Cheddar Bread Recipe by Ruth Paget

Cheddar Bread Recipe by Ruth Paget 

Makes 2 loaves 

Ingredients: 

-1 (0.75-ounce) package instant dry yeast 

-1/2 pound shredded, sharp cheddar cheese 

-1 (10.75-ounce) can Campbell’s tomato soup 

-1 (4-ounce) jar diced pimientos with juice 

-1 cup scalded milk 

-1/2 cup butter 

-6 to 7 cups flour 

Steps: 

1-Dissolve yeast in water according to package instructions. 

2-Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl to form a dough. 

3-Place dough in a warm spot and let rise to double its size. 

4-When the dough has risen, punch it down and knead by hand for 15 to 20 minutes. 

5-Let dough rise again in a warm spot.

6-When the dough has risen again, punch it down and knead by hand for 15 to 20 minutes. 

7-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

8-Form two loaves. Spray Pam in two bread baking pans and bake loaves for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. 

Cheddar bread tastes great toasted with melted butter and a mug of strong black coffee with warmed milk to drink.

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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No-Bake Fruit Pie Recipe by Ruth Paget

No-Bake Fruit Pie Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 6 People 

Ingredients: 

-1 pre-baked pie shell made with butter not lard or 1 graham cracker crust 

-3 or 4 cups of chopped soft fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blue berries, cherries, or peaches 

-1 scoop vanilla ice cream or 4 cups whipped cream 

Steps: 

1-Fill pie shell with chopped fruit and top with ice cream or whipped cream.

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Jeanette Hodgson, mother of Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Pull Candy Recipe by Ruth Paget

Pull Candy Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 24 Candy Pieces 

Ingredients: 

-2 ½ cups sugar 

-1/2 cup water 

-1 tablespoon vinegar 

-2 or 3 drops of peppermint, winter green mint, or vanilla 

Steps:

1-Boil sugar, water, and vinegar until you can pick up a glob with a spoon when you drop some of the sugar mixture in water. 

2-Pour boiled syrup onto a buttered marble slab or pan. Add a few drops of flavoring.

3-As the syrup begins to cool, lift the edges and drop them into the center of the syrup with heat-resistant gloves. 

4-When the candy is cool enough to handle, pick it up and pull it back and forth until it becomes stiff. 

5-Pull candy into a long piece and cut it with scissors into bite-size pieces.

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Popcorn Balls Recipe by Ruth Paget

Popcorn Balls Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 18 to 20 Popcorn Balls 

Ingredients: 

-2 ½ gallons of popped popcorn 

-1/2 cup water 

-3/4 cup molasses 

-3 cups sugar 

-1 tablespoon vinegar 

Steps: 

1-Put hot popcorn in a dish and shake it down to remove unpopped kernels at the bottom. Put popcorn back in the pan and place in a warm oven. 

2-Boil sugar, molasses, water, and vinegar until you can pick up a glob when a teaspoon of the syrup is dropped in water. 

3-Dribble syrup over popped corn until well coated. Stir with a big spoon until the syrup begins to set. 

4-Quickly form the popcorn into balls with buttered heat-resistant gloves. Work fast as the syrup hardens quickly. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle - Arena, Wisconsin

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Penuche Fudge Recipe by Ruth Paget

Penuche Fudge Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 24 Fudge Squares 

Ingredients: 

-2 (2-ounce) squares bitter cooking chocolate 

-2 ½ cups brown sugar 

-lump of butter 

-2 cups whole milk or half and half 

-1 cup chopped nuts 

Steps: 

1-Boil chocolate, brown sugar, butter, and milk or half and half until you can pick up a glob of the mixture when 1 teaspoon of the chocolate is dropped into cold water.  

2-Remove chocolate mixture from heat. When the mixture is cool, add chopped nuts and stir until the mixture thickens. 

3-Pour fudge into a buttered pan. Let the fudge solidify some more. Then, cut the fudge into squares. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Fudge Recipe by Ruth Paget

Fudge Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 24 Fudge Squares 

Ingredients: 

-2 (2-ounce) squares bitter cooking chocolate 

-2 ½ cups sugar 

-small lump of butter 

-2 cups whole milk or half and half 

-1 cup chopped nuts 

Steps: 

1-Boil chocolate, sugar, butter, and milk or half and half together until you can pick up a glob of the mixture when you drop a teaspoon of it into cold water. 

2-Remove chocolate mixture from heat. When the chocolate mixture is cool, add chopped nuts and stir until the mixture thickens. 

3-Pour fudge into a buttered pan. Let fudge solidify some more. Then, cut the fudge into squares. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe by Ruth Paget

Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 6 People 

 Ingredients: 

-1 Pre-bake pie crust 

-For Filling: 

 -Juice of 1 lemon 

-2 egg yolks 

-1/2 teaspoon salt 

-1 cup sugar 

-2 tablespoons flour 

-2 cups water 

 -For Meringue Topping: 

-2 egg whites 

-1/4 cup sugar 

-1 teaspoon vanilla 

Steps: 

1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

2-Mix lemon juice, egg yolks, salt, sugar, flour, and water together. 

3-Cook the lemon mixture in a double boiler. (A double boiler is basically a smaller pot halfway submerged in a larger pot of boiling water.) 

4-Heat lemon mixture until thick. Pour lemon mixture into the pre-cooked pie shell. 

5-Whip the two egg whites. Add sugar a little at a time. Beat the mixture until it is stiff enough to form peaks. Add vanilla to the mix and turn. 

6-Top the pie with meringue. Bake the pie until the meringue is brownish. Bake for approximately 10 minutes and then check the meringue for color. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Rhubarb Pie Recipe by Ruth Paget

Rhubarb Pie Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 6 People 

Ingredients: 

 -2 rolled out dough pie crusts for pan and pie top 

 -For Filling: 

-3 to 4 cups chopped rhubarb 

-3/4 cup sugar 

-1 tablespoon flour 

-5 or 6 dabs of butter 

Steps: 

1-Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 

2-Place bottom dough crust in a pie pan and fit it to the pan. Fill pie crust with chopped rhubarb. 

3-Mix sugar with flour and spread it over the rhubarb. Add a few dabs of butter on top of rhubarb. 

4-Wet bottom dough crust edges. Cover pie top with top crust dough. Pinch edges of top and bottom crust dough together. Make slits in the top pie crust to let out steam. 

5-Sprinkle a little sugar on top of the pie. 

6-Bake for the first ten minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. After ten minutes, lower the heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

7-Bake until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbling. (Bake for 30 minutes and then start checking how brown the crust is and look to see if some rhubarb juice has boiled through the slits.) 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Lemonade Recipe by Ruth Paget

Lemonade Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 3 quarts of lemonade 

Ingredients: 

-Juice of 2 lemons 

-1 cup sugar 

-3 quarts water 

Steps: 

1-Add the lemon juice and sugar to the water and stir till the sugar dissolves. 

2-Slice the juiced lemons into rounds and add them to the lemonade. Gently crush the lemon rounds to release the oil in their skins.

(Remove the lemon rounds, if you are going to keep the lemonade overnight.)

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Caraway or Anise Cookies Recipe by Ruth Paget

Caraway or Anise Cookies Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 24 Cookies 

Ingredients: 

-1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons) 

-1 cup sugar 

-1 egg 

-1/2 teaspoon salt 

-1 teaspoon vanilla 

-2 cups flour 

-1 teaspoon baking powder 

-2 tablespoons caraway or anise seeds 

Steps: 

1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

2-Cream butter and sugar together. 

3-Add the rest of the ingredients to the butter and sugar and mix. 

4-Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Ginger Cookies Recipe by Ruth Paget

Ginger Cookies Recipe by Ruth Paget

For 24 Cookies 

Ingredients: 

-1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons) 

-1 cup sugar 

-1 egg 

-1/2 cup molasses 

-1 tablespoon vinegar 

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda 

-1/2 teaspoon salt 

-2 ½ cups flour 

-1 teaspoon each of ginger, cinnamon, and baking powder 

Steps: 

1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

2-Mix all the ingredients together. 

3-Roll dough into a cylinder and slice round cookies. 

4-Bake cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 12 minutes. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Sorghum Cookies Recipe by Ruth Paget

Sorghum Cookies Recipe by Ruth Paget 

For 24 Cookies 

Ingredients:

-2 ½ cups flour 

-1 cup sugar 

-1 cup sorghum 

-1 cup lard 

-1 egg 

-1/8 teaspoon baking soda 

-2 teaspoons baking powder 

-1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon 

-1/4 teaspoon salt 

Steps: 

1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

2-Combine all the ingredients into a homogenous mass. 

3-Roll dough into a cylinder and cut into cookies. 

4-Bake cookies at 350 degrees until golden. 

5-The cookies get crisp out of the oven, so do not overcook them. 

(A Rosevale Farm Recipe) 

Source: Winifred Sawle – Arena, Wisconsin 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Dijon: The Mustard Society Game by Ruth Paget

Dijon: The Mustard Society Game by Ruth Paget 

Number of Players: 

Unlimited as long as the mustard lasts 

Materials Needed: All the materials you need for this game can be ordered from the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin (mustardmuseum.com). 

-3 different kinds of mustard 

-pretzel sticks Game 

Preparation: 

-On a sheet of paper, note the name of the three different mustards with a line after it where players will note a number of a matching mystery mustard. Make copies of this game sheet for the number of guests coming to your game 

-Put out a dish with many pretzels so people dip once to avoid double dipping and germ spreading -cover the jars with paper so you cannot see the labels. Number them 1 – 3. 

Game Play: 

-Each guest will use one pretzel stick per mustard jar to scoop out a taste. -Guests will discuss mustards and note on their game sheet what mustard they think the mystery mustards are. 

-Take the white paper of each jar to reveal the mystery mustard. 

Everyone is a winner if you set all the mustards out to go with brats, hot dogs, or kielbasa and potato salad, coleslaw, and chips. 

People who got everything right can take a jar of mustard home, if there is any left. 

Mustards you can order from the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin include: 

-Colman’s Original English 

-Bornier Original Dijon 

-De Echte Zaanse Mustard 

-Löwensenf Bavarian 

-Lakeshore Wholegrain with Irish Whiskey 

-Bacik Spicy Horseradish and Honey 

-Amora 

-Clovis Herbes de Provence 

-Edmond Fallon Honey 

-Delicious Gourmet Big Easy Cajun 

-Pommery Moutarde de Meaux 

-Inglehoffer Sriracha 

-Kocsiusko Spicy Brown Mustard 

-Australian Outback Mustard 

-Baumgarten Horseradish Mustard 

-Löwensenf Extra Hot 

-Sierra Nevada Stout and Stone Ground 

The Mustard Museum has an online catalog that you can request to make unique parties with society games. 

Happy Gaming! 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France 

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Light Lunch Wisconsin by Ruth Paget

Light Lunch Wisconsin by Ruth Paget

If you ask someone what a light lunch in Wisconsin is they might tell you, “A locally brewed beer and a bretzel” or “a strong black coffee and a pastry.” 

Then, they would wax philosophical and say, “Just appetizers, a casserole, or a spread or dip in small portions, especially in cold weather.”

I agreed with those statements and felt like it snowed nine months of the year when I lived in Wisconsin. Nine months may be too many, but seven months of snow was close to accurate. I do like high-calorie foods like those above in cold weather I have to admit. 

The immigrant groups who have come to Wisconsin have many dishes of German, Polish, Scandinavian, and Irish origin that are great winter fare. There are recipes for of all these immigrant groups in the cookbook The Best of the Best of from Wisconsin Cookbook edited by Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley. 

Some of my favorite dishes from this cookbook include: 

-creamy horseradish ham roll-ups

-beer spread made with cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, and beer 

-mini Reuben sandwiches made with rye bread, sour cream, corned beef, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese 

-baked cheese wings with Parmesan 

-cheddar jalapeño corn bread 

-cheese drop biscuits 

-Danishes made with jam 

-Norwegian sour cream waffles with apple pecan topping 

-Dusseldorfer sandwiches made with rye bread, tarter sauce, dill pickles, liverwurst slices, and Swiss cheese 

-Wisconsin beer cheese soup made with 5 cups of cheddar cheese

 -Polish noodles with cabbage 

-New Glarus cheese and onion pie from a recreated Swiss village town 

-Lithuanian Kugela made with bacon, onion, potatoes, milk, and eggs 

-Potatoes Romanoff made with cheese, sour cream, onion, and shredded cheese 

-Colcannon, an Irish dish, made with heavy cream, garlic, chopped cabbage, and leeks 

-chicken Calvados made with apple schnapps 

These delicious dishes give a good idea of what you make in severe weather to stay warm. Chefs and people of German and Eastern European heritage might especially enjoy Best of the Best from Wisconsin Cookbook edited by Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Trips to Clasen's European Bakery by Ruth Paget

Trips to Clasen’s European Bakery by Ruth Paget After breakfast on Saturday mornings in DeForest (Wisconsin), I would take my family on a field trip to the other side of town to Middleton where Clasen’s European Bakery is located. 

Middleton is where my mom grew up. I thought it was most civilized for having an artisanal bakery like the ones we went to when we lived in Paris, France. 

Clasen’s is a family bakery that was set up 50 years ago according to its website by Ralph and Ernst Clasen. Ralph’s daughter Michelle studied pastry in Germany and now keeps the family business going at Clasen’s. 

Wisconsin is home to German jause, light meals or strong coffee with pastries. On Sundays, we ate breakfast and did a jause mid-morning with strong Lavazza espresso made with our stainless steel espresso maker with a milk frother. (The milk frother broke from overuse.) Our Eurocrat jause standard pastry was Clasen’s pecan-cinnamon rolls. 

Other items I would buy as a Sunday dessert included slices of cherry cream cheese coffee cake, Black Forest torte, and German chocolate cake. The vanilla cakes were divine, too.

Clasen’s did some custom baking for me at Easter when I would order a chocolate lamb cake with white buttercream frosting. 

Laurent would wander and choose different kinds of rolls to try. The French have a cheese for every day of the year, and the Germans have a bread for every day of the year. So, Laurent was in a bread candy store. He loved going to Clasen’s 

What is really great about Clasen’s now is that you can order and pay online and get delivery within the continental U.S. 

I have to admit that when I was going to Clasen’s all those many years ago that I had no idea I would live in Germany one day. Supporting Clasen’s European Bakery certainly helped me adjust to life in Germany, because the bread and pastries were the same. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Aunt Winnie's Salad Dressing Recipe by Ruth Paget

Aunt Winnie’s Salad Dressing Recipe by Ruth Paget 

Serves 6 

Ingredients: 

-3/4 cup sugar 

-1 beaten egg 

-1 teaspoon mustard 

-1 teaspoon salt 

-1 tablespoon flour 

-1 teaspoon vinegar 

-1/4 cup sour cream 

Steps: 

1-Mix sugar, egg, mustard, salt, and flour together. Add vinegar. 

2-Cook mixture over medium heat until clear. 

3-Thin mixture with sour cream. 

If you like sweeter dressing, mix 1 cup sugar in with the sour cream.  

Source: Beatrice Pennington – 1964 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Wisconsin $ Food Hacks by Ruth Paget

Wisconsin $ Food Hacks by Ruth Paget

Short post for big nutrition on a budget:

Oatmeal - lots of protein bang for your buck and fiber

Cranberries - full of vitamin C.

Cook fresh berries with sugar and add them to oatmeal muffins.

Maple syrup - sweetens up buckwheat pancakes

Buckwheat is a good source of iron.  Buckwheat pancakes have a sour taste, but maple syrup makes it less pronounced.

Food for thought for today.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Fundraising Ideas for Historical Museums by Ruth Paget

Fundraising Ideas for Historical Museums by Ruth Paget 

I associate historical museums more with field trips than as money generating sites, but I think historical museums need to think about revenue generating activities when seeking donors or government support. 

Class field trips like the ones I took as an elementary school student to the Detroit Historical Society helped provide that organization with operating funds as well as teaching young students about the Chippewa Native Americans, French fur traders and Michigan trading posts, and the impact of the Ford Model T on American society. 

The high cost of insuring field trips has made them almost a relic of the past in public schools in cash-strapped districts. This situation has probably forced historical societies to seek donors to ensure operating funds. I love historical museums and think there are several ways they could increase revenue. 

The first way is to seek out parents who will take their own children on field trips. Reaching parents is not as easy as contacting a school board, but historical museums might think of advertising the benefits of a visit to their site to the following markets, especially if they have newsletters: 

-religious organizations 

-sport teams 

-language organizations 

-charter schools 

-K12 school groups 

-music schools 

-dance schools 

-drama groups 

When I lived in Wisconsin in the 1990s, field trips had become a parent’s responsibility. I took my daughter Florence to the Wisconsin Historical Museum on Capitol Square in Madison to see exhibits about the Ho-Chunk Nation Native Americans, the lumber and paper industries, and German and Norwegian settlers, who lived in log cabins. This is another historical museum that is important for understanding the sociological and cultural history of the state. 

Historical museums have events that other historical museums might replicate. The Pickett’s Mill Battlefield, a Georgia State Park, holds re-enactments of the Civil War Battle fought there with African-American and white troops on the Union side. This event engages volunteers and the community. Even a nominal fee to attend this re-re-enactment could raise operating funds. 

Many historical museums offer hikes around their site or long walks in the museum. Museum visitors might welcome the chance to buy items such as the following to help support the museum:  

-cold water 

-cold soda 

-cheddar cheese fish chips 

-shrimp chips 

-tortilla chips 

-potato chips 

-brownies 

-guava cookies 

-cold brew coffee 

A combination of donors, sales, and parent doing their own field trips might increase historical museum revenue to keep these community resources open and increase funds for temporary exhibits and historical documentaries shown at the site. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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DeForest, Wisconsin Trip by Ruth Paget

DeForest, Wisconsin Trip by Ruth Paget  

My California family set out by car for a road trip to DeForest, Wisconsin for a Sawle Family Reunion from June 8 – 16, 2022. We drove through the states of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa. 

DeForest sits immediately off Interstates 90 and 94, north of university town Madison, Wisconsin on the way to tourist town Wisconsin Dells. DeForest is a good stop for tourists from Chicago. There are many fast food chains by the highway and Ehlenbach’s German Food and Gift Shop. 

My favorite fast food is the Wisconsin chain called Culver’s, which sells fish fry dinners everyday with 2 or 3 pieces of cod, coleslaw, a yeasty bun with butter, and crinkly fries that fill the bottom of the dinner tray. Drinks for this special are extra. Butter burgers are Culver’s main item along with daily ice cream specials – dairy land products from America’s Dairy Land. 

I lived in DeForest three years and think they did some nice things to promote local businesses and civic services. The local chamber of commerce offered a welcome wagon service that they presented to you at home or in a local food outlet. A chamber representative introduced me to local businesses like the video store, supermarket, movie theatres, library programs like summer reading and literacy programs, and farmers’ markets. The chamber representative gave me some coupons as a “welcome to the neighborhood.” I became a quick part of the community by becoming a literacy volunteer for a French woman in town. 

Ace Hardware is a business of longstanding that has gone into the food business. Besides tools, their billboard out front advertises Brat Party Kits. (Brats are bratwurst sausage.) The kits no doubt come with buns, German potato salad, coleslaw, maybe a pasta salad, and charcoal and grills, if you need them. 

About ten minutes west of DeForest in Waunakee are two good restaurants that tourists might also like – Cuco’s Mexican Restaurant and Rex’s Innkeeper. The Sawle Family Reunion was held at Rex’s, which features various kinds of steak and prime rib and excellent seafood with a soup and salad bar and yeasty buns and whipped Wisconsin butter. 

Across the street from Rex’s is Cuco’s. I like their tangy Mexican cheese enchiladas verdes with green tomatillo tomato sauce and pulled pork (carnitas) on top with beans and rice on the side. 

We did some tourism around DeForest, too, visiting towns that Laurent worked in when he was a representative for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1994 – 1996. 

In Portage, red brick Main Street bars are now wine bars that also sell chocolate, cheese, and gifts. Hot and humid summers make Wisconsin good wine growing territory. 

At the outlet malls in Johnson Creek going towards Milwaukee, there are still good deals and lots of parking. At the Pine Cone Restaurant, you can eat breakfast and fish fry all day. 

In Sun Prairie, there is now a halal market that sells meat and fine produce. There are miles of barns here that the artist Georgia O’Keefe painted in her youth. The corn in the area is used to feed dairy cows. 

In Madison, we made a pilgrimage to Metcalf’s Market to buy pancetta, Maytag Blue Cheese from Iowa, and oblong country loaves of bread to toast for breakfast. 

We ate well in Wisconsin, but left the excellent craft brewery beers to the Wisconsin cousins. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Mother Lines Genealogy - Part 5 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Mother Lines Genealogy – Part 5 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Once in Wisconsin, the Sawles bought a dairy farm, set up a mill on a stream on their property, set up chicken coops, and made friends with the pig farmers down the road.  They had blackberry bushes on their property for pie and grew strawberries and cantaloupe.  They added nasturtium leaves to lettuce for salads.

Aunt Winnie also picked a white wildflower and deep fried it for lunches with salads.  I think this flower is a wild black locust flower.  The center is black, but the flowers around it are white.  Before deep-frying it, the wildflower is dunked in a batter made with egg, flour, and cream.  It crunches like a French fry, but has a sweet flavor.  I loved these as a kid.

The Sawles supplemented their basic goods at home with market goods like cheese, coffee, and oysters for New Year’s oyster stew.  I remember Aunt Winnie showing me Chinese bok choy cabbage and saying that she and Uncle Sam chopped it up to go with a vinegar-and-oil salad.  I think she alternated bok chou with baked beets dressed in vinegar-and-oil dressing as a salad.  Both are anti-oxidants.

They also bought watermelons in town and made watermelon rind pickles for winter after the cores had been eaten.

Aunt Winnie had a sense of humor.  She once made me Christmas Mincemeat pie and said you had to have beef suet in it to give the chopped fruit the right texture.  She told me that younger girls in families tended to eat a lot of it.

The farm was very self-sufficient, because bacon was eaten everyday.  Roast beef with potatoes, salad, and pie was Sunday lunch.  This farm was English and New England through heritage.  I love what my female ancestors set up after arriving here on a boat.

On the Wisconsin farm, morning glories and gladiolus flowers were permanently on the dining tables in the summer to liven up meals.

I found recipes for the cookies Aunt Winnie made in British Cookery, including saffron ones.

My great-great grandmother probably learned recipes from her female ancestors in Cornwall.  Our official family genealogists David and Frances located birth certificates and gravestones for Margaret’s ancestors including her mother with the same name – Margaret Dunn, Elizabeth Curgenven, Eliza Wakel, Frances Collett, Marry Andrew, Barbara Wills, and Jane Dorrington.

Margaret Dunn Rowe no doubt learned to make Cornish pasties filled with beef and vegetables from her mother.  Pasties resemble meat pies called empanadas from Galicia, Spain originally.

My great-great grandmother, Charlotte Sawle, live in a sea captain’s row house in Porscatho, England.  As a child, I stayed in her quayside home, which had become a bread and breakfast and collected snails on the quay stairs like my ancestors. 

Now I imagine Charlotte Sawle entertaining guests with rum-based English drinks like Cornish punch, rumstafian, and Samson.

Our family’s genealogists have documented a mother line that extends back to 1688 when one Rebecca Hay married Pasco Collins in that year.

I wonder if the chocolate fudge, brown sugar penuché fudge, and confectioner’s sugar divinity fudge that my family eats and makes comes from Pasco’s mother?

In any case, my female ancestors taught me how to set up a food system in my home using quality products.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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