Meat grinders
Our family loved croquettes. At Thanksgiving, my grandmother would buy a 25 lb. turkey for the four of us. We would have it for Thanksgiving dinner, turkey sandwiches that night and the next day, and the entire rest of the turkey would be ground up for turkey croquettes. Mommom would get out her meat grinder, attaching it to a cutting board since the table rim was too wide for the vise connection. I sat across from her many times as she turned the crank, pushing the turkey meat down into the grinder with her other hand. I, of course, sampled the ground turkey as it came out.
Mom would mix the ground meat with a thick white sauce, seasoned with salt, pepper and fresh parsley. She had great contempt for people who added mashed potatoes or rice. I thought that had probably been the point of croquettes, to extend the meat, but not Mom. She would press the meat mixture onto a plate and put it in the 'fridge for a few hours or overnight, to get cold and stiff. She then rolled it into small logs, never the cone shape of commercial frozen or restaurant croquettes, and double dip them in egg and bread crumbs (my part of the job, from as early as I can remember, the second dipping). She fried them in Crisco, topped them with a thinner white sauce and served cranberry jelly on the side. We all thought they were amazing.
Mom would let us eat as many as we liked, as opposed to my mother. When she made them, you got two each and the rest were frozen, to be doled out for dinner on special occasions during the long stretch between the Christmas turkey and next Thanksgiving. The same thing was done with the Easter ham too.
I should have inherited two meat grinders, my mother's and my grandmother's. I don't know what happened. My grandmother moved in with me the day before my mother's funeral, then we moved again, and somehow I ended up with no meat grinders. After my grandmother was gone, I also realized I ended up with no croquette recipe. I've been trying to recreate it and borrowed grinders from friends and relatives, until my daughter bought me a new one two years ago. They still make the old hand grinders. I've been working on the recipe. The croquettes from the Easter ham were pretty good; so much so that I didn't share, just ate them for three meals in a row!
Meat grinder is a term applied to other things. For me, it applied to my last few jobs. I was lucky; just as I would feel that the job was grinding me up and spitting me out, another meat grinder job would come along and offer to take me in! Finally I lost my temper, got fired, got rehired for something that seemed even more of a meat grinder and finally retired! Retirement is the croquettes!
There's a lot in these croquettes: long walks with Wolfie, time with grandchildren, more books than I have time to read, a volunteer job at the library, friends at church, experimenting with cooking, singing and now a blog! More things to do than I ever can; hoping I live long enough in retirement to enjoy it all. Retirement is the croquettes! "The last of life, for which the first was made!"
Mom would mix the ground meat with a thick white sauce, seasoned with salt, pepper and fresh parsley. She had great contempt for people who added mashed potatoes or rice. I thought that had probably been the point of croquettes, to extend the meat, but not Mom. She would press the meat mixture onto a plate and put it in the 'fridge for a few hours or overnight, to get cold and stiff. She then rolled it into small logs, never the cone shape of commercial frozen or restaurant croquettes, and double dip them in egg and bread crumbs (my part of the job, from as early as I can remember, the second dipping). She fried them in Crisco, topped them with a thinner white sauce and served cranberry jelly on the side. We all thought they were amazing.
Mom would let us eat as many as we liked, as opposed to my mother. When she made them, you got two each and the rest were frozen, to be doled out for dinner on special occasions during the long stretch between the Christmas turkey and next Thanksgiving. The same thing was done with the Easter ham too.
I should have inherited two meat grinders, my mother's and my grandmother's. I don't know what happened. My grandmother moved in with me the day before my mother's funeral, then we moved again, and somehow I ended up with no meat grinders. After my grandmother was gone, I also realized I ended up with no croquette recipe. I've been trying to recreate it and borrowed grinders from friends and relatives, until my daughter bought me a new one two years ago. They still make the old hand grinders. I've been working on the recipe. The croquettes from the Easter ham were pretty good; so much so that I didn't share, just ate them for three meals in a row!
Meat grinder is a term applied to other things. For me, it applied to my last few jobs. I was lucky; just as I would feel that the job was grinding me up and spitting me out, another meat grinder job would come along and offer to take me in! Finally I lost my temper, got fired, got rehired for something that seemed even more of a meat grinder and finally retired! Retirement is the croquettes!
There's a lot in these croquettes: long walks with Wolfie, time with grandchildren, more books than I have time to read, a volunteer job at the library, friends at church, experimenting with cooking, singing and now a blog! More things to do than I ever can; hoping I live long enough in retirement to enjoy it all. Retirement is the croquettes! "The last of life, for which the first was made!"
The quote at the end is Robert Browning. I forgot to attribute it.
ReplyDeleteI loved those croquettes. I remember having them for dinner in the dining room on Laurence Street. Followed by your Mom's amazing chocolate cake. Was it a birthday dinner?
ReplyDeleteProbably. My mother didn't make that chocolate cake often. It used 7 1/2 squares of Baker's chocolate between the cake, the filling and the Icing. It was usually very dry, so every bite had to be washed down with milk, but it was chocolaty!
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