TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Cook Uses Food For Thought

ADVERTISEMENT

By YVETTE C. HAMMETT, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 24, 2007

Updated: 11/21/2007 06:11 pm

RIVERVIEW - Laurie Beth Roman couldn't reach the stovetop when her mother began teaching her and her brother how to cook.

The family enjoyed tasty meals that included summer succotash, sweet potato cakes and wild rice pancakes, and Roman assumed the recipes came from her mother's Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.

About the time she turned 18, a family bomb dropped. The family, she learned, was part Shawnee Indian - a secret kept for decades to protect the family from being shipped to a reservation.

A cousin leaked the news.

"It was a family secret for years. Apparently, some of the Shawnee hid out in the Pennsylvania coal mines way back to keep from being sent to the reservations," Roman said.

"We grew up eating dishes that were of Native American origin, like succotash, and we didn't know it," she said.

It was the beginning of years of research into her own food heritage, learning that many of the recipes she learned at her mother's home were of Shawnee or Algonquin Indian origin.

She spent the next seven months testing the recipes in preparation for writing a family cookbook, "Aiyana Eternal Blossom's Recipes for The Seventh Generation." The book was named for Roman's mother, Florence, whose name translates to Aiyana, or Eternal Blossom, in Shawnee.

"Food, until the last 10 years, has been overlooked as part of our history," said Meredith Hughes, a founder and manager of The Food Museum in Albuquerque, N.M. Operators of the museum promote knowledge and preservation of food heritage and landmarks.

"What Laurie is doing is extremely admirable and important," Hughes said. "There are endless monuments to war and other historic events. Equal attention should be paid to what sustains us.

"We should celebrate food and its traditions," Hughes said.

"For me," Roman said, "it's a natural progression from doing the family history." Since writing the cookbook and speaking about genealogy at area venues, Roman also has started a blog on MySpace called "Savoring Your Family Food Heritage."

She also teaches people about their own family food heritage. She charges $150 for four hours of instruction.

In between, she's writing several other books she hopes to publish, including one on her father's battle with cancer and another on researching American Indian genealogy.

"The main thing is helping people to get insight into the recipes that were handed down to them," she said.

Through her research, Roman also learned about her Scandinavian roots. An old newspaper article from the 1940s recounts a tea her grandmother held in her mother's honor, featuring a Swedish carrot cake with cream cheese icing. She has the recipe and the silver service used at the tea.

"The last thing I ever expected to be doing was going out to talk to people, to groups," she said. "But, if I can get one person to use some of the information they find on their family's food heritage, that would be satisfying."

TURKEY SAGE AND SUCCOTASH STEW

1 pound frozen or canned baby lima beans

6 tablespoons cooked, crumbled bacon or real bacon topping

1 pound frozen or canned sweet corn

2 cups low-sodium broth

1 can tomatoes

2 tablespoons chopped celery or celery flakes

1/2 cup minced onions

Fresh ground black pepper to taste

2 1/2 cups diced cooked turkey in roasted turkey gravy (can use canned, chunked turkey)

2 cups milk is optional for a chowderlike consistency

1 can condensed cream of potato soup

1 can condensed cream of celery soup

1 can small diced potatoes

2 tablespoons rubbed sage

Put lima beans, bacon, sweet corn, chicken broth, tomatoes, celery, minced onion and black pepper in a crock pot and cook on low for four hours. Add diced turkey, potatoes, milk, condensed soups, rubbed sage and continue cooking for two more hours.

MOM'S SWEDISH CARROT CAKE (MOROTSKAKA)

1 1/4 cups corn oil

1 1/4 cup sugar

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/3 cups carrots, finely shredded

3/4 cup chopped hazelnuts

1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch round baking pan and flour. Grate four large carrots. Chop hazelnuts. Beat oil and sugar together and add eggs. Sift dry ingredients and add to batter. Stir in carrots, nuts and raisins. Pour batter into pan and bake 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in pan, then loosen from sides of pan, place a rack on top and flip the pan over to remove cake. Let cool completely before frosting.

MOM'S SWEDISH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (MOROTSKAKA GLASYR)

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoons butter, softened

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Shredded coconut for garnish

Beat together cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Spread over cooled cake. Sprinkle shredded coconut on top.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 657-4532 or yhammett@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT