Dishes by Dad

A father’s signature sandwich or special cocktail still elicits smiles

Peanut Butter and Bacon Sandwiches were a made-by-Dad Saturday morning tradition in the Brown household.
Peanut Butter and Bacon Sandwiches were a made-by-Dad Saturday morning tradition in the Brown household.

On Saturday mornings, when Mom slept in, Dad would make breakfast, and what he made remains a nostalgic comfort food for my brother and me all these years later: a bacon and peanut butter sandwich.

photo

Courtesy of Laura Lynn Brown

The author reading with her father in 1973 or 1974.

Say "eww" if you want, but it tastes like home to me. And I've made several converts to this sturdy, savory, satisfying sandwich. I don't make it often, but when I do, I'm right back in our sunny kitchen, hearing the sizzle, smelling that meaty sweetness, taking my sandwich into the living room to watch Fractured Fairy Tales, feeling secure and cared for.

Moms aren't the only ones who speak the love language of food. Dads, it seems, are more likely to indulge kids' food whims, possibly because they share them. Some dads are also fathers of invention, especially with unusual sandwiches.

Kelli Woodford's father made banana sandwiches with Miracle Whip on white bread. "He won me over," said Woodford, of Chestnut, Ill.

"Fried bologna and egg sandwiches," recalls Lisa Taylor Phillips of Memphis. "Dad scored the edges of the bologna so its edges wouldn't curl. The egg would be the slightest bit runny. And the bread was a soft white. Mayonnaise."

Another Memphian, Jay Perdue, has continued a tradition of his late father, Joe. "My dad's specialty was making the ordinary extraordinary. Like his oven-toasted marshmallows on saltine crackers. Sometimes with a splash of food coloring for special occasions."

Apparently creative sandwich-making runs in the family. My cousin (daughter of my Uncle Joe), Lisa Brown Hovest of Ohio, remembers sandwiches with green bell pepper and onion slices on buttered bread. "The best thing he made was peanut butter fudge," she said. That was one of Dad's specialties, too, on evenings when Mom was off at her monthly cards club. He poured the cooked candy onto a plate and in winter, he'd set it on the back porch to cool faster. It was a lesson in the sweetness of anticipation.

Peanut butter also figures in two concoctions recalled by Mary Twedt, host of the radio show Arkansas Cooks.

"One is my dad's, Harlan Twedt's peanut butter, banana and mayo sandwich," she said. "I never wanted to try that, and never did. My husband's dad, Aaron Cantrell from Glenwood, Ark., always put peanut butter into his hot vegetable soup. And to this day, so do his three sons."

Laura Lapins Willis of Sewanee, Tenn., who wrote about her work as director of a church-based food pantry in her book, Finding God in a Bag of Groceries, recalls, "He made awesome peanut butter toast for any meal when my mom wasn't there. Crunchy Jif on Wonder Bread."

Glynn Garrett of Little Rock remembers a more involved main dish: goulash, with ground beef, bell peppers, tomato sauce, chopped onions, rice and some stuff she can't remember. She does remember, though, picking out the onions, which she hated.

Some dads are secretive about their recipes.

For the late father of Cathy Mayton of Little Rock, retired director of the Episcopal Collegiate School Foundation, the secret was in the sauce. "My dad, W.P. 'Dubb' Hamilton, made a great barbecue sauce, which took all day to make," she said. "It was a takeoff on the famous Shack recipe with a vinegar base. It was a deep dark secret, and no one could be in the kitchen while he was concocting his recipe."

Her lawyer father made breakfast on weekends too. His specialty was hoecakes, with a side of entertainment. "The joke would always be if I asked him how things were going, he would say he was having a difficult time and I would say, 'What is it?' and he would say, 'The hoecakes are so light ... that they are floating off the skillet and getting stuck on the ceiling!'"

Some dad concoctions are for adults only. When Brittney Lee of Fort Smith turned 21, she looked forward to trying her dad's beverage.

"My dad is famous for his Mountain Roy, his signature drink. It's Mountain Dew over ice, with a shot of Crown Royal. Every cookout, dad was seen mixing his favorite drink ... but he was the only one who liked it."

What did she think? "Ick! ... But Dad likes it, so that's all that matters."

Arkansan Katherine Trauger, who blogs at katharinetrauger.wordpress.com, had strong language for one of her dad's foods.

"The first and last time I ever used a bad word in my parents' home, I was a preschooler. I do not remember where I heard the word 'crap' but when I learned my dad loved to eat his oatmeal with salt instead of sugar on it, I said, 'I don't know how he can stand the crap!' My mom set me straight right away."

He made up for it, she says, in the breakfast line, "cooking walnut pancakes for our whole family of seven, every Sunday morning, for as long as I can remember. I don't have his recipe, but my mom had a red-and-white checkered cookbook he probably used. This was ages before pancake mixes. The dear man rose early on Sundays, made scratch pancakes, heated to perfection a heavy two-burner Wearever aluminum griddle over a gas stove, browned the walnuts on the griddle, and poured batter over them, to make the most delicious pancakes in the world. They were of a delicate crumb and just the right depth of golden. And he let us have all the butter and syrup we wanted on them.

"And no salt."

Marshmallows on Crackers

Saltines

Large marshmallows

Food coloring, optional

Heat broiler.

Fill a baking sheet with saltines. Set a large marshmallow on each cracker. If desired, add a drop of food coloring to each marshmallow. Broil just long enough to brown the marshmallows.

Recipe by Jay Perdue of Memphis

Bacon and Peanut Butter Sandwich

For each sandwich:

2 or more slices bacon

2 slices wheat bread

Creamy peanut butter

Cook the bacon crisp, allowing at least two strips of bacon per sandwich.

Toast the bread to desired darkness.

Cover each slice of toast with a thin layer of peanut butter, all the way to the edges and corners.

Arrange bacon slices on one piece of bread, slightly overlapping for full coverage.

Seal each sandwich with its toast mate.

Makes 1 sandwich.

Recipe from the author

Walnut Pancakes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Butter and/or syrup for serving

In a bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, blend egg, milk and oil; add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture, stirring until blended but still slightly lumpy.

Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat.

Arrange the walnuts in small clusters on the griddle or skillet and cook until lightly toasted.

Ladle about 1/4 cup batter over the walnuts and cook until the underside is golden brown, the tops have a bubbly surface and the edges are slightly dry. Turn and cook until the second side is golden brown.

Serve warm topped with butter and syrup.

Makes about 8 (4-inch) pancakes.

Recipe from Katharine Trauger of Arkansas, modified from Better Homes and Gardens cookbook

Goulash

2 cups uncooked brown rice

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef or ground turkey

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped bell pepper, PLUS strips or squares to line dish

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 1/2 (15-ounce) cans tomato sauce

4 slices mozzarella cheese

Cook rice according to package directions, omitting any salt and/or butter.

In a skillet, brown ground beef with the onion and chopped bell pepper, salt and black pepper.

When rice is done, add beef mixture and tomato sauce and mix well. Line bottom of 21/2 quart casserole dish with bell pepper strips/squares. Pour rice mixture on top. Then top with cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, long enough for the cheese to bubble and begin to brown.

Makes 8 servings.

Recipe from recipes.sparkpeople.com

Peanut Butter Fudge

4 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 cup evaporated milk

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup smooth peanut butter (choosy fathers choose Jif)

Lightly grease or butter a 9-by-13-inch pan; set aside.

In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, butter and evaporated milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture reaches 243 degrees (between soft ball and hard ball) on a candy thermometer.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and peanut butter. Beat the mixture with a large wooden spoon until it starts to get stiff. Pour into a prepared pan and let set.

To serve, cut into pieces about 11/2-inches square.

Makes about 4 dozen pieces.

Variation: For a half batch, divide all ingredients by half. Cook as directed, but pour mixture onto a large dinner plate. If it's cool weather, set on back porch to hasten cooling.

Recipe adapted from foodnetwork.com

Mountain Roy

Ice

Crown Royal Whisky

Mountain Dew

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add a shot (11/2 ounces) Crown Royal. Top off with Mountain Dew.

Makes 1 drink.

Recipe by Roy Lee, shared by Brittany Lee, both of Fort Smith

Food on 06/11/2014

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