[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Food

[Cynthia Howland]

Rita Lyster asked about a recipe for potato dumplings.    I'm afraid I don't
have an exact recipe but I would like to share this story told by my Uncle
Ed, now deceased, (in his own words) about potato dumplings and pancakes
growing up during the depression in Michigan.  I think it indicates how the
original recipe may have been adapted and was still served with "bacon" and
onions.

"Supper?  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, if we were lucky to get a sack of
potatoes along with the sack of flour, a scoop of lard, kind of second hand
stuff, a bag of salt and were very lucky to still have one meat "stamp" left
from last month's quota, you could get a chunk of saltpork,.  Now that went
mighty good mixed in with that batch of potato-dumplings Mom used to make
every now and then.  It's surprising how our Mothers used to be able to cut
up a little chunk of salt pork into little nibblets, mix a handful of finely
chopped up onion tops, toss them into a pan of hot simmerin ' lard, let it
all sizzle a while, till the kitchen started to get a bit blue from their
smoke, then she would dump the whole batch, lard and all, into the big pot
of potato dumplings after they were drained off and were cooled enough to
stir all that stuff together, to make sure our whole family of seven will
all get a few nibbles of pork chips and burnt onion tops along with those
well lubricated dumplings! .....................All the kids, German,
Polock, Belgian, even French & Italian in our neighborhood learned to like
Potato pancakes, even if it was a German Polock specialty!   Our Mothers
sometimes had a whole stack of them, sometimes six inches up, didn't make no
matter to us kids."

Cynthia Howland