(An update on my Aunt: Apparently she has two tumors, one in her duodenum and one in her pancreas. The hope is that they are two separate cancers in their early stages instead of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer which has metastasized. Thank you for your kind thoughts and prayers.)
This past weekend Nighean Bhan sent me a text: Could I find Grandma's recipe for meatloaf in the church cookbook?
"Grandma's meatloaf recipe" is really my maternal grandmother's recipe (so really "Great Grandma's meatloaf recipe", I suppose). It may something between 80 and 90 years old at this point or even older, a Depression-era recipe that was easy to make and used a minimum of ingredients. It remains one of my personal comfort foods, a thing I associate with family dinners at home on cold nights. It was always a treat when we had it.
Not even being conscious that we had such a recipe - I still picture all such recipes on recipe cards - I rifled through the collection of cookbooks on our shelves - a combination of "365 ways to prepare X", fancy specialized cookbooks, and the random sorts of cookbooks that show up over the course of a lifetime of children, food festivals, and random cuisines that catch your eye. Sure enough, just as Nighean Bhan had said, there was the cookbook: "The Joy of Sharing: Old Home Lutheran Church.
The cover was a hand drawn pictures likely drawn by someone in the congregation, the binding spiral bound, the whole thing put together by a fund raising organization. The sections were organized into the typical sorts of recipes: Appetizers, Soups/Salads, Sauces, Meats & Main Dishes, etc. etc. "Meats and Main Dishes" sounded pretty promising.
Going to that section, I was initially annoyed by the fact that the recipes were all out of alphabetical order (and, there was not index). So I started wandering through, scanning from page to page for something that said "Meat Loaf".
And then I started to look more closely. At the bottom of each recipe was a name.
I knew many of these names - they were mostly people that would have been in their 50's and 60's at the time this was published, about the generation of my parents. Lots of them - mostly women - were faces that I could picture as soon as I saw them. My second grade teacher was there, as was her aide. At least two pastors and their wives. The guy that lead my youth group. Numerous church friends of my parents.
Suddenly this was less of a recipe book and more of a time capsule to a place and people long ago.
Most of the folks in this cookbook are now passed on, like my parents, enjoying a far greater Feast in another place. A few still linger here, faint remnants of my own life long ago.
Part of me wonders if they still make cookbooks like this or, like the church directories that we sat for pictures against beige backgrounds, they have passed out of common practice due to cost, technology, mobility and privacy concerns. That is a bit of a pity, honestly: yes, the recipes are not always adaptable to today (I have no idea what a "pretzel salad" is, but it sounds very much 1950's), but the memories and the comradery and the homeliness (in the best sense) that such things represent truly do seem like some of another age, the likes of which we will not see again.
Bonus Round: The recipe:
Grandma's Meat Loaf
1 1/2 lbs ground meat
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/4 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp salt
1 egg
3 slice bread, torn in pieces
Pepper to taste
Milk to moisten (canned milk, undiluted)
Mix together well. Put in greased loaf pan and draw lines on the top, filling them with catsup. Bake at 350 F for about 1 hours. Meat loaf draws away from the pan when done.
Toirdhealbheach Beucail's Addendum: Best served with new potatoes which have been sliced, put in a pan, had butter added over them with salt and pepper, and baked. Add additional ketchup as needed. Green items could appear as a side dish, but are not required.
