Old memories, new opportunities

And another sumptuous bean recipe from Southwestern Bean Country

Many years ago I worked diligently on a book that never got published, primarily because of a dispute with the publishing house. It was to be a history of food in America, told through all the various groups that had come together to shape our nation’s table. It began, naturally, with the indigenous people who were here first and who, themselves, were shaped in many distinct branches, and it would conclude with newer arrivals, mostly from Southeast Asia. I still have a few of the notes and tales left from that book. The following is one from an early chapter dealing with Germans and their powerful influence on what we think of as American food today. This is a memory from at least 30 years ago.

Oma’s Sunday Pretzels

Oma Kreutzer (not her real name, in deference to her wish not to be identified) invited me to come by for coffee after church one Sunday. The diminutive 87-year-old, who emigrated to Wisconsin from her native Stuttgart in the 1920s, kept house with her daughter in a small town north of Milwaukee. Despite her age, Oma still cooked for family and friends, though by the time I met her she had to stand on a foot stool (“I’ve got a little shorter lately,” she explained) to reach the kitchen stove.

Oma (the name means simply Grandmother—or better, Granny) was making pretzels to go with Sunday morning coffee. Along with hot dogs and perhaps sauerkraut, pretzels are one of the great German contributions to American foodways. Almost as ubiquitous as popcorn and peanuts, the salty twists, whose shape harks back to ancient ritual breads, are most familiar to Americans in their crisp, crunchy form, whether thick and hard or thin and friable. But Oma was making a more domesticated style, the kind of pretzel that’s familiar to New Yorkers and Philadelphians, salt-flecked, bread-like twists that, when eaten as street food, which they often are, may come with a blob of yellow mustard for dipping.

The pretzel dough that Oma had made that morning was nothing more than a loose bread dough—flour, water, a little salt, and yeast. Once the dough had risen, she shaped the traditional double rings, then set them aside to rise again quickly. Up to that point, it was a familiar procedure. But Oma had a bowl of what looked like clear water next to the bread board, and when the oven was hot, she dipped each pretzel in the water before placing it on the baking sheet and sprinkling it with coarse, crunchy salt.

“What does the water do?” I asked.

“It’s not water,” she said, “it’s lye.”

“Lye? Where do you get lye?”

“At the store,” she said. With her German accent, it came out: “at de shtore.”

I was confused. “The store? You mean the pharmacy?”

“No,” said Oma, with some exasperation, “just de shtore.” At my continuing incomprehension, she turned and reached into the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. “Lye,” she said again, pulling out a can of Drān-O and holding it up so I could see the skull and crossbones clearly depicted on the side. “Just,” she said, as if spelling it out, “or-di-nary lye.”

I thought: I can’t eat this.

But I knew I had to. The plump little pretzels browned beautifully in the hot oven and the aroma, as they came out, was irresistible. When you bit into them, the crisp, golden crust cracked pleasingly between the teeth. Contrasting with the sharp crunch of salt and the sweet softness of the bread within, there was just a little pungent bite on the end of the tongue, a mere suggestion of—could it be?—Drān-O.

And that’s one way that culinary traditions evolve. They get transported across the seas, modified and adapted by what is and is not available in the new land (I think of Pillsbury biscuit dough transformed into Chinese dumpling wrappers), and turned into something—maybe not new, but changed, sometimes mightily changed, from their origins. Pretzels may be made differently in Germany, but cooks like Oma Kreutzer work with what’s at hand to preserve familiar flavors and textures, the characteristics that help define who and what they are. And they end up defining who and what we all are too, in the end.

Summer Plans? Coast of Maine? Why not?

Why not hone your writing skills at the same time that you enjoy an unforgettable experience and great food right on the shores of Penobscot Bay?

Sunset, Penobscot Bay, August

I’m talking about delving into that memoir you’ve got in your head or maybe even in your computer, and just can’t move it forward. Here’s a chance to tackle it under the astute (but kindly) critical gaze of Richard Goodman, one of the finest writing coaches I’ve ever dealt with. The three-day workshop, July 29-31, is at gorgeous Salt Water Farm in Lincolnville just north of Camden, with its sweeping views of the most beautiful blue bay in all of Maine. A full three days of Richard’s inspirational guidance includes intense morning and afternoon sessions, plus family-style lunches prepared in Salt Water Farm’s French-flavored kitchen to spur your efforts. You can find out more at Salt Water Farm’s website here.

(And while you’re in the neighborhood, come see me on my Kitchen Porch.)

The recipe below is for paid subscribers only.