Last winter, during an especially harsh cold snap, I called my 89-year-old grandmother, who lives alone in a small village in central New Hampshire, to ask if she needed any food or anything.
I don’t know what I was thinking, really. I’m thousands of miles away from her. I guess I just thought that I could have something (beef jerky? pesto?) overnighted to her so she wouldn’t have to brave the minus-30 degree temperature to find something to eat.
“My deah,” she said, stretching the word deah into about 34 syllables. “I am an old Yankee. I have seen this weather before. My basement is filled with cans and jars of this and that. I have blueberry pies from last July in the freezer just waiting to be baked, and more than a couple chops and roasts that won’t take any time at all to defrost. I’ve just made a big pot of kale soup, which I’ll eat off of for the rest of the week. And I haven’t even turned on my heater, because the wood stove does just fine. I’m perfectly happy. You really don’t need to worry about me.”
God love her. She’s as stubbornly (and successfully) self-sufficient as anyone I’ve ever known. She was, as she always is, absolutely right. I didn’t need to worry about her.
But still, while her cupboard was full, it sounded pretty barren. And dull.
How could she possibly be happy with just a bunch of soup and some chops? How about some edamame? Salsa fresca? Tabouleh? Wouldn’t she go nuts eating bland old Yankee food day after day?
I mean, didn’t she need a little more flavor in her diet?
See, up until recently, I’ve been saddled with what I always called cuisine envy.
I, a total WASP with a white-bread heritage, grew up not valuing my own family’s so-called cuisine. I spent great swaths of my childhood daydreaming about what went on in other people’s kitchens.
I’d imagine the scent of red sauce simmering all day over a low flame, or the sounds of sliced ginger sizzling in a superhot wok.
I pictured my peers’ parents rolling out tortillas on the counter or pounding sofrito with a mortar and pestle or slow-cooking a pork shoulder in the pit out back. I’d quietly seethe about the blah baked potato that I knew was in my immediate future.
I wondered what everyone else had for breakfast: Miso soup and sticky rice? Passion fruit crepes? Chopped dates with cardamom and apricots?
In my family, it was all about oatmeal. Pancakes with maple syrup. BLTs for lunch. Roast chicken for dinner, if we were lucky, and frozen French fries. (Scalloped potatoes on special occasions). Chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. Pie.
Boring, boring, boring.
Or was it?
See, by listening to my grandmother, I’ve learned that there’s sense in my family’s culinary tradition. It may not be exciting, but it’s practical.
And there’s something to be said for that.
My paternal grandparents, who both grew up on farms in New England, cooked with common sense. They cooked what they knew, cooked what they had on hand, cooked according to season, and cooked balanced, nourishing meals. Peas and lettuces in the spring, strawberries and lobsters in the summer, squash and pork chops in the autumn, potatoes and scallops right through the winter.
And they cooked beautifully, even if the most exotic spice in the cabinet was garlic salt.
There was a time when I thought that my heritage just didn’t measure up in the context of world cuisine, what with the complete lack of spice or excitement in the cooking.
But when I look at it through my grandmother’s eyes, I see something different. I see a practical, organic, nutritious cuisine that is as pure, honest, and nuanced as any other.
“Gram,” I asked when I called last month during the heaviest New England rains in decades, “Had any flood damage? Need anything?”
“My deeeeah,” she said. “I’m an old Yankee. I’ve seen rain before. I live at the top of the hill.
“And I’ve got plenty to eat. My cupboards are full. I’ve just made a couple of blueberry pies for the freezer. …”
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
