Family

The aroma of rosemary and garlic wafted through the rooms of my childhood home every Sunday morning. Mama started first thing in the morning readying a leg of lamb by poking cloves of garlic and sprigs of rosemary into the fatty side of the meat and liberally sprinkling it with salt and pepper. She put the lamb in a large metal roasting pan and surrounded it with potatoes, carrots, green bell pepper and onions. 

Sunday dinner was always at noon and it was my favorite meal of the week. She also prepared macaroni with a delicious tomato sauce that she made with chopped onions, celery, carrots and lots of herbs. A salad made from lettuce and tomatoes that my father grew in his garden accompanied the meal. Leftovers were served cold for the evening meal.

Mama never baked cookies or cupcakes, and only baked on Sundays when she made a cake from scratch. Cake mixes weren’t popular during the 1940s, and only became widely used sometime during the 1950s. Many ingredients were rationed during WWII, and recipes appeared in the newspapers for cakes made with mayonnaise or tomato soup—economic substitutes for butter, eggs and milk. They created a moist, flavorful dessert.

One meal that I never liked was called Kupus y Kastradina (not sure about the spelling). The kupus was boiled cabbage and the kastradina was cured lamb. The lamb eaten separately was salty and delicious, but boiled for hours with cabbage did nothing to improve the flavor.  I think it was a popular, economical meal in the old country, and it reminded my father of home. Luckily, cured lamb was not often available, so we only had it on rare occasions.

Although money was always scarce in our home, there was always plenty of food on the table.