The Grandma Museum

When we were kids and had not yet learned to behave properly in restaurants or to keep quiet when there was something on the plate we didn’t like, taking a meal somewhere other than at your own kitchen table was adventurous, if not downright foolish.

The only place where this was not too perilous was at grandmother’s home. After all, your parents grew up on your grandmothers’ cooking. And even though your father never said that he liked his mother’s cooking better than your mother’s cooking, you suspected, somehow, that he might. And your mom, eager to show off her children’s good appetites, extolled her mother’s cooking--and even her mother-in-law’s.

When we went to visit my mother’s mother, Helen (she lived quite a distance away, so it was never less than a week’s visit), we would find all our favorite foods in the refrigerator when we arrived. Eventually, when my grandmother reached her late 70s, my mother arranged our visits so Grandma didn’t know we were coming until the day before--we were afraid she’d spend a week cooking and be too done in (or worse) to enjoy the visit.

Pearl, my father’s mother, lived much closer. She and my grandfather made the rounds on Sundays, visiting us, my aunt and cousins, some assorted nieces and nephews and, as they got older, a seemingly endless number of friends in the hospital. My grandmother had a package of food for everybody on the itinerary. They would arrive bearing jars of soup, sometimes little meat pastries, shirt boxes filled with cookies or coffee cakes, perhaps a terrine of calf’s foot jelly. She never had enough jars and was insistent on collecting those she had delivered on previous visits.

Grandma food holds a special place in America’s culinary hierarchy. It is both curious and instructional to eat the same food that was served your mom and dad when they were kids. Going to grandma’s is like going to the “Museum of the History of Your Family.” Here’s some of my favorite grandma food.

The Sterns lived across the hallway from my grandmother. A sweet, rather innocuous doctor who attended concerts the remainder of the year, Mr. Stern fished on summer weekends. There would be a knock on the door on Sunday evening and there he would be, presenting a heap of bluefish.

No one will disagree that, like its cousin the mackerel, bluefish is fishy and oily. It’s best for smoking, pickling or making into a mayonnaise salad. Accompany this chilled dinner entree--which is perfect for an easy yet elegant warm-weather dinner--with potato salad, cucumber salad, chilled asparagus and/or sliced garden tomatoes. Whitefish, halibut and cod fillets are also delicious prepared this way.

PICKLED BLUEFISH

4 (6-ounce) bluefish fillets

2 medium onions, thinly sliced

3 tablespoons grainy mustard

2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 cup white wine

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Place fish in baking dish just large enough to hold fillets. Spread onions over top and set aside.

Combine 1 tablespoon mustard, coriander seeds, garlic, wine, vinegar, water, dill, salt and pepper to taste in small pan. Place over high heat and quickly bring to boil. Remove from heat and pour over fish fillets. Cover and bake at 375 degrees 5 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool to room temperature, then place in refrigerator.

Just before serving, mix together mayonnaise and remaining 2 tablespoons mustard and place in small serving bowl. Arrange fillets on platter around onions and spoon some of cooking liquid onto platter. Pass mayonnaise-mustard mixture separately. Makes 4 servings.

This is not the elegant French dish--my family went to elegant French restaurants for that. I’ve always thought of this fricassee as New York soul cooking, an immigrant version of chicken and noodles.

CHICKEN FRICASSEE

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon oil

3 1/2 pounds chicken pieces

1 cup whipping cream

1 cup chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic

3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 pound button mushrooms

1 pound egg noodles, cooked

Heat butter and oil in Dutch oven over low heat. Add chicken pieces and cook without browning, about 7 minutes.

Remove chicken from Dutch oven and discard fat. Replace leg and thigh pieces and add cream, stock, garlic, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Bring to boil. Cover and bake at 375 degrees 15 minutes. Add chicken breasts and mushrooms. Cover and bake another 15 minutes or until chicken is done.

Remove pan from oven and transfer chicken and mushrooms to platter. Place in turned-off oven to keep warm. Place Dutch oven on stove top and boil liquid until thick enough to coat spoon.

To serve, remove chicken and mushrooms from oven and pour any juices into sauce. Place chicken and mushrooms on bed of cooked egg noodles on serving platter and spoon sauce over top. Makes 4 servings.

Although not much eaten in this country any longer and hardly ever seen on restaurant menus, barley is, along with wheat, one of the two oldest cultivated grains in the world. There are records of its cultivation as early as 7,000 BC in Mesopotamia. Wheat was always the grain of choice, but barley was often more widely eaten because it can grow in poorer soil and under harsher climates. In medieval Europe, barley, oats and rye were the grains of the poor; wheat was enjoyed only by the aristocracy. Today, barley is a staple only in some parts of Russia and the Middle East--and at my grandmother’s house, where it is used to make Mushroom-Barley Soup at least once a month, because we all adore it.

MUSHROOM-BARLEY SOUP

1 tablespoon oil or chicken fat

2 medium onions, diced

6 celery stalks, finely sliced

1 tablespoon minced garlic

6 cups fresh or canned low-sodium chicken broth or water

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

3/4 cup pearl barley

1 teaspoon dried dill

2 pounds mushrooms

Heat oil in 3-quart pan over medium heat. Add onions and celery and cook until tender, about 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer.

Add broth, salt and pepper to taste, barley and dill. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, 1 hour. Add mushrooms and cook another 10 minutes. Makes 4 servings.