Family Ties

“They hum recipes,” my mother laughed, as she made the good-humored critique of my father’s family.  There are always characteristics that define families, good and bad.  A family can be known for the frequency the police are called to the residence (you don’t want to be that house on the street), if they like to host gatherings, if members of the clan have been arrested (yes…and that’s all I have to say about that for now), if they are musical or well educated (which we are), if they attend church and what denomination, if they have the same eyes, nose, hair, etc.  One way in which the Wheeler’s are all alike is our love of cooking.

Recipes are another thing families have in common.  They are tangible, living, ever evolving artifacts that can be passed down like precious jewels.  If you are in possession of such mystical, food-stained treasures written on a 3×5 index card, then you are rich indeed.  Because they are not merely just recipes, they are stories that convey your ancestral culture and bring to your remembrance moments of comfort and joy spent at a table shared with loved ones.  And at some undetectable moment, the past becomes present.  Their story becomes yours, then you make your own adjustments and leave your mark for those who come afterwards.  

I don’t think there are many recipes to which I have not made changes.  The Chicken a la King recipe I posted last week is a good example.  By the time I had finished cooking it, the page was penciled with my own additions and subtractions.  My grandmother Wheeler’s Cabbage Roll recipe is also indicative of my striving for perfection over the forty years it has been in my possession.  My grandmother’s family emigrated from Germany to Minnesota.  She was one of eleven children, a few of her siblings were born in the old country, the rest, like my grandmother were born in America.  I never met my great-grandmother Fisher, but my mother said she was a tiny woman who ate very little.  I guess she was too tuckered out from all that childbearing to chew.  My grandma, Emma, eloped with my grandfather, which must also run in families because my mother and father did the same thing.

I remember being by my grandmother’s side, she and I alone together in her kitchen on Glenwood Avenue in Golden Valley, and watching her meticulously making the cabbage rolls, teaching me her timeless method.  It is probably my favorite memory of her.  Now the recipe is both hers and mine…and yours.

CABBAGE ROLLS

Makes about 10 rolls

1 lb. hamburger

½ lb. ground pork

1 cup white rice, cooked in beef broth

½ cup finely chopped onion

Salt and pepper 

1 large green cabbage

28 oz tomato puree

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 TBP Worcestershire sauce

Juice of half a lemon

Grease a large Dutch oven, or an equivalent sized roasting pan.

Mix the first five ingredients together in a bowl.  Set aside.

Core cabbage, making sure to remove as much as possible.  Fill a large stock pot with two inches of water.  Set steam basket in the bottom of the pot and place the cabbage on top of it.  Cover and bring to a low boil.  Allow the steam to cook the outer leaves.  With a pair of tongs peel the leaves one at a time from the cabbage then cover the pot again and allow the cabbage to continue to cook.  I like to take a few of the first few leaves and place them on the bottom of the roasting pan.  Thereafter, on each leaf, cut a V shaped piece from the hard lower leaf, this helps to lay the leaves flat and makes them easier to roll.  Fill each leaf with about a half a cup of meat mixture.  Roll up and place in roaster.  Usually, by the time one leaf is cut and rolled the next one should be ready to lift off of the cooking cabbage.  Once you have used up your meat mixture, I like to continue cooking the cabbage so that I can cover the rolls with more leaves.  You may have the inner core left over which you can cut up and boil in water and butter and serve on the side.

Mix the remaining sauce ingredients together and pour over the rolls.

Bake covered at 325 for two hours, then turn the oven up to 375 for 20 minutes to finish.

Pictures to follow.