Tag Archives: food

Sweet and savory

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I love munching on olives while waiting for the big holiday dinner to finish. When I was a kid, there were always at least two kinds of olives out, usually away from the kitchen, often laid out with candy and nuts and some little napkins and tiny plates. It was part of “this food is to distract you and keep you out of the kitchen until the main event” table.

Depending on which branches of the extended family were present, the setting was referred to as either “the olives and pickles” or “the relish tray.” It was called a relish “tray” regardless of whether there was an actual tray. A real relish tray is a bit of glassware meant for a buffet table in a formal dining setting, which has separated compartments.

Sweet and Savory!
Relish Tray, Gene & Michael’s, Thanksgiving 2012

The relish tray’s heyday was before the 20th Century, when the only foods available during the winter months were those which had been canned, pickled, or otherwise preserved during the growing seasons. Home canned foods often are very bland, so pickled foods added bursts of vinegary or briny or sweet delight.

I didn’t know that as a kid. There just were always at least two kinds of olive, and usually sweet pickled beets and at least two kinds of pickles. And if this was the right branch of the family, most of the pickles were home-pickled produce. Grandma B. liked an even mix of savory and sweet choices. Grandma P. always had a lot of very spicy pickled vegetables. If Great-grandma S.J.’s pickled squash was in the mix, it was a very special relish tray, for instance. One year, Great-aunt Pearl (though now that I think about it, she was my Grandma’s aunt, so she was technically my great-great-aunt) had sent a jar or two of homemade pickled watermelon rind, and that may have been the best relish tray, ever.

It just doesn’t feel like a real holiday dinner, to me, if there isn’t a relish tray. If given half a chance, I’ll set out a spread of dozens of different kinds of olives alone. Even if it’s going to be a small group. Each vinegary, briny, and sweet morsel is a little bit of my childhood, coming back for a visit.

Grandma’s cranberry salad

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One of the best parts of my childhood was growing up with a collection of truly kick-ass grandmothers. I say collection because in addition to my two grandmothers, all four of my great-grandmothers were still alive when I was a teen-ager (one lived until I was in my thirties).

My Great-grandma I. taught me how to make egg noodles from scratch, (which is the first step to making the World’s Best Chicken Noodle Casserole {which she also taught me how to make}), and that measuring cups are only guidelines. My Great-grandma S.J. taught me how to crochet, how to make biscuits from scratch, and how to listen in on the neighbors’ conversation on a party line (if you don’t know what a party line is, google it). Great-grandma B. taught me how to make ice tea with so much sugar, it was amazing the stuff would actually pour (and there is a secret, it’s not just about adding more and more sugar, although that’s an important part). I could go on, and on.

But during this time of year there are a couple things I regret never learning from my various grandmothers: I never learned Great-grandma S.J.’s heavy-cream-and-molasses sweet potatoes (I’ve found and tried some recipes, but so far, none come out right), and I never learned how to make Grandma P.’s frozen cranberry salad. I have recreated a close approximation, but it also isn’t quite right.

Every holiday when I get together with that side of the family, someone laments the absence of Grandma’s cranberry salad. I’m not the only one who has attempted to recreate it. Every version I’ve tried has been tasty, but it isn’t the same.

The funny thing is, that unlike most of the other dishes each of them was known for, this one wasn’t a really old recipe. Great-grandma S.J. once told me she’d learned how to make divinity from her own grandmother, for instance. It’s the reason she couldn’t write the recipe down, she’d have to show you. That had been the case with her homemade biscuits. When I make her biscuits I throw ingredients together and mix. If the consistency isn’t right, you add more of one of the ingredients, depending up how the consistency is wrong. It’s hard to describe. You have to experience it.

Grandma P.’s cranberry salad was something she started making when I was an adult. She’d seen it on a cooking show, she said, and just gave it a try. We know it involves canned cranberry sauce (the chunky kind), whipped cream, canned mandarin oranges, and some kind of jell-o. After that, none of us are sure. Or, more truthfully, we had contradictory memories. Some of us insist it had coconut, but others are certain it had marshmallows, for instance.

The thing that I don’t want to say to any of the family: I bet all of our contradictory memories are right. It fits right in with Grandma’s style of cooking. “Oh, I don’t have any shredded coconut? Hmmm, oh here’s some marshmallows, maybe they will be good…”

And probably the real reason it never tastes right, is because it’s missing the most important ingredient. The one we can never replace…