11 That Childhood Home Smell

Going to college is the first time a lot of kids are separated from their parents for an extended period of time. This also means that they are going to miss their favorite home cooked meals. Everyone has a meal that they have their parents make right when they get home from break, and one of those for me was my mom’s Borscht. I talked to my mom about this food in general and what it meant to her. Because her dad (my grandpa) is 100% Ukrainian, she grew up eating a lot of Ukrainian food. My mom has always been someone to whom I could talk and I really wanted to do this interview so that I could understand further the foodways that affected her life.

I knew that borscht was something that my grandpa always made for my mom when she was younger; however I didn’t know how important it was. She talked a lot about the memories this dish brought her eating it both on certain occasions such as Christmas and her birthday as well as throughout the year. My mom was born in New York in the same area that her father grew up. She then moved to Florida, Massachusetts, and Michigan throughout her childhood and has recently moved back to Florida where she lives now. My grandfather, also born in New York, grew up there where he attended a Ukrainian church throughout his early life. My mother wasn’t exactly sure who was first to immigrate here. She has never been to Ukraine; by having this food she was able to have a shared experience with her ancestors.

Michael Twitty (2019) connects to his ancestors through his memories of “[his] mother [sitting] on a Cincinnati stoop and [then of] her mother [cooking] in a Birmingham kitchen”. In a similar way cooking with my mother and listening to her family history, I connected the dots to my own ancestors. I asked her questions that were more specific to the recipe and how this started, however it unfortunately doesn’t go too far back. My mom didn’t mention anything about how my grandpa’s parents would make this for him, just how he started making this for her and her sisters. He didn’t have a recipe in particular which led my mom to find her own. This recipe stays relatively consistent and can be made with the inclusion of meat, or vegetarian. Similar to Helms analysis of the Branswick stew (2016), whether our family recipe is traditional depends on context. The ingredients (meat or not) change to accommodate taste, preference, and seasonality.  My mom said how the non-meat version was her favorite: “I always loved coming home from school to the smell of borscht but it was always a little better when my dad told me that it was the non-meat version”(Birks, 2024).

As borscht was a food that my mom would always have growing up, she always wanted to make it for me and my brother so that we could share a similar experience. This was not a meal that I ever really enjoyed eating as a child. Much as Twitty’s early childhood aversion to cowpeas (2019), I didn’t like beets and never gave it too much of a chance. I thoroughly embraced borscht later in life – in my childhood I ate this dish because my mom loved it and because it connected her to her culture, which she wanted to pass on to her children.

Borscht was a food that was able to help my mom further entwine herself with her Ukrainian background. She then was able to do the same for me and my brother by making it for us and having us enjoy it.

My mother’s Borscht

Ingredients

• 1 lb Beef: stew meat
• 14 cups cold water
• 1 Tbsp salt + more to taste
• 2 large or 3 medium beets, washed, peeled and grated
• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp vinegar
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp tomato sauce, or paste (or 3 Tbsp ketchup)
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 2 carrots, grated
• 2 large or 3 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 head of small cabbage, sliced
• 2 tomatoes, peeled and diced (**see note)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley + more for garnish
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed

How to Prepare

1. Wash meat in cold water, cut into 1″ pieces and place in a large soup pot with 14 cups cold water and 1 Tbsp salt. Bring it to a boil and remove the foam as soon as it boils (if you wait, it will be hard to get rid of the foam as it integrates into the broth and you’d have to strain it). Lower the heat, partially cover and cook at a low boil 45 minutes – 1 hr, periodically skimming off any foam that rises to the top.
2. Grate beets on the large grater holes (the food processor works amazingly well). Place them in a large heavy-bottom skillet with 4 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp vinegar and saute for 5 minutes, then reduce heat to med/low and add 1 Tbsp sugar and 2 Tbsp tomato sauce Mix thoroughly and saute until starting to soften, stirring occasionally (about 10 min). Remove from pan and set aside.
3. In the same skillet (no need to wash it), Saute onion in 1 Tbsp butter for 2 min. Add grated carrot and sauté another 5 min or until softened, adding more oil if it seems too dry.
4. Once the meat has been cooking for at least 45 min, place sliced potatoes into the soup pot and cook for 10 min, then add cabbage, sauteed beets, onion & carrot, and chopped tomatoes. Cook for another 10 minutes or until potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork.
5. Add 2 bay leaves, 1/4 tsp pepper, and more salt to taste (I added another 1/2 tsp salt).
6. Chop parsley and pressed garlic then stir them into the soup pot, immediately cover and remove from heat. Let the pot rest covered for 20 minutes for the flavors to meld.

References

Birks, Heather. Interview by Collin Birks. Bloomington, IN, November 8, 2024.

Helms Tippen, C. (2016) History and memory: Arguing for authenticity in the stories of Brunswick Stew. Food and Foodways, 24(1-2), 48-66.

Kravchuk, Natasha. “Borscht Recipe with Beef” NatashasKitchen.Com, 2 Feb. 2021.

Twitty, Michael W. (2019). “The Cowpea: A Recipe for Resilience – Michael W. Twitty.” Emergence Magazine, 25 Apr. 2022. Accessed November 20, 2024.