The holidays are approaching at their usual breakneck speed and at a recent family dinner we began our Thanksgiving planning, which involves serious discussions over who is least likely to wreck the Thanksgiving meal. As my sister was seriously suggesting we call Publix, I wished out loud that Grandma was still around to cook Thanksgiving dinner and everyone nodded solemnly and sighed.
Grandma was the kind of natural cook who does not exist anymore, and in my memory, she is always cooking something. Her house, an old-fashioned farmhouse on the outskirts of Cleveland, was filled with exotic smells from foreign-sounding spices like anise and thyme, and she grew herbs on her windowsill: basil, rosemary, oregano and mint. For Grandma, Thanksgiving was just one meal in an unending procession of family feasts which featured entrees you would not expect to see on an Italian immigrant’s table: dishes like pheasant or escargot or spring lamb with homemade mint jelly.
It is truly a tragedy that Grandma took most of her culinary secrets to the grave with her. “Remember that pasta dish she used to make with chicken and sweet peppers in cream sauce?” I asked dreamily. “I think she called it ‘spaghetti cardinale’? I’d kill to get the recipe.” My older sister chuckled at my childish memory. “That wasn’t chicken,” she said. “You were eating cardinals.”
I stared at her stupidly for a moment. “Cardinals?” I said
She nodded. “Cardinals,” she said firmly. “Songbirds. The State Bird of Ohio. You were too young to remember but she would take her BB gun and wait by the birdfeeder in the backyard.” I was appalled, but my sister continued: “Cardinals, blue jays, robins: we ate them all. Grandma said that in Sicily they would eat anything that didn’t eat them first.”
My mother smiled fondly. “I remember one day Grandpa ran over a pheasant on his way home from work. When Grandma found out, she made him go get it and she served it for dinner.” I was rendered momentarily speechless to think my relatives ate roadkill, but then my middle sister asked: “Remember the escargot?”
“Where did she get escargot in Cleveland?” I asked, and everyone laughed. My siblings are all considerably older than me, with much clearer memories. “She raised her own,” said my sister. “Don’t you remember? She had snails crawling all over her kitchen. They lived on the tile walls behind the stove and behind the refrigerator and there were millions under the sink. She would leave out plates of cornmeal for them at night. When they were big enough she’d sauté them in garlic and serve them over linguine.”
“Don’t forget the mushrooms,” said my older brother, but I did not remember them either. Apparently, Grandma could go into the woods behind her house and tell the good mushrooms from the ones that would kill you instantly. She would collect a basketful and make omelets for dinner on meatless Fridays.
“I remember one time Aunt Kay asked if she was sure they were safe,” said my mother. Aunt Kay, married to my uncle, was uppity because she had two years of secretarial school. “Grandma said she’d know for sure in an hour.”
I shook my head. These memories did not jive with my childhood recollections, but then my sister asked: “Do you remember Agnes?” This was something I did remember: One year my grandma raised an orphaned lamb that would follow her around like a puppy; she used to feed it mint sprigs that she kept in her apron pocket. “Whatever happened to Agnes?” I asked .
“Do you remember Easter dinner in 1967?” asked my sister.