TheBanyanTree: Brauschweiger

[Gail Richards]

I love Braunschweiger!!  Mom gave it to us as kids and I didn't know it had 
liver in it until I joined the Navy!  Can't abide regular liver though I've 
tried over the years.  I think it might be the texture.  A good 
Braunschwieger sandwich, though...  I have to put that on the shopping list!

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dale M. Parish
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 6:48 PM
To: Tree Banyan
Subject: TheBanyanTree: Brauschweiger

There is something inherently sad about the last sandwich being made from a
tube of Braunschweiger.

I don't know where my father first learned to like it-- Moma said that he 
never
ate anything like it around Orange before the war, but that he probably ran
into it while he was in the Marine Corps in the South Pacific.  She said 
that
they had been married for a while before she learned of it.

I remember as a child, having tasted it and hating it both because I didn't
like it but moreso because I was afraid that if I appeared to like it, that
Daddy would make me eat liver.  If there was one thing I hated more than
Brussel Sprouts, it was liver.  Braunschweiger, he told us was goose liver
sausage.  Daddy loved duck and geese livers and hearts and gizzards.  As I 
do,
now, but I've since found that it's really made from pork and beef liver--
somewhat.  With other "meat parts" added.  But liver it is mostly.

When I was in the Army, the word came down the chow line one day that we 
were
having liver and onions.  In Basic Training, you learned to eat what they
served you, all they served you, and hope that you go a good serving of
whatever it was.  I was hungry enough that I'd have eaten the hide off a 
hobby
horse if they'd put some ketchup on it.  We had five minutes to eat and 
clear
the mess hall, and when I sat down, I was surprised how good that liver and
onions and mashed potatoes tasted.  Almost wished that I'd had more time to
savor the new taste.  It was months later at Fort Leonard Wood MO that I had 
it
again and it was just as good as I remembered it.  Don't recall eating it 
out
of the mess hall any more until much later.

But I was home on leave much later once, drying dishes with Moma, and we 
were
talking about things I'd learned in the Army, and I blurted out before I
thought, "Moma!  Guess what?!  I had liver in the mess hall it wasn't like
yours!!  It was GOOD!!"

She burst out laughing-- stood at the sink until she was almost crying from
laughing so hard as I realized what I'd said and had that "I'm sorry, Moma!"
look on my face.  When she gained her composure, she explained.

"When I married your Daddy, he didn't know what good meat was!  Born and 
raised
on a ranch and all they ate was beef, but they burned *everything!*  They 
ate
their beef so well done that it was tough and flavorless.  It took him a 
long
time to learn to eat his meat the way my family had always eaten it-- rare.
But he never allowed me to cook calf liver any way but like shoe leather.  I 
kept
telling him that he'd learn to like it if he'd let me leave the flavor in 
it,
but he refused to eat liver unless it was almost burned to a crisp."

"Once or twice a year, he'd tell me he wanted liver, and I knew he was going 
to
make you kids try it again, and I'd beg him to let me cook you boys' liver
'right,' but he wouldn't have it.  And every time, you three would resist
eating it until he threatened to whip you until you tried it, and you'd try 
one
bite and hate it."  Moma and I both had a good laugh about Daddy's
idiosynchricies.

So I remembered Daddy eating Braunschweiger, and found that I really like it 
on
dark rye bread with horseradish, onions and extra sharp cheddar cheese.  It 
has
become an art form to get the dark rye covered uniformely with horseradish,
then cheese, and then gently sculpt the Braunschweiger out of the tube and
layer it onto the cheese slices like shingles, overlapping each just enough 
to
bond the cheese cross sections together into a uniform mass that can be 
covered
with a good, thick onion slice.  This last for several sandwiches-- which I 
can
stratch out into a week.

Alas, when the fourth sandwich is started, there's usually only enough for 
one
sandwich, and the feeling that the sensation has come to an end is 
remorseful.
Like leaving an old friend that you're not sure how long it will be until 
your
paths cross again.

I guess, like Moma and liver.

Miss your cooking, Moma.  What I wouldn't give for one of your calf tongues 
today.

Hugs,
Dale
--
Dale M. Parish
628 Parish RD
Orange TX 77632