food for the soul
Food has the power to evoke memories, some long buried and lying dormant. The tastes and smells only flood back when you walk past a boiling pot or breathe in the scent of rising dough from the oven. These memories have the power to pull us back through time, reminding us of the emotions we felt at a family dinner, or transport us across the world, back to days spent walking the streets of Manila, Paris, or Cario. Often they are memories of our grandparents, parents, or other loved ones. We recall these memories, not just because of the delicious food we ate, but for the overwhelming feeling of love we had for the person making the meal. Family recipes can become time capsules that hold the key to releasing this love into the world.
Erika Güttgens, my Oma, was born on August 23rd, 1930, in Griesheim, Germany, a working-class industrial town on the outskirts of Frankfurt am Main. The 1930s interwar years were perhaps the worst time to be born in Germany, with the rise of the Third Reich and hyperinflation that crippled the German economy. A single loaf of bread cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars at one point, a bizarre and staggering figure that would sound fictional in any other context.
Erika’s family relied on a family vegetable garden grown on their small plot of land. Other families looked to black market sales, and all families were forced to make meals work with just a few ingredients. Potatoes became a dietary staple, shredded into pancakes, sliced into salads, and hand-formed into dumplings. Erika’s mother taught her how to cook with these simple ingredients, and she passed down recipes that managed to survive not only the war but the unstoppable march of time.
At the age of twelve, Erika was sent to live on a farm outside of the city, a practice often utilized by families. The war was already raging, and Greisheim was often targeted due to its proximity to Frankfurt, a major transportation hub. Her time on the farm was short; Erika was abused by the farm owner and managed to escape, miraculously walking all the way back home. Towards the end of the war, Germany desperately conscripted from the remaining male population, and Erika’s father and brother were forced into the service. Both would survive, though her brother would have to endure being shot and serving a sentence in a Russian gulag.
My Opa, Harry Vetter, had an equally perilous journey through life and an improbable path to meeting Erika that might only seem plausible in a cinematic portrayal. He was born in 1924, in the post-war United States. His mother was unable to raise him and sent him as an infant to live with her sister in Germany. His aunt sent him back to the States in 1937, fearful that his dual citizenship might make him a target of the growing fascist state. Technically an American citizen, he was soon drafted into the American army and sent to fight in Burma.
Harry’s aunt was a friend of Erika’s family and it was through their urging that the two began a correspondence in 1948, sending handwritten letters and photographs across the Atlantic Ocean. Having never met, they became engaged to be married through a proposal inked on lined paper. Harry flew to Germany in 1950, and the two were wed. But, despite Harry’s best efforts, Erika was denied a visa to come to the United States, so they snuck Erika into the United States through the Canadian border. The newlyweds lived in Jamaica, Queens, in the apartment above Harry’s mother’s house, the first home my father lived in when he was born in 1952.
Some of the recipes from Erika’s meager years in Griesheim were the meals that my father grew up with. One of his favorites was Pfannkuchen, also known as Eierkuchen, or egg pancakes. It’s a simple meal consisting of a pan-sized thin pancake that was served hot on the day of cooking, or cold and rolled up with jelly the day after. It’s a practical meal, a cheap and filling way to feed a family. But, for Erika, it was also a connection to home. The meals she cooked were a cherished memory of fonder moments and tenderness from an otherwise difficult upbringing in Germany.
Growing up under the thumb of a fascist regime robbed Erika of all trust in authority, replacing it with fear of government, police, and even doctors. So in 1992, when cancer took refuge deep within her bones, she ignored the symptoms for as long as she could. Her time in the hospital was marked by the cancer having cruelly spread throughout her body. She passed away in her hospital bed, an impermanence hard to comprehend as a six-year-old child. My Opa’s heart broke under the crushing weight of his loss, and he passed away from a heart attack within a week of Oma’s passing. The lights in their house remained darkened, her recipes that had survived through all her ordeals stacked and enclosed in a box on the kitchen shelf.
Years later, my dad compiled her index card recipes into a booklet, much like a photo album. Using these recipes as inspiration, he hosted his first Oktoberfest celebration, spending hours simmering gingersnap gravy on the stovetop and frying pounded veal cutlets for schnitzel. The first time I caught a whiff of these dishes I was hit by a memory that bowled me over like a crashing wave. I was transported back in time to my Oma’s dining room, crawling under the table and causing havoc with my sister and cousins, as the smell of gingersnap gravy lingered in the air. It was like being visited by her spirit, not in the form of a ghostly apparition, but as the spicy, sweet scent of her cooking.
That first bite of dad’s sauerbraten had me swooning. And so began an annual Oktoberfest tradition, one that started in New York and ultimately migrated to Maryland when my father and stepmother retired to the Eastern Shore. It happens in late September or early October, with index cards strewn over the kitchen countertop, recipes written by my Oma’s hand or re-written by my Aunt Linda, to preserve the fading ink that was obscured by decades of cooking oil absorbed into the paper. Adult children peek through the cracked open garage door to see my dad moving under the soft glow of the ceiling light, checking on the sauerbraten that has been marinating for three days in five-gallon buckets. A scraping sound echoes throughout the kitchen from the tedious task of shredding each individual potato on a mandolin, with my stepmother desperately attempting to recruit us to help, while we use equal vigor to avoid the task. “Oh, I’m just going to go check on the…” trailing off as we escape to go refill a mug with Warsteiner’s sudsy pilsner.
When the cooking is done, neighbors, family and friends marvel over the feast that awaits. There are bowls of German potato salad, the salty, sliced potatoes soaking up the unctuous bacon grease. There are the accompanying sides of tangy sauerkraut and rotkohl, or red cabbage, forked over crispy, browned wienerschnitzel. There are all manner of sausages – knockwurst grilled and bursting from its casing, weisswurst pressed between potato rolls, fleischwurst sliced into wurst salat, combined with pickles and onions. On special occasions there is my personal favorite: rouladen, thinly sliced braised beef rolled up with bacon, pickles, and mustard. And, of course, the star of the show is Oma’s sauerbraten, a slow cooked bottom round roast, brined for three days, tasting slightly sour and slightly sweet, cut with the peppery, spicy taste of gingersnap gravy. There is no need for desert, but a decadent Black Forest cake is served all the same.
The food is eaten in the backyard, under the tapestry of stars. By the end of the night, the firepit sputters out the last bits of smoke that floats with the scent of food over the tree line. Eyes are heavy from the heaping pours of gravy and the many dark German beers. The last of the season’s stink bugs cling to the screen doors, betrayed by the spotlight of the Maryland moon. Chestertown is half a world away from Griesheim, but somehow it feels like this is how these dishes were intended to be eaten. On these nights, once a year, we feel Oma’s love reaching out from a distant place. Perhaps it’s foolish romanticism, or perhaps it’s one-too-many pilsners, but in those late post-meal hours, I can see her in my father’s movements and in the shine of his eyes.
What happens when the work required to make Oktoberfest a success becomes too tiresome for my father? Does it become my turn to keep Oma’s recipes alive? With no children of my own to cook for, I feel a panic when I think about the responsibility of carrying on her legacy. So, dear readers, I share these recipes with you, in case my best efforts fall short and I blacken the potato pancakes or ruin the sauerbraten. Maybe you can incorporate her recipes into your own traditions and help them to live on through whatever beautiful or troubling times lay ahead.
