I can recall that question clearly. We were sitting in the kitchen around a table located in the middle of the room. The normal dinner fare consisted of some kind of gray, overdone meat, boiled dry potatoes, and a canned vegetable floating in water(as opposed to a savory sauce). No salad, no relishes, no anything.
Lena looked a little startled at the question, but answered quickly, “Of course.”
“I had them last night at my friend’s house and they were good,” Peter explained as he choked in the mealy potato, “a lot better than these.”
“We will have them tomorrow” and the subject was closed. Fat chance, I thought, we’ve had those promises before. Besides that, how would she know how to make them so they tasted good?
The next evening, the mashed potatoes appeared. But were they really what they appeared to be? I suppose so in that the usual boiled potatoes had been mashed, but without milk or butter. So now we had dry mashed potatoes. Since Peter had asked for them, he had first dibs. We waited, he swallowed, and as usual gagged, My father shrugged, smiled and contended with the newest innovation. For the next 20 years or so, we never had boiled potatoes again, just Lena’s version of mashed potatoes.
Growing up, we lived in a small town just north of Paterson, NJ called Prospect Park. It was almost exclusively a town of people who were born in different areas of Holland. There were blue laws. Originally, everyone was Protestant. Most of us went to the Christian Reformed Church, a denomination steeped in the dreary doctrines of John Calvin, the Swiss reformer, who my husband called “the father of guilt.” We went to Christian schools and looked at the pupils of Public School No. 1 with disdain.
Today I live in Ridgewood, NJ which is about 10 minutes away from Prospect Park. I rarely go back, but recently had reason to be in that area. Prospect Park was always a marginal town, lower middle class, probably started by some wily Dutchman who had the brilliant idea of gathering the clan in one town. The great majority of houses were two family, separated by an alley. If you put your head out of a window, it was possible to shake hands with your neighbor in the next house. Ideally, the buyer of these houses would live downstairs with his family and rent out the upstairs flat. Each house was cheaply shingled, and rarely was there a garage. But not everyone had even one car then, much less two or three.
My trip back revealed that the town has changed. My old high school, Eastern Academy, part of the Christian school system is now an Islam Center. I was tempted to stop by and ask permission to wander around. But the stores as we knew them offer exciting changes. A variety of ethnic and spice laden foods are available—Lena the change came too late for you. Much of the housing seems neglected; others are meticulously maintained. My cousins assure me the Dutch have gone, where, who knows or cares. Prospect Park has essentially turned itself inside out and there is an air of excitement and diversity about it. I stopped for some humus and baba ganoosh as a way of thumbing my nose at the long departed town fathers, Was this really the town known far and wide for “taking the roosters away from the chickens on Sunday?” Ah diversity, we did not know your name.
We lived in a variety of flats in Prospect Park. They were all the same. Decent sized eat-in kitchens, a table in the middle. When I was really young, there was a coal burning stove in the kitchen for cooking purposes. The ice box was just that and for refills, a sign “ICE” was placed in the window for the iceman. Sometimes there was a dining room, always a living room, ONE bath, and two or three small bedrooms.
It’s how we grew up. None of us knew much about the world, other people, other religions, other food. We read newspapers and listened to the radio and by 1938 our innocence was gradually lost as we became aware of the larger picture. One morning before school I found my father with his head in his hands listening to the short wave radio. Remember, he left Holland when he was 19 at the end of World War I. He was now about 35 years old and still nostalgic for the land of his birth. I started to talk, and he hushed me as a female voice said, “Netherlands hast gefallen.” It was Queen Wilhelmina, his queen. He burst into tears, his sobs were heart breaking. It was a moment in time that I never forgot.
I wrote these last few paragraphs to give you some idea of my roots. Today, reaching back for dim memories I wonder how I had the sheer gall to learn how to cook, teach other people to cook, and then dare to write a cookbook. I am rarely completely honest, but believe me when I say on the day I was married, my husband to be, Lewis Allen Wolff announced that he never wanted to eat the same thing more than once a month. Once a month! The man was crazy. I was totally unable to cook at the advanced age of 24 years. Oh well, why not let him dream on; anything was possible.
Food became a stark reality after the start of World War II on Pearl Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. I had turned 16 a month before that and was a junior in high school. We were called “the home front”. Within days there were shortages of sugar, butter, meat, and every other staple. Gasoline was just unavailable and it was not long until rationing coupons appeared for many items. If you didn’t require a car for purposes of earning a living, the allotment was three gallons a week. My father was given a scant 10 gallons or so a week to get back and forth to work. There were air raid warnings and drills, the total blackout involved pulling shades and drapes shut tightly and making arrangements to cover up “slivers of light.” Our parents were air raid wardens or filled other volunteer posts in civil defense.
Lena was in her element. If you didn’t have the ingredients, how could you cook? It was about this time she discovered restaurants with an intensity that was amazing. Our financial situation was improving and my father had a history of wishing that he could eat three meals a day out. It was the golden era of roadside diners, but that didn’t matter; we ate out at least two or three times a week no matter how humble and simple the place.
No one knows why, perhaps it was sheer patriotism that moved her, but Lena started to bake her “war” cake. I believe it was not a new concept; some friend gave her a recipe and she pushed ahead. The cake was horrifying. I remember taking my first and only bite; it was tooth shattering. I cannot find the recipe, but sincerely believe it had no sugar or butter or any other shortening. I assume it consisted of some flour, a bit of baking soda and powder, a lot of raisins, dried fruit, nuts, and maybe milk. After an hour, it emerged from the oven, about three inches in height and brown in color. Maybe it included some cocoa. No one could eat it; Peter whispered to me that it could be a new weapon capable of killing if thrown. But Lena persisted in doing her duty to her flag and country and produced one cake a week for at least a year.