HERITAGE RECIPES: Recipes and family stories

However you spell it, the meaning remains the same. ‘Romme’ is loosely translated as heavy or thick sour cream, and ‘graut’ meaning porridge. Many people have fond memories of this dish and others remember it as a dish they would rather never eat again. It is a concoction of basic ingredients and has gotten families through hard times for many, many years. Considered a traditional Norwegian dish, it has been around for hundreds of years and is generally served as a dessert. Rommegraut is a sour-cream based pudding with a rich taste. It is conventionally served for special occasions, festivals and Christmas time. Customarily, it is served with cured meats. Today it is more common to be served year-round and even for a special breakfast. Recipes for this dish will vary from region to region, it is thick and sweet, and is usually drizzled with butter and sprinkled with sugar and ground cinnamon. Some traditions top this oatmeal like custard with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cream. Others will drizzle it with syrup or honey. It is often served in small bowls because of its richness and can be incredibly filling. 

Rømmegraut Ingredients

3 c. milk 

4 c cream 

¼ to ½ c sugar 

¼ tsp salt 

Instructions

Heat the milk. 

Heat the cream in a heavy kettle until it boils, when it starts to boil, stir in 1 ½ cups flour. Keep stirring until the fat comes out. Drain off the butter-fat. 

Pour in the hot milk and mix with electric mixer until smooth. This can be done right in the kettle. Add the sugar and salt to taste. 

Put in small glass dishes and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. 

It is eaten warm or cold.

 This hand written recipe is from Doris Edwards. The history of the recipe is unknown, but its name gives cause to share. 

Sift together: 

4½ C. flour 

2 C. sugar 

4 tsp. soda 

4 tsp. cinnamon 

1 tsp. salt 

Beat well: 

6 eggs 

2 C. oil 

4 tsp vanilla

Add gently to flour mixture: 

Add 1 C. raisins, nuts, and/or coconut

4 C. finely grated carrots

2 apples-grated

Spoon into well-oiled muffin tin. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or less, until done. Batter can be refrigerated and baked when you desire-as long as a month. Can make half of recipe. If you don’t have apples, the muffins are good without them.

The top of the small avocado green metal box opens to reveal a tasty treat from an era when the recipes were hand written on a paper card and if shared with a friend, was passed hand to hand instead of in an email attachment or Googled. The following recipe from Ellen Johnson calling for a cup of cold strong coffee. It was likely enjoyed with a cup of hot coffee, at a kitchen table, with a neighbor or two. 

Spice Cake 

¾ c. Butter or Crisco 

2 c. Sugar 

2 beaten eggs 

½ tsp. cinnamon 

¼ tsp. nutmeg 

½ tsp. cloves 

3 c. bread flour 

1 c. cold strong coffee 

2 tsp. soda 

1 tsp. vanilla 

2 c. diced or ground coarse green apples 

½ c. chopped nuts 

Bake at 350˚ for 45 min. 

Carmel Frosting 

1½ c. brown sugar 

½ c. white sugar 

1/8 tsp. soda 

Salt 

¾ c. top milk or cream 

Boil until thick. Slightly cool and frost the cake.

 Many of our favorite recipes can be found on recipe cards or in recipe books. They are often identifiable by the bent corners, the faded yet familiar handwriting or by the spills and stains that mar their formerly pristine paper. Then there are those passed down from generation to generation and committed to memory by the act of making, by baking, by doing them again and again. They cannot be found in any book or box. They are ingrained from your early years, like writing your name or riding a bike. This is one of those recipes. 

Shirley Carver shares a recipe for apple cobbler. It is a recipe that she learned from her grandma Julia, while she was a little girl. She verbally passed it along for us to share. 

Apple Cobbler 

“What I am going to give you is about the amount for a 9x9 pan.” 

1 cup flour 

1 cup white sugar 

Mix by hand 1 stick chilled butter chopped fairly fine 

Mix with flour and sugar mixture. Set aside Peel and slice a lot of apples. Fill the pan half full or more with apples. Make sure you have at least an inch of apples in the bottom of the 9x9 pan. 

The number of apples needed will depend on the size of the apples. Pour flour, sugar and butter mixture over the apples. 

“I like to sprinkle a little brown sugar over the top for color.” 

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour. 

Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. 

Recipe can be used with rhubarb or peaches-depending on the season. 

The cards are yellowed and the lines are faded. Stains and spills blot the paper, often making them difficult to read. The words scrolled in a handwritten cursive script on the card is worn to a dim hue of its original shade, to the point that you are not sure what it says. Instantly you know those are the good ones. They have been used and reused. The tried and true ones. The ones that need to be saved. The following recipe is one of those cards, yellowed by age and use. The corners are bent and crumpled. The “C” abbreviation for cup has the scrolled curl at the top where the letter starts, of the proper cursive capital letter. The penciled script has faded a bit, but is still clear and legible. A card with no lines yet the letters and numbers are straight and true. It is one of several recipes that have been catalogued in a box at the Heritage Center. 

The name Caroline Haugenson is written at the top next to the title of the card; “Rhubarb Bread”. 

Rhubarb Bread 

1 ½ C. br. sugar 

2/3 C. salad oil 

1 egg 

½ C. nuts 

1 C. buttermilk 

1tsp. salt 

1tsp. soda 

1tsp. vanilla 

2 ½ C flour 

1 ½ cut up fresh rhubarb

Put in 2 greased loaf pans and sprinkle over the batter a mixture of ½ C sugar

About 2 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp. butter. 

Bake 325 degrees-about 1 hour.

Do Not Overbake.

Once again the lid of the avocado green tin box was lifted and we find, penned in a lovely hand script, the recipe for Dark Bread from Mrs. DeBoer. Included in the recipe is the cost for the dry yeast. 

Dark Bread 

4 Tbsp. dry yeast (5¢) 

1/2 C. sugar 

4 C. warm water or potato water 

3 tbsp. shortening 

Let set 10 min. 

Add: 1 tsp. salt 

2 handfuls oatmeal 

1½ C. graham or whole wheat flour 

2/3 C molasses “Enuf” white flour to knead Grease pan and bake

Cream these two ingredients 

1 c. sugar 

½ c. shortening or butter 

Beat well with ingredients

½ tsp. salt 

1 egg 

 ½ c sour cream

½ tsp baking soda 

Alternate with 2 c flour with 

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp lemon extract 

1 tsp vanilla 

Bake 425˚ for 8 minutes 

French Canadian traders and trappers were some of the first explorers to venture into Polk County and the Red River Valley sometime in the mid-1600s. These explorers, their experiences and their new found knowledge of the area, were influential in the movement of settlers from Canada into northwestern Minnesota, bringing along with them family recipes that have stood the test of time. Carolyn Berg’s great-grandfather, Isaie Normandin, was born to French settlers in the area of Montreal, Province of Quebec, Canada in 1855. Their home was in the community of Napierville, located about 20 miles south of Montreal, where they farmed. Isaie married Philomine Ricard in 1876. In 1881 Isaie and his family journeyed from Napierville to Gentilly, MN, with their only child, Joseph. Members of the Ricard family also made the southbound journey. The decision to move to Minnesota was due to the prosperity that the Crookston area had come to enjoy because of the completion of the Great Northern Railway. Two French Canadian men who influenced the Montreal immigrants were Pierre Bottineau and Louis Fontaine. They were fur traders and through their travels along the rivers and lakes, found Minnesota to be a rich and fertile land to farm. The family not only farmed but raised pigs, chickens and cows to milk. The men also hunted and fished out of necessity to put food on the table; this included venison, rabbit and squirrel. There also were very large gardens and everything was canned or placed in a cold cellar during the winter months; there was always delicious food to eat. The women sewed and mended, tatted, knitted, crocheted, cooked and baked. There was no running water so laundry had to be done in a large washtub. Water had to be carried from a pump outside and needless to say, there was the outhouse. According to Carolyn, “One of our family’s favorite dishes is Tourtiere, French Canadian Meat Pie. This recipe goes back to when my great-grandparents lived in Canada… It was always served at Christmas when we gathered with many relatives and any time during the winter months. It can be served warm or cold. I remember my grandmother making this dish and my mother.” Although she is unsure of who first made this dish. It is a family favorite at their Sunday family gettogethers. 

Tourtiere (French Meat Pie) 

1 ½ lbs. ground pork roast 

1 diced medium onion 1 tsp. salt ½ tsp. pepper 

¼ tsp. allspice 

½ tsp. ground sage 

½ tsp. cinnamon 

1/8 tsp. cloves 

½ tsp. garlic salt 

1 small grated potato 

½ c. water 

Brown pork and onion. 

Drain excess fat. 

Add all remaining ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes. Let cool and put into pie shell (both top and bottom). 

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 

This pie can be served hot or cold. 

 Clifford Bartz  lived all his life in King Township except for a summer spent in Montana working and his time serving his country in WWII. The Bartz family has lived within the same township for five generations, starting with his parents William and Emma Bartz. William and Emma moved from Holloway, MN to their farm site east of McIntosh in 1914. Cliff and his wife Betty moved to the farm he is now on in 1951. They raised 3 children. The Bartz family’s favorite holiday is Easter. They enjoy ham, mashed potatoes, scalloped corn, vegetables and pie. Easter may be his favorite holiday with all the traditional foods, but his favorite dish is oatmeal. Oatmeal was a regular part of his morning while growing up on his parent’s farm. According to Clifford, “We had cooked cereal every morning.” He continues to start his morning the same way, “I make oatmeal every morning, seven days a week.” Clifford shares a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies 

1 cup butter 

½ cup white sugar 

1tsp vanilla 

1 tsp baking soda 

½ tsp salt 

1/3 bag of raisins (large amount) 

1 ½ cups brown sugar (if you use 1 ½ c brown sugar, use 1 ½ c raisins) 

2 eggs 

1 ½ cups flour 

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats 

1 tsp cinnamon 

Mix thoroughly and bake 10-15 minutes

Lynnette Carver-Ross of Sletten Township passed a buttermilk pancake recipe down to her daughter Kynndyl (Ross) Giannonatti at her bridal shower. She gave her daughter the recipe that her mother, Gloria (Covlin) Carver had passed down to her. The recipe originated with Mildred Hendrickson of Winger. Gloria remembers, “As a child my dad, my sister, and I would visit Carl and Mildred Hendrickson. The adults had a table and played Canasta (card game), and the kids also played Canasta. She made the best pancakes and I got the recipe from Mildred.” The Carvers are five generations strong in Sletten, on Lynnette’s paternal side and five generations on her maternal Covlin side within the Thirteen Towns of Polk County (originating in Winger Township-three generations and then Sletten Township). Lynnette has served these pancakes to the high school volleyball and basketball teams Saturday mornings before a few tournament games and they are always a big hit. 

Buttermilk Pancakes 

Beat 2 cups buttermilk and 3 eggs  

Add: 

1 ½ cups flour 

1/3 cup sugar 

2 tsp Baking Powder 

2 tsp Baking Soda 

¼ tsp salt 

2 Tbls cream 

Cook on griddle until batter bubbles, pops and makes holes; flip and cook until dark golden brown. Generally served with butter and maple syrup-only REAL butter on the family farm, Lynnette now often serves them with strawberries and whipped cream as an option for breakfast. 

 Carol Broadwell of Fosston and Rosebud Township, lived with her husband Victor on the Broadwell family farm in Gregory Township. Victor’s father Ilem Broadwell and his family moved to the farmstead in 1950, when Victor was 3 years old. After their marriage, Victor and Carol lived on the farm site for 35 years. Today her son Jeff and his family live on and work the land. Carol provided a holiday recipe that was a seasonal Broadwell family treat. “This is a dessert my motherin-law would make for Christmas. I had never had it until I met my in-laws.” The family history of the dish has been lost; Carol’s mother-in-law passed away only six months after the couple was married, but the recipe lives on in the family. 

English Plum Pudding 

1 cup raisins 

1 cup currants (optional) 

1 cup ground suet 

½ tsp cinnamon 

½ tsp nutmeg 

3 ½ cups flour 

½ cup molasses 

1 cup sour milk 

¾ cup sugar 

1 tsp soda 

1 egg-slightly beaten 

1 orange rind Stir together suet, sugar, molasses, sour mild –add rest of ingredients. 

Steam for 3 hours-a bundt pan works well or angel food pan. 

Serve with sauce

Mix in skillet on top of stove: 

2 TBSP butter 

2 TBSP flour 

2 cups water 

2 TBSP vinegar 

½ cp sugar 

1tsp vanilla 

Serve warm 

“I have made this a day or two ahead of serving. 

Wrap in a clean cloth soaked in brandy. Store in cool place. Warm by steaming prior to serving. Make sauce to serve warm.”