Fish Jelly and Hot Dogs

As a youngster my son was fortunate to spend time "helping" around the  farm. He loved to do the same things as his Uncle and Grandpa, which included drinking out of the big guys water jugs and eating out of their lunch pails. Since the shop was the grand central station of the farm, it was common for a random water jug and lunch bucket to be sitting around. 

One summer day my brother discovered a bucket of minnows that he'd forgotten in his pickup bed for a few weeks. Busy with other tasks, he put the bucket up on the shop bench so he'd remember to clean it out at the end of the day. Mistaking the minnow bucket for a water jug, my son angled his mouth under the spigot and took a big gulp. When a glob of fish jelly plopped onto his tongue there was much spitting and sputtering. The summer heat had caused the minnows to disintegrate into a cloudy gray gelatinous mass. When my brother emptied the contents of the minnow bucket outside of the shop, there wasn't a minnow to be found. Yuck.

This story does end well. There were two heroes that day. One, my brother who convinced my son he would live and Grandma who fed him homemade molasses cookies and milk to get the taste out of his mouth. (Needless to say, this child still finds the smell of lutefisk particularly revolting.)

But not even drinking out of a minnow bucket would stop my son from jumping at any opportunity to go fishing. This enjoyment of fishing is shared by my entire family. Except me. I am the odd one out. The abstainer. The lone ranger of the shoreline. The kill joy.  Nobody wanted to take me in the boat and I didn't care to join them. I am the Pippy Pukestocking of my family. Even today, all I have to do is look at a lake, a boat, or smell fish and I am instantly nauseous. Count me out of any activity that involves catching or eating fish.

I'd rather have a hot dog please and thank you. Washkish 1969

To the contrary, this picture is evidence that I did catch ONE fish in my lifetime. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that this is the fish that bit my hook and someone else reeled in. My first and only fish ever caught was nabbed during a family fishing trip to Washkish. The seven of us were patiently bobbing around on Red Lake in our little aluminum boat, waiting for some action, when my fishing line jerked and with a great zizzing sound, the reel took off. I squealed. One of my brothers grabbed the rod and reeled Mr. Northern in for me before the rod could be pulled out of my six-year-old hands. Dad grabbed the net, and voila, the rest is history.  And that is my one-time-wonder fish tale.

Now don't think for a minute I'm smiling in this picture because I am proud of my first catch and dreaming of fried fish (gag). No, I was coerced into posing with that stinky, slimey, scaley Northern in my bare hands by a promise that I could have a HOT DOG, and not fish, for supper. I'm pretty sure my ancestors who fished for a living in the fjords of Norway would not be impressed.

  

Great Grandma's Window Garden

Recently I was perusing some archival family letters that were sent by my Great Grandma Genie to her mother in Iowa in the early 1900's. These letters were composed within the first years she and Great Grandpa H.P. established a farmstead a few miles north of Crookston.  

The excerpts here share the sense of humor she maintained in spite of relentless spring dirt storms.

May 18, 1915

Dear Mother -

I thought I knew what dirt storms were......when I started washing the wind was blowing a little....then it blew so hard I had to cover the clothes up in a tub in the house. Dirt blew in where snow couldn't. It came from across the road to the northwest. In one hour there was so much dust in the kitchen and pantry that when you walked, it was like it is when you walk on a dusty road. I hadn't gotten that cleaned all out of the southwest bedroom downstairs when a week ago Monday night we were treated to another hard rain/wind/dirt storm.......

Genie 

May 16, 1918 

Dear Mother - 

Am in the post office. Didn't have time to write before I left home. A week ago Sunday it was so hot - 95 degrees. Last Sunday it was so cold it even froze pie plant. It is just one dirt storm then another.

Haven't started to clean house.

 It's no use. 

I am thinking of having  
a window garden 

on the inside. 

When I get rid of my dirt,

 I am going to blow out  

of this famous Red River Valley.

Genie

Genie & H.P. 1901

My Jelly Grandma

This morning I was less than ambitious and decided to just make some toast. I topped it off with some jelly from a plastic bottle with the picture of a raspberry on the label. Compressing it up-side-down I squeezed out a ribbon of  "fruit spread", wrinkling my nose at the artificial smell that farted out of the decompressed bottle. The yucky synthetic smell was a cross between new plastic containers and strawberry Twizzler's licorice. For a moment I imagined my Grandma Anna was in the kitchen, watching me with a disappointed frown, worn hands on her apron-clad hips. I know Grandma would not be pleased that I eat crappy store-bought preserves. Nothing from the grocery store could ever rival the goodness and love that my Grandma cooked into her homemade spreads.

Grandma Anna died over a decade ago, when my children were still quite young. Although her passing was anticipated, I wasn't prepared for it. My own sorrow was stirred with anxiety knowing her funeral would be the children's first experience with death. During times like that I really missed having the support of a spouse. It would be up to me alone to usher them through the experience, all the while immersed in my own sadness. I couldn't help but think of how my Grandmother would understand my feelings. She had raised the youngest of her brood alone after Grandpa died unexpectedly.

Before I told the children I spent a few minutes trying to find the right words for telling them the news. Should I say their Great-Grandma had 'passed away', 'died', 'gone to heaven' or that she was 'with Jesus'? My mind churned as I rehearsed different explanations of death. After much angst, I decided to just give it to them straight. I called the kids to my side and simply said,

"Your Great-Grandma Anna has died."  I watched their faces for a reaction. All three of them stood quietly, watching the tears roll down my face. I quietly prayed they would understand.


Looking bewildered, my six-year-old asked,

"Was she my jelly Grandma?"

With a relieved smile I said,

"Yes. Great-Grandma Anna was your jelly Grandma."

The knot I had tied myself into unraveled as I realized the news had landed on them softly. To my relief they seemed to understand. Although we didn't see her very often, the kids knew Great-Grandma Anna for her 'uff-dah', lots of hugs and laughter, lefse, and the most amazing raspberry jelly ever created. 

When you opened a jar of her jelly it released scented memories of my Grandma cooking raspberries on the stove. I can still see a cheesecloth-lined colander sitting on her kitchen counter, holding a sieved glob of seedy dark pink raspberry pulp. The berry juice and sugar was cooked slowly, deliberately. A purple foam floated atop the bubbling liquid, splattering up the insides of the shiny stainless steel pot. When reduced, the concentrated juice emitted an extraordinary scent and produced a preserve with an intense raspberry flavor. Grandma Anna knew exactly how to cook it to perfection.  One could hold a jar of her raspberry jelly up to the sunlight and see clearly though the glass jar's burgundy lens. 

These memories of my Grandmother cooking in her kitchen, happily chattering and singing, comforted me. She was a fun, humble, kind and loving woman. I never heard her speak an unkind word about anyone or to anyone. Her strength and resilience spoke to the exponential number of hardships she had endured. At the age of three she lost her mother to cancer. She'd lived through the depression, worked hard on the farm while raising a family and experienced the untimely deaths of her husband and two of her seven children. Many times life had had been unkind to my Grandma Anna.

Years ago when I lived on the east coast, newly married and having babies, I missed seeing my family. Although miles apart, my Grandma Anna had her own way of staying connected. When my second child was born, my Mom flew out to see us, carrying with her a box full of homemade jelly. She lugged that heavy box through airport connections and held it on her lap in flight to ensure its safe arrival. Some might not understand, but to me those preserves carried with them the loving strength of my Grandmother's presence. I couldn't help but think of her as I placed jelly on the table every morning.

Even my daughter, a toddler with a limited vocabulary, was a connoisseur of jelly by the age of two. She could not pronounce "jelly", so she simply called the sweet red spread "more." It was a most appropriate name.  I remember hiding the last jar of Grandma's jelly from my husband when the demise of our marriage neared. There was NO way I was going to let him have one more drop of it. If my Grandma knew what he'd done to me she would have beat him silly with her lefse stick. That one remaining jar of jelly was MY sweet solace. It was the connection to my Grandmother's reassuring presence during long lonely days while I contemplated my future as a single mom with three children under the age of four.

 

Clearly what filled those jars was more than just jelly. 

To this day I keep an empty half-pint jelly jar

 in the kitchen windowsill. 

It's a symbolic reminder that my Grandmother Anna's spirit is ever present in my daily life. 

When life hands me sadness and trouble, 

I am confident she keeps my jar overflowing
with loving kindness and strength

 from her heavenly reservoir.

I am grateful that I will always have my jelly Grandma.

I'd like a 6 piece with ranch please...

About once a week I pick up a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store. It is the closest flavor match to the homegrown chicken my mother prepared years ago. I've never been a fan of today's refabricated chicken products - chicken patties, chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, chicken strips, popcorn chicken etc. Having grown up on a farm that raised chickens, I still am befuddled over how wildly popular processed chicken has continued to be both as a grocery item and as fast food. When these products were first introduced, I remember thinking that the lure of easy preparation would not be enough to keep these tasteless and rubbery chicken chunks on the market for long. Now I recognize that having lived on the coop end of the food chain left me lacking the imaginative insight that led brilliant advertisers to successfully market faux chicken over the past two decades.

I wonder about the conversations that occurred between advertising executives, sitting around a table, staring at the very first compressed chicken products. As a farm kid who participated in the annual chicken harvest, I can only imagine the contributions I would have made to the ad team. Together we would brainstorm names for the compact bites, such as chicken 'slivers', chicken 'bobbers', chicken 'bitties', chicken 'pucks'. By the time the ideas for names were narrowed down to chicken 'nuggets' and chicken 'fingers', I would be howling with laughter, spinning around in my office chair. Clearly, chickens do NOT have nuggets NOR do they have fingers. Do people not think about the reality of chicken 'fingers'? I can only see their long scrawny yellow clawed feet crusted with poultry poo. If folks had that picture in their mind they would never consider eating something called a 'chicken finger.' 

Yessiree....If I'd been a member of that advertising team I would have confidently expressed my opinion that any food company compressing chicken into unrecognizable breaded blobs needed to be told it was an unmarketable product idea. It's a good thing that advertising is not my day job....

All one has to do today is pass a grocery freezer or fast food drive-thru to realize that my bold and short-sighted opinions about processed chicken would have been quickly fricasseed along with a career in advertising. My opinions and limited imagination would likely have been escorted down the office hallway to join the farm ad team working on cat food jingles. This might not have been all bad.....

Perhaps it could be the opportunity I have long waited for. 

I would pitch my product development idea for what cats really crave.

Mouse and bird-flavored cat chow anyone? Perhaps with a catnip-infused coating...

Surely cats would go WILD for it ! 

You must admit, it wouldn't be the first bad idea that creative advertising turned to gold.