Plath Family Recipes: Recording American Culinary History - Page 2

Have traditional Plath recipes evolved from generation to generation?  If so, what has influenced this evolution?

Some of the recipes remain unchanged, but the ones that have been modified have been changed mostly for the sake of convenience, and it’s not just recent generations. My grandmother decided years ago that using frozen vegetables was preferable to all the chopping and dicing that her mother did in order to make oxtail soup. Some ingredients like monosodium glutamate and the recipes calling for the addition of raw, uncooked eggs (like rice pudding) have been omitted or altered for health reasons. But for the most part the main family recipes continue four or five generations later as originally made. Why? Partly tradition, but mostly because they’re good.

What inspired you to create the Plath Family Recipes collection?

It was a way for me to pay tribute to my forebears without just tacking up a genealogical chart and saying “These are my relatives.” Besides, I really do associate all of those family members with the things they baked and cooked. It was how they defined themselves, in part, and how we all thought of them when they were alive and still making these wonderful dishes, and how I still think of them.
 
Do you regularly prepare traditional Plath meals at home?

My wife, Zarina, is the first woman I’ve ever dated who’s a better cook than I am, and what began as shared cooking duties has kind of evolved to where she does probably four-fifths of the cooking now—and seldom does she make the same dish twice. But when it’s my turn to make something, I’ll often revert to family comfort food. Especially when my adult children come for a visit or we have a holiday, I’ll definitely trot out the family recipes. We’ll have kroppah with pork tenderloin or schnitzel, and come Christmas we’ll get out my mother’s recipes for snowballs and the family shrimp dip recipe. I’ll often make my mom’s chicken parmesan just the way she did when casseroles were popular in the 50s and 60s when I was growing up. Same with her lasagna. And when we have picnics, I’ll make the family’s German potato salad that I remember eating as a child. Just this past week I decided to make Mom’s meatloaf instead of my own. I think there’s a strong relationship between family food traditions and what we consider “comfort foods.” 

Is there such a thing as American cuisine?  If so, how would you define it?

If you page through a comprehensive cookbook like Culinaria: The United States you’ll be tempted to conclude that with the enormous size of our country and the great differences between, say, the South and New England, there’s no such thing as “American” cuisine—only regional American cuisines. But if you take a closer look at how some of these things are prepared, you’ll find common denominators. American food tends to be hearty, not fancy. American foods tend to be easily prepared. And most of all, more American recipes fall into the “casserole” category than other cultures. We love our casseroles and one-dish meals, and I suppose this goes back to the potlucks that settlers and congregations perpetuated as traditions.

What is your favorite Plath family recipe to prepare?

Probably kroppah. It’s backbreaking work that takes two to three hours, but because it’s the recipe that’s so steeped in tradition, it almost feels like a ritual when I prepare it. Silly as it sounds, it’s almost sacramental. My great-grandmother died in 1975, and though she had 10 children, she was the only person in the family to make kroppah. When I asked for the recipe years after she was gone, everyone was more or less dumbfounded that anyone would attempt Great-Grandma’s kroppah. That was her specialty. But now two of my sons have made it as well. What makes it such a joy to prepare is that it is rare, and people seem to appreciate it as much as when Great-Grandma used to carry out the tray of kroppah to show all of us who waited, patiently, in the living and dining rooms of her Milwaukee bungalow.
 
For more information and recipes, visit Five Generations of Plath Family Recipes