What made her such a bad cook? She was born in 1894 and in 2003 her surviving two children are still only too happy to share stories of life with Lena and her cooking fiascoes. The stories have grown more and more gruesome with continued telling and when I hear my grandchildren repeating their version, I hardly recognize them
But my brother Peter and I cannot resist uproarious monthly conversations about Lena’s culinary disasters.
“Remember the Jello and canned peaches drowning in heavy syrup.” (One or the other represented daily desserts and to this day, we cannot face either of them).
“Remember the boiled potatoes and canned vegetables floating in water.”( We repeatedly suggested straining the juice off only to be told it was probably good for us.)
“Remember that single big pot of ugly brown beans sort of floating on a fatty surface.” (This beauty was the main dish often at dinner, no salads, no potatoes, no sauces—just those brown, brown beans). It was a dish that originated in Holland, I believe, but no recipe, fortunately, exists.
If this litany continues, one would assume that we were underprivileged , abused children. We were not. The three of us were born in a period from 1925 to 1932, the heart of the Great Depression. My father worked as a house painter, my mother stayed home, not to cook but to clean fanatically. I suppose we were poor, but so was everyone else in the shabby New Jersey town where we lived. My father, Albert, was seven years younger than Lena, who always viewed him as another child. Dad was doting, fun loving and full of personality; Lena was dour, formidable and cold. It was almost impossible for her to convey any show of affection and warmth except to my father. She was the youngest of five daughters of immigrants from Freisland, Holland and her total detachment extended to her sisters, also.
I went to visit my cousin, Connie, only surviving daughter of Aunt Trina, just to ask the burning question, “Why couldn’t my mother cook?”
Connie shrugged. “Your mother was lazy.” The family knew she would not and could not cook. No one was ever invited for dinner. I would like to blame it on the fact that her family was extremely poor. The mass immigration to America had started and times were bad. But that theory doesn’t work; why were her sisters good cooks? They came from the same background.
We chatted about my mother and father and recalled that my mother loved food. When my father established his own business, during the Depression, Lena discovered RESTAURANTS in a big way. We ate out when no one else did. Connie remembered “Aunt Lena suddenly became a big time eater of oysters, shrimp, clams, steak and food we had never tasted.”
It was true. This totally inept person in the kitchen had become a ‘foodie’ by the mid-1930’s. There weren’t many restaurants around, but Lena found them. We were a young family then and accompanied our parents to these eating establishments. I recall menus featuring many courses including tomato juice, soup, rolls with a variety of spreads and jellies, fish, meat or poultry for an entrée, fresh vegetables, potatoes, dessert and beverage. All this for the sum of 90 cents.
I still felt I was missing something. Maybe the food wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Am I giving Lena a bad break? I think not, but a talk with my cousin Helen, daughter of my father’s oldest sister, just confirmed my contention; Lena knew nothing about food or its preparation. Helen said that my mother cooked mostly obscure dishes that originated in Friesland. I assumed that is why they tasted like the bottom of the Zuider Zee, which surrounds the Frisian Islands. However, I have never traveled to Holland so I cannot verify if that is completely true.
Lena loved salt and fat. Peter recalled that all of her food “looked like it was covered with snow. In her final years she was in residence for the aging and my assignment was to keep her supplied with salt shakers. The Presbyterian Church at Franklin Lakes had an enormous supply, and once the offending shaker as found by the nurses and removed, I replaced it with another.
Impatient Lena commented to anyone who would listen, “I am in my 90’s, why would they worry about my salt consumption now; it’s too late and I enjoy it.”Another imponderable of modern medicine.
The fat issue never really bothered us. This was before the era of fats and carbohydrates or even diets. Lena was 5 feet, 9 inches tall and never weighed more than 140 pounds. Those were the glorious days of fatty hams, pork roasts, and hearty slabs of fat laden beef. Once they had been boiled to l0 hour perfection, Lena sliced the dried up mass that was left for us and cut off all the fat for her plate alone, declaring, “You know I only like the fat.” She lived to be 94, her salt shaker always in hand.
The ghost of Lena will haunt this book. Stories about her views on different foods, her startling techniques, her total disregard of cooking times and much more will be scattered through these chapters. I am a grateful daughter. I learned how to cook and it is still my greatest joy in life. Lena, without you, I would not have done it. Looking at those water logged vegetables, grey meat, wobbly Jello, I knew when I was quite young that something better was possible. With that memory and the support of a husband who loved to eat, I achieved the impossible. I’m a good cook, Lena.