Tastes just like Grandma's

In the last few years I've become much more interested in my heritage. Both my mother's parents have passed, but luckily my grandmother's sister is still alive and their relatives have put together a book of their history, based in Germany. My grandma lived there for a few years as a child and if I ever get to visit the country, which I hope one day will happen, there are probably distant relatives I could find.

My dad's father is the only one still living on his side. He doesn't know much about his background either. I did some research on Ancestry.com and found some interesting tidbits like the boat my grandmother came to America on, that left from France.

I am Eastern European through and through. The majority of my roots are from Germany. This was a fact obvious to me from a very young age. Having lived in Germany, my Grandma still corresponded with her family in German, mostly letters. She visited the country too. Those are the little things I remember. The main thing I remember is the food. For the longest time, I thought the meals we ate at Grandma's were nothing more than the food Grandma cooks. Now that I am older, I've learned it's something so much more. It's a tradition. A strong tradition and I want to carry it on.

My interest started after my grandfather past a few years ago. I wanted a piece of all those memories I had cooking with my grandmother growing up. The first were her iron skillets. My most prized cooking possession though is her grinder. This isn't a food processor. It's nothing you can plug in. It's a metal hand grinder that clamps on to the table. It's the job Grandma always let me do while helping make her traditional German meals.

Recently, I tried to recreate one of those meals for Greg. Knockwurst, sauerkraut, warm apple sauce with cinnamon, German potato salad and leberspaetzle.For our entire relationship, I've been trying to explain to him why the German food we eat at restaurants is good, but just not like Grandma's.

I have to say, I'm impressed how the meal turned out. The German potato salad was fairly easy and turned out perfect.

We also got knockwurst from the farmer's market. I'm not sure that's really the type of sausage my Grandmother made, but it's German and was delicious.

The most trying item was the leberspaetzle. Basically translates into German noodles with liver. I know, it sounds gross. It was a little gross to make and I was nervous before cooking the noodles that I didn't make it correctly, but low and behold, it turned out perfect. I did use a wheat flour rather than white, which I think made the noodles a little more dry, but they were still great. I think Greg enjoyed the meal too.

All that bacon grease involved means I won't be cooking it as much as Grandma, but I was proud that I made it happened and look forward to passing the tradition onto my children one day.