My Island Foods is a story about the foods of my family, my memories and our traditions.
My Love of Food
I am that person that starts planning dinner as soon as I wake up. I love to cook more than I love to eat. Moreover, I love ingredients and use words like “beautiful” to describe them. I gaze at the rows of spinach, kale and chard in the market. I stand and take in the display of olives in various hues of green, gray and black. The peppers in various colors all stacked crisply with moisture still clinging to their skins make my heart skip a beat. I get excited by the bags of different colored beans that I put into antique jars in my pantry.
To me, going to the market is like going to an art museum. Recently, a University of London study showed that when a person looks at a piece of art that they see as beautiful, there is an instantaneous release of dopamine, which is a chemical linked to feelings of love, into the brain. When I look at pretty food, I get the same feeling.
I eat very differently from others in my family. I guess I eat the way my grandparents ate. They were hard-working and typically consumed very small meals throughout the day, with little snacking. The biggest meal was the family one in the evening. Similarly, I rarely “go out to lunch” and don’t do big breakfasts. In fact, many times my morning coffee has been my breakfast. Typically I’ll add a piece of toast, yogurt or oatmeal in late morning, always with some fruit. “Lunch” is mid-afternoon and usually consists of a salad, beans or tortillas wrapped around whatever veggies are in my fridge. If I get hungry before dinner I typically snack on pita chips, carrots and hummus, tortilla chips and salsa, cottage cheese and fruit, or cherry tomatoes.
I have been on this schedule for awhile now and I feel it works best for me, my health and my energy level. There were times when I was gone from the house 60 to 80 hours a week with working and commuting. My diet was very different. There were days I didn’t eat at all until the evening, and days of big meals at lunch or breakfast when attending meetings or events.
Since transitioning out of that life and into this one, I have changed not only what I eat, but the food I buy. It was a slow progression from getting organized to getting healthy. One year I cleaned out my pantry merely to organize it, the next I was tossing everything that contained the words “high fructose corn syrup” or that included additives I couldn’t pronounce. There was a deep protest in the ranks and unfortunately some condiments needed to stay. But not for long I surmise.
What I cook has also changed. “Organic” swiftly became the most important thing in my shopping repertoire because it means no harmful pesticides or chemicals. I looked at anything made with corn or wheat in a new light when I imagine people spraying the fields with those pesticides. I also started to wean out plastic and transfer our lives to glass. My meat comes from farmers practicing sustainability. Similiarly for my eggs and dairy. While I have had to give up some favorite foods, for instance, fish and seafood, they have been replaced with a sense of security.
I now also consider longevity when deciding what to eat. Whereas previously eating for health was important, now too, it has become about staying healthy for many years. I am loading up on beans, plants and nuts, while reducing sugar, meat and dairy. (Read “reducing”—I still eat sugar!) I am not a health nut, I am just healthier. There were significant reasons for these changes, all of which I will share as we go along this journey together.
The Island Foods Question
One day several years ago, my sister asked me the island foods question. “What five foods are your island foods?” What do you mean by “island foods”?” I quipped. “You know, the food you would bring if you were stranded on a deserted island. The ones you would have to eat over and over again. If you could only bring five foods, what would you bring?”
Asking a foodie that question will result in much consternation. How could I pick just five? Baked chicken accompanied by root vegetables, all gleaming in a bath of flavorful pan juices? Chocolate Espresso cake with its decadent chocolate layers coated in creamy, fudgy chocolate espresso buttercream? Green beans steamed in garlic and mixed with well-oiled and salted potatoes? Oatmeal studded with pecans and berries, all swimming in cinnamon oatmilk? Cannellini beans sauteed with onions, garlic and curly kale? Avocado, Blueberries, Bananas, Carrots, Spicy Almonds? How do you choose just five?!
After giving this a lot of thought, I realize that my island foods are the ones that I have loved my entire life. After I tell you the story, you’ll see that they define me perfectly.
Caveat
This may sound crazy but my family and I actually argued about my choices. In their version of the game I am sitting on an island with nothing on it but sand surrounded by ocean. I can’t build a fire or cook or scrounge around for coconuts because there are no trees. It’s an island of hot sand (and I doubt I would survive long enough to enjoy my island foods anyway under that scenario).
To me, however, that misses the point of the question. The question is similar to “if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” or “if you won a million dollars tomorrow, what would you do with it?”. Nobody puts limits on those types of questions and they are meant to evoke dreams and good feelings.
The way I see this game is that it’s a beautiful tropical island. I’m a female version of Tom Hanks living a true Castaway life. I’m on a lush island filled with plenty of trees that allow me to build a fire and cook food; ponds with waterfalls for bathing and gathering fresh water; and wild vegetation to allow me to find natural food.
So with this understanding, I give you my island foods I am bringing with me to my paradise:
Coffee
My earliest memories include waking up to the smell of fresh coffee. I lived with my grandparents and my grandpa had a habit of being the first one to rise in the morning and thus, the first to brew the coffee. After a life-long Army career, my grandpa’s early rising habit remained firm even in his retirement. By the time I awakened he was either at the Armory or in his garden, but the smell of his morning ritual lingered.
It was the era of Folger’s and I grew up with the jingle firmly planted in my mind. In fact, it regularly slipped from my lips as I awakened. “The best part of waking up, is Folger’s in your cup”. Folger’s marketing was clear: coffee meant connection and the to start your day. In fact, that is exactly what coffee became to me and why it’s one of my island foods.
While I no longer drink Folger’s, the sight of that red can or a whiff of the contents immediately takes me back to those days when I was growing up, which was quite simply, the best times of my life. Every family celebration, Sunday dinner, birthday party or holiday was followed with coffee. Immediately after dinner my Grandpa would walk over to the counter and start heating up the Bunn. Coffee wasn’t just for the morning, it was also for the lively conversation that was about to ensue as we gathered with it over dessert.
In his older years I would awaken to find my grandpa sitting at the kitchen table, dunking powdered donuts into his coffee. Of course, I would not hesitate to grab myself a cup and a donut and dunk along. I don’t remember how old I was when I started drinking coffee. My mother tells me it was when I was three. Would I recommend a preschooler drinking coffee today? No. But things were different back then and this is my story honest and true. This is where my attachment to coffee comes from, and quite frankly, I would not change it for the world.
I have always said that there’s not enough time left to drink all the coffee I want to drink. I drink coffee simply because I love the taste of it. Even if I couldn’t drink coffee, I would still brew a pot just to inhale the memories. Last year I did a cleanse and gave up coffee for ten days. The first two days were admittedly very hard. I found myself brewing coffee just for the familiar scent. The last part of the cleanse went so well that I almost considered not going back to drinking it. Almost.
I have read countless confusing articles about coffee. Some say it’s bad for your health, while others insist you can safely drink up to five cups a day. My own doctor wants me to limit it to two cups (one ideally). I have decided that until the scientific world nails it down, I’ll keep drinking it, and bring it with me to my island, of course.
Tomatoes
My next island food is tomatoes. My love of tomatoes dates back to practically birth. I recall my grandma sending me out to the garden to pick tomatoes for dinner. Often my grandpa had picked the day’s haul and placed them on my child sized picnic table for further ripening. But I loved picking them from the vine myself. Running in between the rows of tall plants, my grandpa would direct me to the ones that I was allowed to pick. The ripe tomato easily fell off the vine when I plucked it, and I would bring it to my nose to inhale the wonderful smell. It smelled just like the sun must smell as its rays warmed the bright tomato’s skin. Everything in the garden smelled like its smell mixed with the sun and the earth.
My grandma often brought her guests out to the garden so they could see the beautiful bushes of basil. Yes, I did mean “bushes”, because in my grandpa’s garden it all grew like a magical bean trying to wind its way up to the heavens. My grandma would wave her hands flamboyantly as she spoke (as was the case with most of the Italians in my family) and it almost seemed as if she was the one up at dawn planting, seeding and weeding all day. My grandpa just nodded his head, humming as he went about his hoeing.
I remember my Grandma plucking the basil leaves from the bush and laughing as she shoved them under her guests’ noses, intuitively knowing that every visitor would want to sniff the basil. Her laughter so infectiously displayed her happiness that I was sure every one who got to sniff the basil at my grandma’s beckoning would run home to plant their own basil bushes in an attempt to garner the same simple joy.
My grandma was a literal magician in the kitchen as everyone knew, so really, if she wanted to give tours proudly around the amazing garden, my grandpa wasn’t going to bite the hand that feeds him. Everyone already understood why the garden grew as it did. There was not a moment my grandpa could not be found bent over in the yard tending to something, his pocketknife always in his hand ready to pluck out an encroaching weed that dared to enter his domain. There literally were no weeds that lasted longer than a fortnight in his yard. I daresay he would be horrified to know I am often derelict with my own yard.
The perfect companion to basil is tomatoes, and they were their own food group in our home. We’d eat them for lunch–cut up into cubes and dressed simply with oil, salt and pepper then folded into bread and dunked into the bowl of oil. It was called plainly “Tomatoes and Oil” and to this day, it’s a staple in my home. We ate tomatoes nearly every night for dinner as well. Primarily, tomatoes were made into pasta sauce. We brought them in fresh from the garden, soaked them in hot water in the sink to remove the skins then made them into a sauce mixed with fresh basil.
We also devoted an entire day in the fall to canning tomatoes for the winter. All those quarts of tomatoes would line the shelves of the basement and sustain us during the freezing days when nothing was growing outdoors. If you had a jar of tomatoes, you always had dinner. They could be combined simply with other vegetables to make a soup or stew. For instance, my grandma’s famous Pepper Stew featured green peppers and little sausages in a thin tomato base, just waiting to all be mopped up with fresh bread.
My Grandma’s soup was also iconic and became known as “Grandma’s Soup”, even to this day amongst my own children who never got to know my grandma. It started out in her big kettle with about 20 big tomatoes from the garden. A few hours later and it was a beautiful broth that could be eaten alone or combined with any variety of noodles. It was the only thing any of us wanted when we were ill because of its magical healing properties.
My grandma’s Spanish Rice was equally as amazing. It began with a consistency similar to her soup, but with the flavors of a sugo. It would be frozen in Cool Whip containers (of course) and defrosted for a hearty winter dinner. We would warm the sugo then combine it with stew it with simple white rice. When we weren’t including tomatoes in our main dish, they became the side dish: cut up in cubes and added to salads or cut into thick slices to serve paired with basil, or even just a simple sprinkling of salt and pepper.
Food was the legacy left by my grandparents, and it was the thing we did together that always brought me the greatest joy. It was in the garden my grandpa tended or the kitchen my grandma fed her family. My grandparent’s purpose was caring for their family and they did it simply, and with love. The little tomato can be turned into a virtual plethora of meals, but also shines so brightly on its own .All I have to do is pluck it off the vine and bring it to my nose to be transported back to my grandparent’s garden in the 70’s. The tomato will always be my favorite, and if I could only bring one island food, this would be it for sure.
Pasta
My grandma was Italian, my grandpa was not. However, the Italian heritage was predominant in our family and most of us simply believed my grandpa was Italian. He certainly acted Italian, often singing ‘Ole Sole Mio’ as he did the dishes each evening after dinner.
My grandmother had grown up on Wall Street in Sterling, Illinois in the height of Italians emigrating to America. Many of her relatives settled along the Rock River, either in Sterling where there was a lot of industrialization going on, or in Ottawa just south of Sterling. She was the eldest of ten and had a strong network of Italian friends and family over the course of her lifetime. Her own Italian grandmother had also emigrated to America and was the one who taught my Grandma how to cook.
It often felt like we lived within our own Italian city. Thus, it’s easy to imagine how pasta would form such an important part of my life, and why it’s my island food.
There was the “everyday” rigatoni or spaghetti, dressed in a simple ground beef sugo. It could be made with fresh tomatoes, home canned tomatoes or store bought canned tomatoes; fresh herbs or dried; accented with basically anything. It didn’t matter what you added to it, for some reason it always tasted the same.
Then there was the holiday pasta: gnocchi on Easter, Bucatini on Thanksgiving and Ravioli on Christmas. We felt lucky when a bag of gnocchi emerged from the freezer to celebrate a regular Sunday. My Grandma rarely made Lasagna or Tortellini. I have come to learn that many of the pastas enjoyed in America today were created by the Italian-Americans. Whether your family made those dishes depended on what section of the country your Italian family settled in. She did, however, come to enjoy Manicotti in her older years and would often ask me to make them for her.
Most days of the week we ate the everyday pasta, a simple salad, and bread. We gave great care to simple things that are often taken for granted today. For example, before dinner my Grandma would call me to the kitchen to grate the Parmesan or Romano cheese that accompanied every meal. I would grate enough for an entire bowl, add a spoon and place it on the table. Today, many people simply add a few shakes of jarred parm onto their pasta. But for us, the Parmesan was its own food group and we gave it loving care. Big chunks of it floated in our sugo and when you were the one to find the rind on your plate, you announced it proudly to the table. We never tired of having pasta over and over because it was the experience that made it different each time.
Our side dish was what was fresh in the garden that day. In the spring it included fresh picked Dandelion greens that we had dug up from the sandy earth, plated green onions with white bulbs as big as your fist, radishes as red as apples, or broad leafed spinach steamed with garlic. In the summer we had a Garden of Eden to choose from: fried zucchini, garlic coated green beans, cucumbers married with vinegar and onions, sliced tomatoes to which we sprinkled pepper and salt, thick purple beets, bright orange carrots, freshly shelled green peas and corn on the cob. Also, there was always a ritual plate of juicy watermelon or cantaloupe to help us complete the meal. In the fall we had squash baked with brown sugar and butter, potatoes mixed into our beans, or pears baked in wine. In the winter, we ate soup and stews often, with pasta noodles of all shapes and sizes added to them.
My Grandma made soup with chunks of beef, carrots, celery and fresh tomatoes from the garden to form the base of the broth. Then she froze it in containers and it would magically appear for anyone’s time of illness. On cold winter nights we would arrive to dinner to find it as the star, studded with thin egg nest noodles, the beef and veggies providing heartiness. We’d add spoonfuls of Parmesan and dip our bread into the now melty cheese to soak up all the broth.
For me, this food is my family’s legacy and the nature of it was simple, yet true. Pasta plays such a big part of my life and I can’t imagine not having it on my island. My family has advised me that I need to be more specific and denote a specific pasta dish to bring as my island food. I beg to differ, but honestly it doesn’t matter. I’ll live happily on my island with any pasta I am lucky to have.
Olives
I actually almost didn’t choose olives as one of my island foods and it took some thought to consider them island-worthy. It wasn’t like we had a plate of olives at every meal as they do in Morocco where my uncle’s second family lives and where he visits yearly. There, olives are to their meals as tomatoes are to ours, even being offered on the breakfast table. However, we did have olives often and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how important they are to me.
Every holiday my Grandma would make the “olive tray” to include green olives, black olives, spiced apple rings and celery stuffed with a chunky spread made with cream cheese, green olives stuffed with pimentos and sugar. I loved black olives and would steal exactly five, stuffing my fingers into them and running around the pre-dinner table with my “olive glove”. Even on Sunday dinners where the entire family gathered, there was a bowl of olives on the table.
Olives were also for snacking. My Grandma loved olives and always had them in her refrigerator to add to her lunch. When we would travel to the Italian market she would stop at the barrels of olives and exclaim over their beauty. She especially loved the wrinkly salt-cured black olives similar to the Moroccan variety they eat daily. As a child, I did not care for them and thought them too pungent. So as an accompaniment to lunch, her plate would hold her cherished black wrinkly olives while mine would include the more bland green olives stuffed with pimento, or the black olives I could stuff on my fingers. We would eat them with stick pepperoni, hard fontinella and Italian bread, or served alongside egg salad sandwiches.
Despite the olives themselves, olive oil was a staple in our household. Big cans of Italian olive oil lined the shelves in the cold basement and was used for everything from frying hamburgers studded with basil to dressing salads. Today, I would be lost without my precious olive oil. Even before I discovered the harmful nature of seed oils, I used Olive oil in most of my cooking, just like my grandmother did. But recently I made a bold move to rid my kitchen of vegetable and canola oils, replacing them with different varieties of Olive oil, Avocado oil and Coconut oil.
I use Olive oil to saute onions and garlic, to flavor meatballs, to make pizza dough, to dress salads and to drizzle on bread. Like my grandmother, I buy it in big cans from the Italian market and store them in my pantry. I love opening up the pantry and seeing my cans of Olive oil. It reminds me of the ones in my grandparents’ basement, all lined up in a row. I don’t think there is a prettier site for me than walking into the market and seeing the fresh olives on display. Our holidays especially would not be the same without that special bowl of olives on the charcuterie board, including the little black ones my Grandma loved so much.
After much contemplation, I do believe my life would not be the same without olives. Given that the best kind of Olive Oil comes from fresh pressing ripe olives, I think on my island I’d like a truckload of olives. Some I’ll shove onto my fingers and eat whole, while others I’ll press for oil the color of gold.
Dough
My final island food selection has caused my family the most consternation. When I told them it was dough, they insisted it’s cheating. I do realize that dough is not specific, nor is it an edible food until cooked. However, this island game is just a game and so forgive me, but the rules did not state I have to choose a “cooked” food, nor that I can’t bring varieties of a food. Dough forms the basis of so many things I make in my kitchen every week that just saying “bread” wouldn’t be appropriate.
If, however, I am breaking the island game rules, then I choose bread. If you’ve read the above then you may realize that bread formed a lifeline for nearly every meal we ate growing up. From the toast I ate in the morning, to lunches that included pepperoni or egg salad sandwiches, to dinners of pasta, soups and stews. If you wanted the full dinner experience in our home you basically needed to eat bread, because there was always a sauce or broth that required a thick slice of bread to mop up the plate.
We often used bread as a staple to eat what came from the garden. From lettuce sandwiches, broad leafed lettuces pulled fresh from the garden and mixed simply with oil and vinegar, to Tomato and Oil fold-overs. How were we to enjoy the broth of my Grandma’s Steak with Peas & Potatoes, if we didn’t have bread to dredge through the sauce? The dish was exactly as it sounded. Similar to beef stew but not as elaborate, with pieces of beef floating in a thin tomato base, tender potatoes and plump green peas. We ambitiously used Italian bread to soak up the juices until our plates were clean. It was uncomplicated, yet always delicious and very filling.
My grandma always bought her bread from the market. It was either thick Italian bread or sliced Vienna bread. I never saw her make bread, but I am sure it was one thing she likely grew up. Ironically, she bought me a breadmaker when I got married. In those days we didn’t know what “gluten intolerance” was and nobody talked about not eating carbs. We ate bread, and lots of it, without any guilt.
Today, I make my own bread, by hand without a fancy machine. Two of my children have experienced sensitivities to gluten, and I have learned how to make gluten-free breads and rolls. I love making Italian bread, but upon learning the healthy benefits of sourdough, I decided to dive in. I am now the proud mother to my very own sourdough starter and look forward to a lot of interesting bakes with her!
Bread was only one of the “doughs” of my memory. There were the homemade cinnamon rolls that were addicting and special. Unlike the cinnamon rolls most of us know today, these were more bread-like (and in fact, were made with bread dough). The dough was less sweet with the sweetness coming from the creamy frosting that goes on top of the roll. Every Easter we looked forward to eating my Grandma’s cinnamon rolls. She would often freeze an extra batch and I could not wait until I saw it on the counter defrosting on a regular day.
Then there was pie dough. From the time of my first memories I recall my grandma sitting me on her counter to teach me to roll pie dough. I would cut the scraps of extra dough into shapes with the ravioli cutter, place them on a pan and sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon for a sweet treat. The aroma of pie baking in the oven meant an after dinner treat. Although Blueberry pie was always my favorite when I was young, one year my Grandma turned our black raspberries into pie, and there was no going back. I always requested a Black Raspberry Pie for my birthday every year. My birthday is in spring, coinciding with the fruits ripening on the vines. However, we also had containers of blackberries in our freezer if the berries were not yet ripened.
An official Italian-American form of measurement is the Cool Whip container. Just look at any recipe written by a grandchild following their Italian grandma around the kitchen to verify that statement. “Grandma, how many blackberries do you put in?” “One Cool Whip container full.” “Grandma how much water do you add to the Spanish Rice sugo?” “Two Cool Whip containers full”, and onward and so forth.
The other important measurement is “this much” indicating basically a handful. Or maybe a pinch. Who knew. If you wanted anything more precise than that, you were out of luck, so you didn’t ask further.
My Grandpa taught me how to climb a ladder so that I could pull the tart cherries off of his trees when they ripened. It was a very nerve-wracking time determining when the cherries were ripe. You’d have to watch them carefully or else you’d lose them quickly to the blackbirds. We’d sing this nursery rhyme as we loaded our cherries into pails:
Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened The birds began to sing— Wasn't that a dainty dish To set before the king? The king was in the counting-house Counting out his money, The queen was in the parlor Eating bread and honey, The maid was in the garden Hanging out the clothes. Along came a blackbird And snipped off her nose.
We’d bring the cherries inside, pour them into the sink and spend hours washing and pitting them. Then my grandma would turn them into pies and freeze what we didn’t use. In the summer we ate fruit pies from our trees and vines. In the fall and winter we made pies with pumpkins, nuts, and apples. I remember watching The Frugal Gourmet with my Grandma. She loved his Pecan Pie recipe and to this day I have it written in my family recipe book. In the Spring my Grandma would make Lemon Meringue pie with a mile high meringue that she toasted golden brown. I’ve never been able to make Lemon Meringue as good as hers, but I do make a pretty spectacular Banana Cream Pie. Learning to be fearless about making pie has opened up a world of possibilities. I love pie for its simple nature and versatility, as much as for the nostalgia.
When I think of dough I also think of the many sweet breads my Grandma made. Buchala, a family favorite, starts with a dough sweetened with anisette liqueur and studded with anise seeds. It then gets shaped into loaves and slowly baked. It’s a breakfast staple at the holidays. My sister loves it dunked into coffee, and swears it’s her dogs’ favorite way to eat it as well.
My Grandma also made Chemeles, another Italian favorite. It was an eggy dough that we shaped into donuts. We would oil up our hands so the dough wouldn’t stick, then drop the donuts into boiling water to cook. The donuts get finished in the oven, baked until hard. We made Chemeles every Easter and stored them in a deep container lined with a garbage bag. They would remain good for weeks afterwards. I recall my grandparents making Chemeles together the night before Easter every year while they watched The Ten Commandments on television. It was a rite of passage. Today, none of us except my Aunt Donna can replicate their work.
All of these doughs are special to me, and continue to shape the food I make for my own family.
Island Food Round-up
There you have it, my island food list. I recently told my husband that I hoped for a sixth island food so I could bring vinegar. He crossed his eyes and looked at me incredulously. But then again, he is the meat and potatoes man whose island food choices went something like “Bourbon, Beer, Steak, Potatoes and Cookies”.
But seriously, I really do love vinegar! I have over a dozen different kinds in my kitchen. I could combine it with my fresh pressed olives and drizzle it over my tomatoes, then use my bread (baked over my fire of course) to mop up the juices. Or use it to dress the wild vegetation I pluck from my island garden. Of course, it would all accompany my endless amounts of pasta. I could scrounge up seaweed and use it to salt my tomatoes, either as a side dish or a luncheon delicacy folded into sandwiches. Then, I’d find some island fruits to bake into my dough for dessert and pair it with fresh coffee. I believe that with my island foods I could live quite comfortably for a long time. But as I mentioned, I imagine my island to be a paradise, much like the picture below. With my pineapple drink and my island foods, I won’t mind being stranded forever.
What are your island foods?
