ROOTS & BRANCHES

Don Yoder—the late, great godfather of many things Pennsylvania Dutch—pretty much started the academic study of ethnic folklore.

Which he expanded to include the terms “folklife” and “folkways.”

Which led to a term that I like a lot, “foodways,” since I’m definitely someone for who the path to my heart runs through my stomach.

I know I’ve touched on various elements of my food heritage in past “Roots & Branches” columns but what I’m struck by how many of these culinary memories are tied to particular people, mostly the only three ancestors of whom I have firm memories—my mother, my father and my “Gramom,” who was my father’s mother.

Let’s start with “Gramom,” who was Dora Annie Etchberger Beidler and lived with my family part time for four years and then full time for nine years.

My top memory is that chicken pot pie was her domain—starting with hand rolling the dough for noodles to the finished product—and my mother stayed out of the way.

Another of her specialties was one that my dad loved but that would literally almost make me vomit. It was a breakfast dish called “pudding” and I never got near waning to find out what was in it, other than a multitude of onions. Usually this was made on Saturday mornings when I would have rather slept in … but the smell of this got me out of bed and house in a hurry.

As far as my dad, Richard Lee Beidler, he was a classic male of his time—pretty much only doing the grill cooking. My chief memories of this is that he made his steaks more than well done … and then salted the bejesus out of them. In reaction to that, I’m inclined to take my steak medium or medium rare and never add salt (to anything!).

But he did also shine in putting together a feast of steamed clams every year as a celebration of harvesting hundreds of ears of sweet corn from his quarter-acre garden. On this score, we were in total agreement … no at-home meal is better, to my mind, than corn and clams!

But my mother, Mildred Mae Hiester Beidler, was the chief cook and I think about how much I must have tried her patience as an extremely finicky eater as a child (I started getting over that in college and it’s made keeping a decent waistline a challenge!).

My favorite food as a child, whether eating in or out, was fried chicken, particularly breasts and wings. My dad liked gizzards, too, but I only developed a taste for them in Birmingham, Alabama, where supermarket delis had them available by the pint.

Now that’s one of my favorite meals and fortunately my girlfriend, Terri J. Bridgwater, is willing to indulge me even though she doesn’t personally like them.

Foodways endure!