Maggie's Farm

AS far as diet goes, I can't claim to know exactly what Americans were eating in 1928, the year I was born, but shortly thereafter I was introduced to real food. As I remember, we ate real eggs and bacon or sausage for breakfast -- and it wasn't turkey sausage -- and soup and cheese sandwiches for lunch, or even meats of various kinds [hamburgers were still not on the horizon for most folks, but we did have 'cube steaks, which Mom floured and then cut the flour in with the edge of a saucer]. And we had real butter, and the milk van delivered milk in those cute bottles which separated cream from the milk by a little bulging waistline at the top of the bottle. Or you could go the whole hog and buy a bottle of real cream, so thick and slightly golden and full of deliciousness, and it would whip up easily like a dream, to top your homemade gingerbread, or build your angel-food cake.

Ahh ... homemade angel-food cake was a concerted effort by the ladies of the household, who took turns beating the egg whites into gorgeous fluffitude. I can still see my indomitable little grandmother's flushed face as she took a turn at the beater.

Cooking was work, in those days -- noble work that kept the family healthy and happy. And not an electric beater or a Cuisinart in sight. My grandmother took me over to the grocery store, and introduced me to the head butcher [who really knew how to cut meat, by the way, not just take it out of the slaughterhouse package] and the butcher and Grandmom would discuss what looked best for the day. He had a mounted chart on his counter which diagrammed all of the meat cuts and where they were located on the cow or pig or sheep. It was pretty good show-and-tell, I can tell you, and I learned something new every time we went.

I remember chicken breasts when they were dainty, tender little bits of breast meat and didn't include the chicken backs, and were delightful little bits of luxury for special dinners. And I remember fryer chickens, when they were not long out of babyhood. Then there were hens, for roasting on Sundays, and last of all, old hens, tough old birds who were tired after a lifetime of laying eggs, so they were sold for stewing and other long-cooking techniques.

Where I grew up, in the upper Midwest, we had beautiful pale pink veal for chops. When I moved to Texas, they didn't have any real authentic veal [the luxury meat of Europe] just grass-fed young beef. Now they sell real milk-fed veal, so one can make French and Continental gourmet dishes with the real stuff.

But the government, in its overpowering stupidity, did something in the 1960s which ought to anger American gourmet cooks, and would, if they knew about it. They "down-graded" the rating of all beef. So 'prime beef' was no longer offered, in general, to civilian consumers and was reserved instead for expensive restaurant steak-houses. Government 'choice-rated beef' became the new 'prime', 'good' rated beef became 'choice', and 'cutter and canner' became 'good.' I know all this because I was dating a guy who had grown up in the slaughterhouse industry, and he explained it all to me, and then later, the government issued a boring little ill-written news release which confirmed it.

So if today's beef tastes tougher to you than it used to, it is. And that's why. I miss the Black Angus steaks we used to have, which would cut almost like butter on your plate. Wisconsin is not only 'the dairy state,' it is 'the beef state' as well. And we ate some beautiful meals there, with lovely well-marbled beef, delicious pork and ham, and sweet little chickens.

I hope you all enjoyed this trip down Memory Lane. I know I did.

Marianne

Sounds like the vacations of my youth, D, and Great Lakes perch, freshly caught and cooked within an hour of catching, is a lovely dish indeed...

I do love our Gulf Coast seafood. Shrimp and crab make a lovely meal, But I miss Great Lakes fish. Heck ... I miss the Great Lakes.

Marianne