First, let me apologize to any who are offended by the title. My Uehlein side of the family is filled with lovely, God-fearing, family-oriented, hard-working people. For some reason, though, one of their favorite adjectives is “goddamned.” As a child, I heard stories of “those goddamned weimaraners,” which were supposed to be hunting dogs but turned out to be gun shy; “those goddamned Tigers” (you could also insert “Lions” here; we’re Michiganders whose sports teams don’t always meet our hopes and dreams), and many other stories that were heavily peppered with “goddamned,” to the degree that it became a joke within our immediate family.
While my grandmother didn’t refer to her German pancakes as “goddamned,” we took to doing so after she died, in some sort of strange homage to her memory.
My grandmother came to the United States between the World Wars when she was a teenager. She didn’t want to leave Germany, and shortly after her arrival, it became not such a good time to be a German in America. She learned English, and went about assimilating into American life. She didn’t like to be told she had an accent, and seemed to make a point to shed any outward signs of her heritage. Other than a Bavarian cuckoo clock and some Hummel figurines, nothing in her apartment appeared German. When I signed up for German language class in high school, she asked me “Why would you want to do that?” (Not exactly the response I had anticipated!) Once in awhile she would complain about the “goddamned foreigners” who were ruining the country, not seeing the irony in her statement. To be fair, her gripe was against foreigners who didn’t make an effort to assimilate, the way she had.
The one place that my grandmother retained a bit of her heritage was in the kitchen. In December, she would make springerle, a delicate, anise-flavored cookie molded into traditional designs by rolling out the dough with a specially carved rolling pin. Christmas trees, forest animals, leaves and acorns, and other designs adorned her springerle. I was more a fan of the traditional cut-out sugar cookies, dripping with frosting and sprinkles, to appreciate these works of art. A few other German dishes, such as cabbage with sausage, showed up at dinner, as well.
The food that I most closely associate with my grandmother and with that whole side of the family are her German pancakes. When I whipped up a batch this morning, the smell of the batter was a powerful reminder of my childhood. My grandma always made them for breakfast when I would stay with her for the weekend, and so did my Uncle Jim, whose family often babysat for me and my brother. While Jim would mix his up in a blender, Grandma would whisk them with a fork in a mixing bowl. It was a given that every one of my aunts and uncles, and my dad, knew how to make these pancakes. The smell of vanilla in a rich batter of eggs and milk is a distinct reminder of mornings spent at their kitchen tables, waiting for my pancakes to arrive. We would eat them one at a time (no stacks), sprinkling sugar over their custardy tops (no butter, no syrup.) The gritty texture of the sugar against the pancakes is almost as distinct a memory as the smell of the batter.
When I got a little older, and accustomed to making simple things in kitchen, I tried to get the recipe from my grandmother, but she said there wasn’t one, so I just watched her make the batter and tried to write everything down on an index card. As you can see from the image, I forgot to record that there was milk involved. Luckily, my brother amended the recipe, in addition to adding the favorite Uehlein adjective to the title.
Recipe:
1 c. milk
1 c. flour
3 eggs
¼ t. salt
2 t. sugar
1 T. butter, melted in batter
1 t. vanilla
Blend all ingredients until smooth with a whisk, fork, or blender. The batter will be more runny than regular pancake batter. Let sit for 5 minutes or so. Fry in a skillet over medium heat with melted butter for a minute or two, until the edges appear firm. Flip to brown the other side, or serve “sunny side up” for a more custard-like texture. Pancakes will be more like crepes than regular pancakes in their appearance. Serve with sugar sprinkled on top, fresh fruit, or my new favorite variation, with sauteed sausage crumbles, apples, and onions.
The author and her grandmother, circa mid-1980's.
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