FOODWAYS
- ORAL HISTORY QUESTIONAIRE
Betty
Clarke-Palmer | Darrel
Hentges | Ruth Ann Hentges | Annetta
Horner | Roger Horner
Nancy Loomis | Lucy
Ann Mang | Helen Miller
| Jackson
Miller | Margie
Torda |
Richard Torda
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Betty Clarke-Palmer
Birth: Bellevue, Ohio, 1934
Background: English
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Folks came from farming, we always had vegetables and fruit. Mother baked
a lot. I liked liver, swiss chard. Disliked tongue, onions. Wasn't exposed
to the outside.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Mom creamed potatoes with fresh garden peas. Utilized garden. She was
good baker, we always had rolls. At holidays, had separate salad and orange
Jell-O with shredded carrots dribbled on top. Homemade mayonnaise. Dad
cooked at holidays: big turkey and dressing.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast, dinner, supper. Breakfast: Cereal, pancakes, French toast.
Dinner: soup and sandwich. Ate together. Dad walked home from school (teacher),
meat and potatoes, garden vegetables and dessert always together.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
Dad had huge garden. Englished and Dillan's (small local grocery for odds
and ends), A & P. In 1955, we still got milk delivered, also bread
delivery. Farmer's Market.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Lots of canning: fruit, corn, pickles (in a vat), lots of jams and jellies.
Root Cellar. Ice box.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Darrel E. Hentges
Birth: Bowling Green, Ohio, 1935
Background: Farm Family, German
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Don't like okra (now in soup is OK). Favorite: meat and potatoes, dessert:
spice cake with caramel frosting or pecan pie. Garden chickens and all
that, folks loved mushroom hunting. Ate mushrooms till it made you sick
in Spring (Sponge Tyte), included aunts and uncles, a Sunday afternoon
hunting (near portage River). Frozen food, pizza.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
More than likely pheasant or rabbit for Thanksgiving. Chicken was special,
meat every day.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast: whole family ate together, eggs (9 times out of 10), toast,
warm or dry cereal. Dinner: all together if not in school. Whether it
was just a lunch or a meal depended on what was going on in farming. Cold
pack meat (quart jars of beef, sausage, sealed with lard) mixed with noodles
- nothing better (a luncheon or supper dish). When we butchered, we would
fry down pork rinds, press in lard press. Treat would be to eat cracklins,
stuff left over in press three to four inches thick - good.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
Bowling Green A & P, Foodtown in north end (late 1940s/early 1950s).
I was raising rabbits, would butcher and sell to Foodtown. No inspection,
can't do that today.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Canned meat, vegetables and fruits. Mom used Conservo pressure cooker.
Hot water bath. Room in house with shelves. Smoked in outside building:
ham, bacon, sausage. Cut green hickory, nothing better. Ice box, picked
up ice at corner of Maple and Conneaut Streets (Bowling Green), fifty
pounds. Had five gallon crock buried outside house for eggs, butter, etc.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mother and sister. Used cookbook, some winged it. Cole Slaw - her own
technique.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Family-style. Good china for special occasions and for very special (birthdays,
etc). Special set of dishes still used to this day. Always prayer.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon. No rules.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Mother, sister. No dishwasher. Leftovers were saved, scraps to pigs or
chickens.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Wife's
cooking today is basically the same as my mother - German influence. We
fished with aunt and uncle, Whitey's Fish Market, Summit Street and Poe
Road (Bowling Green). Always fresh - Lake Erie perch (two to four times
per year). Mother liked sour things - a lot of her stuff was that way.
In spring, we picked dandelions and made dandelion greens, vinegar, cole
slaw and cabbage. Come home from school treat was milk and bread with
brown sugar or sweet cream instead of butter on bread with salt and pepper.
Field corn used instead of sweet corn. Parched corn as snack (fried in
skillet). Special fruit: bananas, tangerines, cherries from Clyde or Whitehouse.
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Meat,
potatoes.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
No.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Ruth Ann (Bunker)
Hentges
Birth: Bellevue, Ohio, 1934
Background: English
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Variety of foods, lived on farm, milk (unpasteurized), eggs, pork, chicken,
ducks, large garden. Favorite: cranberries, relish at Thanksgiving, ground
baloney sandwich, baked goods (our own milk and eggs). Didn't like: spinach,
cottage cheese (because it was homemade - it would sit around and there
would be flies about it). Not available: Pizza, things from boxes, TV
dinners. Homemade noodles. Had one of the first freezers (purchased during
WWII).
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Thanksgiving turkey. Lot of cakes (good baker), lot of hunters. Grandpa's
birthday was November 15 - had pheasant.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast: sort of ate together, cereal, oatmeal, mush, cream wheat, eggs.
Dinner: everyone was home unless school day, depends on what was going
on. If there were thrashers, it would be a big meal, sometimes cabbage
or bean soup, chile, noodles. Supper: could be roast, chicken, fried potatoes
(father's favorite), macaroni with eggs and milk on tomatoes.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
We raised sugar beets and got our sugar from Fremont factory in big sacks.
Same with flour in sacks. Lime City Market.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Canning, freezer, cooked down lard, cooked down meat, put into crock with
lard over top of it. Five bushels peaches, tomato juice. Cellar. Ice box
long time ago, ice man.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mom and us two girls (7-8 on up) thrashing time - it was a community event,
15-20 eaters. Once when father was sick, it was 50 eaters. Some recipes.
Took Home Economics (wanted to be Home Economics teacher). Big slaw cutter,
food grinder (cranberries, baloney), sausage maker. Pressure cooker. Our
stove was combo-electric/wood.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Family-style. Good plates. Prayer - yes.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon. Don't talk with mouth full.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
No dishwasher. I remember we had to heat the water. Did washing on kitchen
table. Ten minutes was good time to do dishes. Potato peelings to chickens,
pigs, dogs, cats, or warmed up for another meal.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Make
pies using same design as mother, my daughters now do the same, cream
puffs.
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Meat,
potatoes, vegetable, regular meal, some German influence.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Steak with mushroom soup (gravy) on it.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Annetta Horner
Birth: Bowling Green, Ohio, 1935
Background: German
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Beans and cornbread. Family of ten children, only had meat once a week
on Sunday. Mashed potatoes and the Sunday chicken were favorites. Disliked:
liver and onions, but today I love it. Pizza, no fast foods.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Big Thanksgiving - special made only once a year: "rubber" date
tapioca, took a lot of time and expensive. Recipe came from Grandmother
and Aunt. Took all night to cook and you had to get up to stir the pot.
Just remember all the good foods that were made by the family. All came
together, had a real good time. Aunt Ruth always had special, well-balanced
meals with homemade bread.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast, lunch, supper. Oatmeal (sticks to your ribs), toast, cocca
sandwiches (breakfast and lunch). Took care of yourself. Come and go as
you please. Supper was all together sit down.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
We grew everything - with that size family, we had to. Relatives and neighbors
would stop by the house and leave bushels of tomatoes or corn. Aunt had
orchard and she would bring over peaches, cherries, pears. We never went
without food for the winter. Little corner store, only for staples.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Canned. My Grandfather smoked (hams). Mom and Dad would go to Portage
for whole weekend to work. Cellar (cold). Father would go to Tidkies once
a year for a big barrel of apples that would last the whole year. Icebox,
Ice man came.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
We (boys and girls) had to learn to cook when we were eleven years old.
Mother had three jobs (as cook) in sorority house, fraternity house, Muller
and Green Gables Restaurants. We fixed potatoes every night (from cellar)
boiled or mashed. Discussed the day and problems at evening meal, problems
were take care of that night. Did say prayers. Mom and Dad showed us,
one time, how to prepare a dish. Had cookbook called "Search Light"
(coffee company) - still using it today. Cooking was hard without a lot
of equipment.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Dining room, twelve chairs, regular mismatched dinnerware. Family and
friends would give a few pieces. It was fun to do dishes and look at all
the different designs. Family style - all children had job to do. Jobs
were rotated weekly per Mother's direction. Prayer - yes.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon (didn't match). No talk with food in mouth. Must eat
vegetables, had to sit until you do.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
All children took turns. Worked like assembly line. Left-overs on Friday.
Everything came out of ice box for a Fibber McGee meal. Everything was
warmed up and you helped yourself.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Mom
and Dad made sure we ate from the basic four. I was the only one in Home
Economics who knew what it was. I taught it to my children.
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Sunday:
made big pot of soup - potato, chili, bean - for the whole week. Today
it's fast food. Made our own salads, etc.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Dad was chili sauce cook and night watchman at Heinz, our Northwestern
Ohio distinction. Mother was popular and well-known cook.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Roger Horner
Birth: Jerry City, Ohio, 1934
Background: Farming
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
No TV Dinners. Most all our food came off the farm. Ten acres strawberries,
five acres melons, sixty thousand bushels of potatoes a year. We had quite
a few to eat. We butchered a pig, steer to tide us over - chill once in
a while. Nothing unusual to have my dad eat a pork roast dinner while
rest of us had beef roast. If you didn't like that then there was chicken.
Favorite: meatloaf. Dislike: corn on cob.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
They had less emphasis on the "Santa" side, more for the religious
side. Christmas, Thanksgiving - downplayed the celebration. Christian
missionary alliance.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Favorite cereal was Kellogg's PEP. Breakfast: Pancakes and sausage. Dinner:
A lot of peanut butter & jelly supper. Did not eat breakfast together,
Dad was already on the tractor. Folks had like two families cause older
brother and sister then me and my brother. Tried family supper with all
there (after war).
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
In the wintertime, when the snow was down, father worked at a Kroger's
store. His job was to build it up (mentioned ration books).
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Smoked hams (bacon side meat), pickling barrel, brine barrel. Got frozen
food locker in late 1940s. Had basement and separate room. Ice Box, Ice
man. Never lived in a house with electricity until I was in first grade.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
I didn't learn very much. We had coal stove. Mother did all. She would
take recipes off the radio, she liked to try things. Farm Journal
also had recipes. Corn dryer, canned chickens. Mom, Dad, Grandparents,
and two aunts all worked the canning, shared it.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Always prayed. Family style, no special plates.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon. Taught us everything we need to know.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
No dishwasher. Mom washed and I dried. Dog got scraps, and chickens.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Meat,
potatoes.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Ketchup (tomatoes) - had a lot of corn on the cob, but I didn't participate
in it.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Nancy Loomis
Birth: Toledo, Ohio, 1935
Background: Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish Catholic
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
So many things: tomatoes from trucks in Bowling Green. Favorite: baked
spaghetti. From Pennsylvania "Dutch" background, boiled dinners
such as cabbage, potatoes, carrots, fried chicken. Disliked liver, baloney,
peanut butter. Not lots of desserts, no junk foods. Pop was something
special. Our treats were popcorn, ice cream on Sunday evening. Folks would
go to drug store for hand packed, then they would get butter pecan which
I didn't like.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
There were certain foods that my mother cooked that my grandmother cooked:
boiled dinners. Grandmother cooked heavier, starchier foods. A lot of
hunting was done around here in the fall - pheasant and rabbit. People
would come from miles around, different state, to hunt here. My cousins
came and hunted. Turkey at Thanksgiving. Ham at Christmas. No New Years.
When I was little, went to Grandma's then, when older, all came to our
house. Sundays were special meal to have family over.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast: cereal, eggs, toast, normal things, ate together, older girls
ate meals together. Lunch: all walked home at lunch, high school rule:
you must go home for lunch unless mother wasn't going to be home, then
you could eat at cafeteria unless you were a bus kid.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
Kroger (Main and Clough Streets, Bowling Green). Originally across from
Cla-Zel Theatre (N. Main Street). Did not grow food.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Lot of canning, always made chili sauce. Mother and Grandmother. Pantry.
Got ice from ice man.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mother, don't remember sisters cooking. Used cookbook on occasion, mostly
came from her learning. Baking recipes (still have). Remember big gas
stove. After marriage, I used to have to call my mother every day - how
do I fix it? That's how I learned.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Serving dishes. Always good dishes for Sunday "yes, there were rules,
let me tell you" - lined up at kitchen sink to wash hands while dad
stood there and watched. Didn't talk or fool around. No regular prayer,
but at certain times.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon. Not talking with mouth full.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Mother and older sisters. No dishwashers. Didn't have animals so left-overs
used for another meal or throw out to birds.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Probably.
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Meat,
potato.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Corn and tomatoes.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Lucy Ann (Krause) Mang
Birth: Toledo, Ohio, 1933
Background: Mother German, Father Polish
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Favorite: Chicken. Dislike oatmeal. Frozen foods today.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
No special meaning. Fruitcake at Christmas, something special.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
No special menu, usually vegetable, meat, some kind of dessert. Cornflakes,
Rice Crispies. Lots of peanut butter and jelly.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
Shopped at uncle's red and white store across the street. Garden.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Mother did lots of canning, stored in pantry. Go to market and buy bushels
of fruit. Ice Box, ice man.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mother had recipes in her head. When I was 12, my mother went away to
hospital for quite awhile. I just took over and cooked. I learned from
watching her. My dad said he wasn't going to et what I cooked. I didn't
cook the first day and he came home and wondered where his supper was.
I cooked from then on. Mother was German, had sauerkraut, mashed potatoes,
smoked sausage.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Sat down as family. Don't remember any prayers or special rules. Waited
for father to come home to sit down. Serving Bowls.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon. No polite eating rules.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Mother and I washed and cleaned kitchen. No dishwasher. Usually no left-overs
or table scraps, pretty tight.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Don't
use recipes - just cook.
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Meat,
potatoes, vegetable.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
No.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Helen Miller
Birth: Birmingham
Neighborhood, East Toledo, Ohio
Background: Hungarian
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Crepe filled with grape jelly, didn't like mom's filled with cottage cheese.
Disliked chicken, had so often. Microwave, junk food, pop.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Pigs in Blanket (stuffed cabbage) at Christmas. I still carry on that
tradition. At Easter, kielbasa and ham.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast, dinner, supper. Oatmeal, eggs, cinnamon toast, coffee with
lots of milk and sugar (treat). Sandwich and soup. Sit down was come and
go.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
In Birmingham, everything was there - shoemaker, bakery - no need for
car or bus. Walked. Had small victory garden.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Ice box, ice delivered. No canning. Cellar.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mom cooked and I took cooking in high school. No cookbooks - never. Very
basic. Also learned cooking from uncle who was caterer.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Grapped from pot. Dishes very simple. Sit down together as family. Elbows
off table, don't talk with mouth full, wash hands, no prayer.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Mom took care. No dishwasher. Mom knew how to prepare - no leftovers.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Specialty
dishes kids ask for Aunt Helen's making this!
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
What
is in abundance - tomatoes, sweet corn.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Yes, but don't know what to name it.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Jackson L. Miller
Birth: Bowling Green, Ohio, 1935
Background:
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Remembers bologna sandwich and tomato soup out of a can. That is really
basically what I grew up on. Mother worked, no father. Also oatmeal out
of the pan with a little water and heat it up. Coffee bread: bread with
sugar and coffee powder on it, special when we were little. Now I like
more, such as Italian things. Dislike: never met a food I didn’t
like.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Holiday special - turkey, no ham (was fowl cheaper?) Candies, sweet potatoes.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast was oatmeal and toast, eaten by ourselves since mother went
off to work. Lunch was tomato soup and bologna sandwich. Supper was not
much of a family setting at all. Mother would come home tired. After war,
sister’s husband had been a cook in the military, cooked dinner
of meat and potatoes. Was then eaten as a family.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
Grew a little victory in backyard - just about everybody did. A lot of
little neighborhood grocery stores in BG. Cook’s on Prospect Street,
etc. One or two items, that’s where you went. Mentioned Clough and
S. Main Streets.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
We did can peaches and tomatoes, everybody did. Stored them in a closet,
no cellar, and icebox was on the back porch - ice man. (Draws comparison
to movie scenes).
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
No help on special techniques, taught himself. Home Economics in Junior
High was best time of his life. Jim Bunictant and I were partners in making
chili at the end of 6th period. It was the best chili I ever ate.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
No prayer, set up table family style, no special plates (not even on Christmas).
Grew up in a ruleless house.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon. No particular rules.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Originally sisters, about eight years of age, me and my brother. No dishwasher.
Can’t remember leftovers except at Thanksgiving. Did have animals.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Came
from a not religious family. Tradition - bought what was cheap. Buy live
chickens and clean them. I took great joy in grabbing the chicken by the
neck and spinning it around until the body flew off, then watched the
body flap around. Home-made ice cream - I detested because it was too
hard to make - turning crank. Never remember eating fish. When I was about
11 years old I bought a shotgun from Montgomery Wards in BG. A lot of
hunting (pheasants) and fishing as a teenager. Fished on Maumee and Lake
Erie even when it was polluted.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name:
Margie Torda
Birth: Toledo, Ohio, 1935
Background: Slovak & German
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
A good green pepper sandwich with butter and bread. Favorite: pumpkin
stew served over mashed potatoes. Processed foods today.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Slovakian food made by grandmother served just once year on specific holidays.
Bread with nut sauce. Easter: pickled eggs and ham. Freshly made cheese.
CONTEXT/MEAL
SYSTEM
What meals did you eat every day? What did you call them? What was
the usual menu? Who did you usually eat with?
Breakfast: Toast, milk, garlic toast when we were susceptible to cold
- we would go to school smelling of garlic. Lunch: eat at aunt's house
when mother worked, tuna sandwich.
PROCUREMENT
How did you get your food? Where did you shop? Did you grow any of
your own food?
Shopped at little grocery store 3 blocks from house. Remember pickles
in barrel, lard by the pound. Meat, basic things to take home and prepare.
In summer, grew a lot of vegetables such as potatoes. Many fruit trees,
cherry, peach, strawberries.
PRESERVATION
How and where did you preserve and store food?
Fruit cellar in basement,
root garden under front porch, apples and root vegetables through winter.
Canning. Grape arbor: made wine. Had ice box until ice man went out of
business.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mother cooked until she got ill, then older brother. Only remember recipes
for cake. I learned to cook by trial and error.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Sit down meal at Christmas and Thanksgiving with special plates. Wash
hands and face. Put food on plate from stove unless special occasion (serving
platters).
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Mother instilled basic points of manners.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Brother and I alternated clean-up and dishwashing. Bread and rolls to
the birds.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
I
have gotten away from (heritage) quite a bit. So much media presentation.
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Conventional
for time and era. Ordinary food we eat every day - meat, vegetable, potato.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Nothing distinctive.
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Oral History
Interview with:
Name: Richard Torda
Birth:
Background:
PRODUCT
What food do you remember? What were your favorite
foods or ones you especially dislike? Are there foods today that were
not available in your childhood?
Hungarian turkey called Sütes Szalonna.
PERFORMANCE
Did any foods hold special meanings for you? Were some dishes associated
with specific holidays or specific people?
Remember
my dad in 1940s, this dish came from certain villages in Hungary, a poor
man's way of feeding his family. A slab of jell bacon on a metal fork
with wooden handle was run over the fire. White bread with tough crust,
tomato slices, cooked sliced onion, green peppers. Drippings from jell
bacon onto the bread, put on vegetables, then drip some more bacon fat
on, add salt. It was fantastic. This was a slow process. So popular that
Meijer and Kroger carry jell bacon. Now put into hamburger press, don't
have to wait as long for drippings. Now banana peppers. Some people still
insist on the traditional way of doing it. It was a social event, sit
around the fire in the evening with sharp knife, work bacon, slice off
the ham and eat as sandwich. Still popular in Birmingham, three parishes
have booths selling it at Birmingham Festival. In the 1940s, there were
more family-style social events. Other foods: Red Horse - dried beef,
brown sugar and butter. Let it brown in pan. Cream sauce on toast. Mashed
potatoes, broiled potatoes. Plan Snow - vanilla and milk. Horehound Drops.
Honey-lemon. Camphored Oil. Turpentine and Lard.
PREPARATION
Who prepared the food? Did they use cookbooks ad written recipes?
Were there special techniques used? Was cooking equipment different from
what you have now? How did you learn to cook?
Mom and Dad special (taught biology). Some recipes, usually throwing things
together. Colander, mixed by hand. I learned through observation.
PRESENTATION
How was food usually served at mealtime? Were there special plates
for special occasions? Did you sit down with your family to eat? Were
there any special rules for eating together? Did you say a prayer before
eating?
Mom and I prayers at holiday and special occasions. Extremely polite.
CONSUMPTION
How did you eat? Were their rules for polite eating?
Knife, fork, spoon.
CLEAN-UP
Who washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen? Did your family have
a dishwasher? What was done with left-overs and table scraps?
Family-style clean-up. Scraps to dogs and kittens, mother was wonderful
bout that. She used left-overs in creative ways. They were very creative
years ago.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Do you feel that your foodways reflect your own identity and heritage?
Definitely.
Not much meat, more healthy. Cooked for eight (people).
How do you characterize Midwestern food traditions?
Basic,
rounded vegetables, not too heavy on meat. Grand parents were Superintendent
and Matron of Huron County Home, gave meat from home, otherwise not much
meat.
Do you know of any representative or distinctive Midwestern foods?
Corn, soybeans, tomatoes, a lot of dairy (went to farmer with pail).
SOURCE:
PCA Food Documentation Project 2006, Bowling Green State University, Director:
Dr. Lucy Long. Wood County Historical Museum, Director: Christie Raber.
Interviews conducted by Tom McLaughlin, Sr. July 27 - August 14, 2006. |
