My Grandma's Kitchen

My mom always told me that it was exceptionally cold for the time of the year that day in March when I was born 61 years ago. I was the first born in the family and the first grandchild.

Both my parents were teachers, my mom teaching French language and my dad applied economics. Both in the same school were I would spend 14 years of my young life, from kindergarten over elementary till my high school graduation when I was 18. Detail, I got French class from my mom during 3 years and two years my dad was my economics and finance teacher. You can imagine how adventurous my high school days were (except for meeting my girlfriend when we were 16 and got married 7 years later).

My grandmother, (the mother of my dad) was a World War 2 widow and lived with us taking care of the house and, most important, of the kitchen till the day she, suddenly, passed away in March 1969 only 61 years old.

My grandma had a huge impact on the developing of my taste and on how to experience food. I cannot remember anymore what she fed me as a baby but I am pretty sure that I got, like all the other babies in

those years, a type of mashed potatoes with vegetables (carrots, fresh peas, cauliflower) for lunch and a type of fruit compote (mostly with banana and orange juice) mixed with LIGA - Betterfood cookies specially developed for babies and toddlers.

You have to know that in those days there were no convenience baby foods in the supermarkets, all was homemade from scratch!

My grandmothers cooking style (and I spend hours at her side while she was at the stove) was simple, no-nonsense but most of all tasty. A cuisine based on potatoes, butter, milk, vegetables and pork meat, the products of the region available on the market in the sixties of last century. Beef was only eaten as ‘Carbonnades a la Flamande’ (Beef stew in Beer sauce), a typical and classic dish in Belgium and the Nord of France and as a ‘Roast beef’ on special occasions.

When I was a child, chicken was nearly not on the menu (except my parents got one from my mom’s uncle who had a small farm and was raising some chicken) because it was very expensive those days and became only more available and affordable around 1970. I remember that one day we went to see friends of my parents in Brussels and they had a ‘roasted chicken’ with applesauce and fries for lunch. I think it was the first time I ate chicken that way. Today you can’t even imagine that only 30 years later roasted chicken would be mainstream, cheap and abundantly available nearly everywhere in the world.

Tradition was that families had only one warm meal a day, if possible served at lunchtime. For families where the parents (mostly the father) was working and didn’t had the opportunity to go home for lunch, the warm meal was served in the evening.

Breakfast was always bread, butter and jam or ‘Kwatta’ chocolate paste. Some days there was fried egg with a strip of bacon or some cooked ham or a slice of Gouda cheese. For the kids there was always, and not drinking was absolutely no option, milk.

Note that in those days yogurt, cereals and fruits were not on the breakfast menu, and nobody had ever heard of smoothies.

The warm meal was the family highlight of the day. We were really spoiled with grandma in the house. Every day when we reached home, the fresh soup was already on the table. It was and still is common in Belgium and in France that soup is served as the first course for the daily warm meal. I remember the Lentesoep (soup with spring vegetables) my grandma made, her fresh tomato soup (on Sundays with mini meatballs) and in the winter the white bean soup with pork hock simmered for hours on the stove.

The main dish was always composed around the three basics: potatoes, vegetables and meat. Pasta didn’t exist on the market those days and it was also around 1970 that the first spaghetti would pop up. And, by the way, for pizza you had to wait till that time also. Rice wasn’t eaten as a side dish but only used to make desserts.

My grandma was, what we would call now a ‘seasonal’ cook, not because she was ahead of her time, but the market had only those products to offer whom were in season. This was before the days of temperature controlled greenhouses, special packaging techniques and imports from abroad. 

  

We didn’t had a garden ourselves but we were lucky enough to have some neighbors who were growing vegetables and were my grandma could buy fresh carrots, peas, beans, cabbage (three colors: white, green and red!), celery, leaks, cauliflower, tomatoes, lettuce….but all in season. Buying lettuce or green beans in wintertime was nearly impossible. That was the time of the cabbages, salsify, celeriac, Brussels sprouts and winter carrots.

Potatoes were always there. As simple cooked potatoes in salted water, as a puree (mashed potatoes with butter and some milk) and as ‘stoemp’ (mashed potatoes with vegetables), the comfort food par excellence! And of course, the homemade Belgian Fries!

With the vegetables and the potatoes there was always some meat. Mostly we ate pork meat as it was widely available and very affordable. At least once a week we had pork sausages, another day it was a pork chop or meatballs.  One of my favorite dishes of my grandma were her meatballs in tomato sauce, also one of those very traditional Belgian dishes but I liked also very much her red cabbage with mashed potatoes and a fresh pork sausage or green beans with onion sauce and a pork chop. 

And on Sundays, her Pork Fricassee with mushrooms or steak with fries and a salad dressed with homemade mayonnaise.

Time flies. This March on the 28^th, 48 years ago, my grandma passed away. But one thing is for sure: she made me the foodie I am today, longtime before the word was invented!