TheBanyanTree: Brauschweiger

[Mike Pingleton]

I love this Dale, even though I ate a hogshead full of braunschweiger as a
child and cannot bring myself to eat any more.  One of a number of foods I
ate too much of as a kid, and no longer desire.

My maternal grandmother loved fried calf-brains on white bread.  I could
never pull the trigger on that one as a child.  Or now.

I occasionally crave Mom's tuna-noodle casserole, the one with a layer of
crumbled potato chips on the top.  I'm not likely to taste that one again.

-Mike



On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 8:48 PM, Dale M. Parish <parishdm at att.net> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>