I arrived at Ruth’s small bungalow, where she’d lived for 25 years, I confirmed immediately that there was a ghost because she was standing glaring at us before I even got in the door. Her name was Mrs. White, and she clearly didn’t appreciate sass from anyone. Her hair was gray and tied up in a severe bun, and she refused to give me her first name.
“Mrs. White,” she said curtly. “Everyone calls me Mrs. White.”
Realizing that small talk was not going to work, I got right to the point: “Why are you here? Do you know Ruth?”
She stood up straight and glared. “No, I don’t know her. She’s just using my pot wrong. Ask her—isn’t her applesauce always burning?”
Ruth agreed that it was. Her new pot, as perfect as it was, always seemed to burn her applesauce.
“That’s because the pot is made for consommé, not fruit,” Mrs. White explained haughtily.
“Consommé?” I checked. “Do you mean broth—soup stock?”
“I mean consommé!” she retorted. “I used to cook for the wealthiest family in four counties. I know what broth is and I know what my pot is for!”
That’s when it all became clear. Ruth had brought home more than just a good pot from the secondhand store. She’d also brought home Mrs. White, whose pot it had been, and the old cook was angry about how Ruth was using it. When I explained this, Ruth was actually overjoyed.
“I’ve always wanted to make my own soup stock!” she cried. “Will she give me her recipe if I promise not to use that pot for anything else?”
“If she promises to call it consommé! And only if she cleans the pot well first,” Mrs. White decided, but I could tell by the twinkle in her eye that she’d got what she really wanted. Her consommé was clearly a great source of pride for her and she didn’t want the recipe to join her in the grave.
Mrs. White’s Clear Consommé
10 cups cold water
¼ pound chicken giblets or chicken meat, cut in small pieces
¼ pound veal
2 pounds beef brisket
Salt to taste
Dash of freshly ground pepper
2 medium onions, preferably baked
1 large leek
2 or 3 carrots
1 celery root
1 parsley root
Few sprigs of parsley
½ head Savoy cabbage (optional)
1 bay leaf
1 bouillon cube
The chicken and veal should be first dipped in boiling water. Cover chicken, veal and brisket with cold water (5 cups of water to 1 pound meat) and bring to a boil. Skim carefully. When no more fat comes to the surface, lower flame and add salt, pepper, and remaining ingredients. Cover and let simmer for 3 hours. Skim fat, strain, and serve with crackers or noodles.
NEW ENGLAND CLAM CHOWDER
MOTHERS LIKE TO BELIEVE THEIR CHILDREN WILL mature as they get older. In many ways they do, but in other ways they stay the same bickering siblings they’d been since they were little children. I don’t know if that’s any more true for twins, but Tammy and Terry from Rhode Island were still petty and argumentative when I met them when they were in their 40s.
Don’t get me wrong; they were still close. They lived in the same development, and their families often got together for dinners and cookouts. Tammy was a nurse and Terry was a teacher, so neither of them had a career to lord over the other, but one thing seemed to bring out the inner bickering girls: Mom’s cooking. Or, more specifically, Mom’s recipes.
Their mother, Martha, had been a private caterer, what Terry called her “cottage industry.” She hadn’t been rich, but she’d been a great cook and she’d turned it into a business to put her girls through college. That’s what Mom had wanted more than anything, and she had apparently gone out of her way to not share her recipes when she’d been alive, because she didn’t want the girls to follow her into her business. She wanted them to get good jobs with good pay, which they’d done.
Now Martha had known when she was dying, so they’d had time to plan for their last goodbyes. Often they would sit with her and talk about growing up and the antics they’d all got up to. One day, Martha asked what they wanted of her. She wanted to make sure that each one got something of hers they really wanted, and she wanted them to have it before she died.
But they both wanted her recipes.
Finally, Martha decided they would divide them, and that they would have to share them if one ever wanted a recipe the other one had. They agreed, and the recipes found new homes. One of the ones that Tammy got was a recipe for New England clam chowder, which Terry had always loved, so she asked for a copy of it. Tammy was only too happy to give it to her, but when Terry made it, it just didn’t taste the way she’d remembered—and Terry had an idea of why, because she had not faithfully copied a recipe from her stack that her sister had wanted. She left out an important ingredient to keep the recipe special—something of Mom’s that was hers and hers alone. She had the feeling Tammy had done the same thing with the clam chowder.
This was something they found to argue about, each accusing the other of transcribing recipes wrong on purpose. As it turned out, neither of them was wrong about the other.
“I had a feeling something like this would happen,” Martha told me when I arrived. Terry had called me out because of odd things that had been going on around the house, but Martha was upset with both of them. “Tell them I’m very disappointed they couldn’t share. And tell them I’m not leaving until they do share.”
Fortunately, maturity did finally kick in, and they agreed again to share.
“Prove it,” Martha demanded. “Tell Tammy to tell her what she did with that clam chowder recipe.”
Tammy ’fessed up immediately and told her sister about the missing ingredient, then Terry admitted her own guilt in copying down recipes incorrectly.
“Well now, just to be sure,” I said. “Why doesn’t Mom give me the recipe so we can check it?”
Martha thought that was a great idea, so she did and the recipe was a match for the corrected recipe Tammy had just given Terry.
New England Clam Chowder
2 slices salt pork, diced
1 large onion, minced
2½ cups water
3 large potatoes, diced
1 quart milk
1 quart clams, picked over and chopped fine, with their juice
3 tablespoons butter
Ground
