TheBanyanTree: Brauschweiger

[Teague, Julie Anna]

Oh Dale.  Dale, Dale, Dale.  This story, while well written, gave me 
the absolute shudders.  I have issues with meat, anyway, and did 
growing up as well.  My dad loved liver and onions, but fortunately, my 
mother took pity on my small heaving self and did not make me eat it. 
Mom and I both had our issues with meat, "organs" most of all, and even 
milk, straight up, was problematic.  Braunschweiger was something mom 
made me go to the store and get a hunk of...for the dog.  Neither of us 
could stand even the smell of it.  My grandfather loved it, and also 
ate something he called "head cheese", which I think was something's 
brain.  And pickled pigs feet.  Oh dear god.  My grandmother was a big 
fan of cooking cow's tongue.  I can still see that big white slab of a 
thing on a plate.  Still gives me the willies.

I'm all about "waste not, want not" and so I understand people wanting 
to eat every part of something that is edible, especially in the times 
that my grandparents lived through, but I'll stick to the skins of 
potatoes and the navels of oranges!

Julie

Quoting Mike Pingleton <pingleto at gmail.com>:

> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>