcasing my foolish adolescence. during my senior year in high school she stayed with us for a few weeks. she lived on the east coast, we on the west- visits in either direction were rare. on a friday night i was out drinking in a public park with a friend and some boys. i fell and severely twisted my ankle. after numerous attempts to walk on it, it was apparent that i would require a trip to the emergency room. after sitting in the waiting room for two hours, the nurse applied the highly advanced technique of wrapping my ankle with an ace bandage. you can imagine how thrilled my mother was to rescue me at four a.m. from a hospital twenty miles away- and without a serious injury to show for it. after an excruciatingly silent ride home, i limped into bed.

four or five hours later, my quiet and bird-like grandmother entered my room and offered to prepare breakfast for me. how kind of her to forgive me my misdeeds! she returned carrying a sandwich arranged on one of our hideously ugly melamine plates. it was not a salty, greasy, eggs and toast breakfast- but still, it was something graciously prepared and would certainly quell the rumbling in my tummy. with the plate in my lap i could see wheat bread with lovely, crisp green leaf lettuce poking out from its sides. as grandma stood at the end of my bed, i grasped it between two hands and went in for a large bite. now some of you may have experienced this particular concoction before, but i myself had not (and would have preferred to keep it that way). layered on seattle's famous "poulsbo" wheat bead was the aorementioned crisp green lettuce, a tidy spreading of miracle whip (i never tasted real mayo until i was in my early twenties) and...

ham?

turkey?

roast beef?

velveeta?

no, the base of the sandwich was a nice thick layer of chunky peanut butter! just what the doctor ordered for a teenaged girl with a sprained ankle and a killer hangover. surprisingly, any ankle pain went unnoticed as i ran to the family bathroom- having suffered only one bite of my grandmother's favorite sandwich.

the second meal my grandmother prepared for me was some fifteen years later, when she hosted a thanksgiving dinner for just the two of us. she placed the turkey in the oven at 250. after five hours (!) she returned to check on it and discovered that the gas was on, but the pilot light was not lit. instead of assuming that the gassed bird could possibly sicken us- she simply re-lit the pilot light and continued
t
he roasting process. a few hours later it arrived at the table. it's gelatinous skin boasted a sickly greenish tinge. it paired nicely with the over-boiled potatoes and canned creamed corn. i politely pushed my food around on my plate and stopped at local taco drive-thru on the way home.

my mother's mother was a city girl who married a city boy. early in their marriage they decided it would be best to raise a family in a more rural area. grandma tended a garden and a few chickens on their quaint farm. she cooked for a gaggle of kids as well as a multitude of city friends who stopped by without notice every time they went for a country drive.

she quickly learned how to stretch a meal- but her cooking had more in common with the army than anything you'd expect to enjoy on a farm. most of my grandmother's recipes required junket (do you know what that is?- i don't!) jello, velveeta, potted meat, condensed soup or exuberant amounts of oleo.

when my mom went to college, she had her first mushroom, and it was atop her first slice of pizza. from the community telephone in her dormitory she told her mom about this amazing experience. when she went home on spring break, my grandmother had planned a special meal. she had pressed crust-less wonder bread (as in, wonder where it came from?) into a cookie sheet to resemble pizza dough. she then slathered it with tomato paste- straight from the can. once she had added a few sliced hot dogs and chunks of velveeta- her ode to italian cooking was complete.

grandma's ability to taste things was limited- in her late forties she had somehow lost her sense of smell. this led to numerous times where she tempted fate by consuming something well past it's prime- like a grey chicken breast found tucked away in the back of the fridge, or bologna that required a brisk scraping to rid it of mold. in her eyes, leftovers three weeks old leftovers were "ripening", not rotting.

grandma canned, pickled and preserved every thing she could. this was a money saving technique and kept her family fed. ten years after my grandfather died, she had finally become too old to live on her own. left to pack up her house, my mother found more than a hundred jars of preserves in grandma's fruit cellar. many of them had exploded from fermentation- most of them were dated ten or more years before. whe we questioned grandma about the preserves, we were shocked to find out that she had only recently consumed some of her own stewed tomatoes- and survived.

my mother was and still is a pretty bad cook, but not an entirely un-skilled one. she rarely burnt things or unknowingly baked utensils into the meatloaf. this however, did not prevent her food from being awful. she is a vegetarian now so we are all pretty safe with a salad, but when i was a kid it was a different story.

my newly married parents have drove to san diego immediately after being married. my father was stationed there for a number of years during the vietnam war. miles away from my grandmother and her helpful cooking tips, mom cracked her "joy of cooking" (circs. 1964) and began the first supper she was to serve my father. amidst the recipes for shrimp toasts and creamed oysters, she found one for an inexpensive stew. the story goes that the kitchen was filled with an odd smell when my father returned home. as he pulled his chair in under the table, mom, pot holders in hand, brought her new corning ware dish laden with a greyish stew to the table. dad placed the serving spoon into the dish and was greeted with a suction-like noise. surprised by the "un-food" like sound, he jumped back, letting go of the spoon. the spoon itself remained standing- unfettered by gravity.

mom learned to make a few things well. she made killer roast beef. she'd start it in the morning so that we'd come home from church to soft carrots, juicy potatoes, butter-like onions and beef, cooked so slowly and so long that all of the fat had broken down- leaving the meat so tender it
melte
d in your mouth. this was a rare treat, even the cheap cut of beef being an extravagance.

at some point, through diligent practice her attempts gave way to meals that had a surprisingly normal consistency and although entirely bland- they were at least consumable. by the time my siblings and i were eating solid food my dad was in bible college and we had no money at all. my mother did not work and my
father worked part time. he was a truck driver for snowboy frozen foods and brought home bags of fish sticks, frozen vegetables and cans of orange juice concentrate- all slightly damaged. people often left bags of groceries on our doorstep, or even in the car while we were attending church. we drank only powdered milk and evening meals consisted mostly of soups and stews strewn meagerly with some variety of meat.

my parents were very involved in our church and the practice of christianity and charity. we regularly fed a variety of people who were lonely or poor. a number of runaways and unfortunate families were asked to make themselves at home at our dinner table- and in our finished basement. once, four kids from
california hitchhiked into our lives. from them, my parents learned an appreciation for "tex-mex" cuisine. they were eventually asked to leave because the two young men and their girlfriends could not keep their hands (or other parts) off of each other. my family would come to refer to these four teens as the "taco kids", having shared with us their love for sour cream, fresh guacamole, and, well- tacos.

for a period of time a fellow church member moved in with his wife and infant twin daughters. through the influence of shared cooking responsibilities, we became fond of a dish called "larry's casserole" (his name incidentally was larry). pinto beans, ground beef, olives, onions, shredded cheddar, "enchilada sauce" and tortillas were layered into the famous corning ware casserole dished and baked until warm. the combination of the gooey, warm cheese, crisp tortillas, and the rich flavor imparted by the spicy red sauce seemed bold and adventurous. this recipe was made by mom long after larry and his family found a new place to live.

it was the late seventies, and many of our house guests shared my mother's desire to feed themselves and their families inexpensively and healthily. we grew bean sprouts under the sink, made yogurt in an electric yogurt maker and baked all of our bread- whole wheat, of course. as children, we never took part in the macaroni
and cheese and tv dinners that my peers and neighbors consumed. i recall being so jealous of meals loaded with salt, additives and that "out of the box" freshness.

mom tried- i must give her that. she claims to this day that dinner was without favor because of family imposed restrictions. i didn't like onions and my sister loathed green peppers. apparently she felt that this was the only way you could add flavor to a meal. i never actually saw a fresh bulb of garlic until i found work at a local cafe at the age of fifteen.

mom made every recipe with ground beef and campbell's tomato soup. when combined, ground beef, tomato soup, diced green pepper and sour cream became goulash. spaghetti sauce was ground beef, tomato soup, tomato paste and onion. chili was simmered in a slow cooker and consisted of ground beef, tomato soup, kidney beans and onions. lasagna? layered ground beef, tomato soup, onions and ricotta. a recipe that i loved until i was about seven was called "american spaghetti". once again, the ever-present casserole dish is filled with ground beef, tomato soup, over-cooked spaghetti noodles and pieces veleveeta. as with all of my mother's oven cooked meals- cook at 350 until warm. dinner was generally served with applesauce and frozen peas. to this day, there's nothing mom can't eat that she claims won't be complimented by a nice side of applesauce and frozen peas.

it isn't really her fault, she'd come leaps a
nd bounds
from her upbringing. additionally, even in the era of feminism, my father rarely helped with anything. once, when i was eight, mom had to take my little brother to the doctor. my father begrudgingly prepared breakfast for my sister and i. we were each treated to a hot steaming hot bowl of terribly, horribly, utterly burnt oatmeal. despite it's crisp and blackened state we were forced to consume it entirely. it was like eating fingernails. mom arrived home to find her daughters with stomachaches. once when we were teenagers, we were short on fresh groceries and lunch money. so, my father sent us off to school with raw onion and miracle whip sandwiches. it's not that he was intentionally cruel. the things he ate were far worse. dad worked the graveyard shift, and was left to his own devices when it came to preparing meals and feeding himself. for years, we would awake to find him sitting at the breakfast table eating cold bean and bacon soup, "uncondensed", and straight out of the can.

my love affair with food began in grammar school. i became very close to a filipino girl named monica. she invited me to attend a family wedding to be held at her great-grandmother's house. it was extravagant and consisted entirely of food i had never seen before. monica suggested that i try her favorite, a sweet and savory chicken skewer. it was amazingly delicious and i proceeded to eat sixteen of them. it was similar to yakatori, but much better and i have dreamed about it ever since.
my best friend in middle school was korean and had been adopted by her american parents when she was three. her name was ellen. i recall being dumbfounded when she told me that she didn't like or drink milk. her parents treated me to my first japanese meal at a small local restaurant. the miso soup was a revelation. who knew soup could be good- and made with ingredients other than ground beef?, she also pressured me into tasting the molten lava that is kim chi. all of these things peaked my interest, and helped move me down the path of becoming what is annoyingly termed as a "foodie".

at an early age i somehow, instinctively, knew i had to learn how to cook, before our entire bloodline died off from malnutrition, food poisoning, or just sheer boredom. i have been addicted to cooking shows as long as i can remember, running home to watch the "frugal gourmet" after elementary school. my first real attempt at cooking occurred after watching jeff smith prepare "lamb en papiollete" (sp?)- which is basically fresh lamb braised in parchment paper. i was inspired. we had none of the spices or herbs the original recipe called for, but i improvised with some garlic powder. there was no chance that we would ever have anything as "exotic" as lamb in the freezer, but we did have plenty of ground beef (surprise!). i followed the diretions for wrapping it using freezer paper in place of the parchment. considering the lack of ingredients on hand, i have to say, it wasn't too bad for a ten year old.

i am a committed "foodie" and enjoy soaking up anything that has to do with the cultivating, preparing, cooking and serving of food. i briefly attended cooking school, but soon discovered that many of them are a waste of time and money. most well-run kitchens are not interested in hiring a "graduate" over someone that's been working in a kitchen since they were fifteen. if i hadn't had children, i may have succumbed to the low pay, hard labor, late hours and nastiness of a professional kitchen- but to be honest, i'm not really cut out for mass-production cooking.

my divorced vegetarian mother often eats with us, and i enjoy trying to find ways to make that more interesting for her. my maternal grandmother now lives in an assisted living situation where her meals are served in a communal dining room- limiting her ability to poison herself.

my husband has worked in the food industry for years and enjoys cooking. my girls have pretty adventuro
us appetites f
or toddlers. among other things, they love most fresh vegetables, salmon, california rolls and couscous. family meals are a shared responsibility. i have worked hard to break the cycle. now all i have to do is work on my mother-in-law, but that's a story in and of itself!