The other day, my cousin, actually my “second” cousin, since her dad was my “first” cousin, sent me a Facebook link about Braunschweiger sandwiches. She replied to the original sender that, when she was growing up, she called it “goose liver.” I appended a note that I, too, fondly recalled eating “goose liver” sandwiches when I was a young kid. I also added how this term made me feel foolish the first time I visited a delicatessen in New York City. When I ordered a “goose liver” sandwich, the clerk had no idea what I wanted. I finally had to point to the customer next to me and say, “I want a sandwich like his.” I’m not sure whether I would have had a better result requesting “liverwurst.” At the time, I had never heard of Braunschweiger. Since it was not a French bistro, I could not have ordered foie gras, even back then when it was still legal to eat. Now the only time I have this delicacy is not in a delicatessen but at a Jewish Passover Seder. Then I consume as much as I can fit on pieces of matzoh.
This linguistic confusion reminds me of the classic problem of where one eats a submarine, a hoagie or a hero sandwich. In New England I enjoyed grinders and here, in Cajun country, I do like Po’boys. To help in the consumption of that hard bread roll, I often would drink a milkshake; I preferred plain vanilla ones. However, along with my grinder in New England, I had to order a frappe rather than a milkshake, unless I wanted only flavored milk without the ice cream. On the other hand, a malt would also have served the same purpose in the mid-west. I did, however, require it must be a chocolate one. The consistency of a malt was more fluid than that of the frozen custard I bought at the local Dairy Queen, since the former could never go into a cone, whereas the latter always did.
Of course, when I was a kid, the usual drink was not a milkshake; they were for special events. The usual way to slake my thirst was with water, or, if I was out shopping, with pop. Later, in life, once I had left Ohio for New England, I drank a soda instead of pop. However, during my years in Texas, I have consumed a lot of coke, regardless of the flavor.
Texas is also the first place I was exposed to country-fried steak as well as chicken-fried steak. The names probably originated during the First World War when German immigrants in the Lone Star State changed wiener schnitzel to a more American-sounding term as well as replacing the veal with more readily available beef. It’s also possible, in recent years, to order chicken-fried chicken, which seems a bit odd to me. As far as I can tell, the only difference between country-fried steak and chicken-fried steak is in the gravy – brown for country-fried and white for chicken-fried. Although some call the sauce for spaghetti, “gravy,” I refuse to use the term and maintain true gravy must be a shade of brown to tan and not tomato-red.
Although I do not recall steak being breaded for childhood meals, one of my favorite items was city-chicken. This special treat was composed of small, flour coated, cubes of pork and veal on a small, wooden skewer and fried in a skillet. They were an acceptable alternative to chicken legs or drumsticks. As for roast chicken, itself, the stuffing or dressing had to contain cubes of stale bread along with sausage and bits of chicken liver. I did not know about cornbread stuffing until we moved to Texas. I still prefer the Ohio version Karen makes, but will accept the southern one if I must, so long as it has plenty of real gravy.
With great courage and a great deal of expended energy, I am also willing to peel and eat crawfish, crawdads, crayfish or even mudbugs, providing the spices yield a finger-licking accompaniment. Nevertheless, I greatly prefer lobster, especially if it has rested in New England water and its appropriate salts. It has been many years since I have eaten chicken-lobster, which is not a fowl but a one- to two-pound crustacean that is very tender and flavorful. Although it takes practice to remove the tails and claws easily, the process is faster than the one required for crawdads.
Growing up in land-locked Ohio, i.e. away from the waters of Lake Erie, I was not exposed to food that swam. Lent was a time for Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks, which had only a weak reminder of the taste of seafood, even though they were devoid of bendable bones. It took me many years living with a wife who had grown up on the shores of Lake Erie to get me to attempt eating fillets requiring some work to separate the good stuff from the chokeables.
Along with meat or fish, I also like to eat the heel rather than the butt or end of the loaf of bread, so long as it is buttered – even with oleo, when I was younger, or with margarine, now that I’m older and living in a different part of the country.
For breakfast I prefer having pancakes instead of either hot cakes or flapjacks. I also would rather eat an over-easy to a regular sunny-side-up along with either a roll or bun. Furthermore, I prefer take-out food for dinner instead of take-aways or carry-outs for supper. Of course, I prefer frosted cake or cookies but am equally willing to eat desserts that are iced, even if I must now specify whether I want iced-tea or hot-tea. When I lived up North, tea was automatically hot-tea and coffee was black, unless I ordered a “double-double.” In any case, I am now willing to consume many things, no matter what word I must call them when I eat them.