Those Old Stone Houses

My family seems to have gravitated toward stone houses and, as a child, those old houses were a delightful place to play. They tended to be cool and a bit dark, even in the summertime, especially my maternal grandparents' house since it was surrounded by forest. When my mother was still a child, her father moved the family from West Reading to an old property on the Alleghenyville road that had started out as a hunting lodge. They enlarged the cabin quite a bit over the years, adding a wing with several bedrooms and lived there for the rest of their lives. The woods were a very effective sound barrier, so the house was usually very quiet - about the only time I can remember it being otherwise were the times in warmer weather when we could sometimes hear the engines from Maple Grove speedway, miles away. Far more common, though, was the sound of song birds, feeding happily at the many bird feeders my grandmother set up outside the kitchen windows.

The house where my father grew up near Joanna was an old stone farmhouse, surrounded by fields rather than woods though there was a strip of woods running around the property border. His father had been a butcher for Armour for many years, but had always had a large garden as well. When he retired, he spent much more time on the garden and grandmother spent a lot of time putting up vegetables to last through the winter.

Though I have lots of memories of the sights and sounds of both houses, sometimes it is the smells that linger most often. Outside the bathroom window at Dad's house was a eucalyptus tree, the scent of which always seemed to fill the room, coupled with the scent of the Camay soap that always sat in the soap dish by the sink. Today, either scent can send me instantly down memory lane.

Food Traditions

With Thanksgiving behind and Christmas fast approaching, this time of the year always seems to focus on food in our house. We rummage in the files for those old family recipes, debating over which cookies to make this year, which veggies should be included at family gatherings and so forth. And once again, I become aware of the fact that our food choices are all about tradition.

I grew up in a Baltimore suburb, but both my parents were raised in Berks County, PA, so you would perhaps think that there would be a German element to our feasts, especially since my maiden name was Hiester, a common German name in Berks County. The Baltimore area has a strong German background as well and traditional Maryland Christmas dinners often include sauerkraut along with the crab soup, neither of which ever graced any of our family holidays feasts. In our house growing up, Mom's side beat out Dad's side when it came to food choices, though even Dad's mother did very little German style cooking, so our feasts always included cream-style mushrooms since her ancestors had come from West Chester and Kennett Square, where mushrooms ruled the local economy.

Like most families, we had differing tastes in food - my brother will not eat mushrooms in any shape or form, while I loved them and would happily take over his portion. And then, there was the question of potatoes - white or sweet? We were split down the middle on these, so both would be served. Most of the time, the potatoes were baked, not mashed and there was never any sign of that sweet potatoe/marshmallow mess that a lot of folks seem to like.

And then there were desserts. What, no shoofly pie? Nope. Typical holiday dinners might include a pie, usually mince or apple, and, of course, Mom's fruit cake. I hear the groans already. Despite the awful press that fruit cake gets at this time of year, Mom's fruit cake was really very good and I will say that even though I'm not a fruitcake fan. It was actually her maternal grandmother's recipe, so its roots were in Carlisle.

Over the years, my own family traditions for the holidays have incorporated a lot of different flavors than those that were part of my childhood. One of the biggest changes is that we roast our turkey upside down to keep the meat as moist as possible, but it does lead to an  odd looking bird with a pale top, so carving happens in the kitchen rather than at the dinner table.