When I was a little girl, my mom made a cake that we called fasnachtkuche (in case you aren’t familiar, it’s pronounced faa – s – naht – kook – a). It was a staple in our house, not just a food to be eaten before Lent. I have no idea where the recipe came from but it is not even a yeast-dough so it’s nowhere near authentic. Perhaps next time I’m in my grandmother’s recipe box I’ll find an earlier version that someone modified for convenience and speed. 

Imagine my surprise to see that Merriam-Webster published an article this morning on Lent and the origins of fasnacht, which is a shortened version of our beloved Pennsylvania German (at one time more commonly called Pennsylvania Dutch) fasnachtkuche. One of the rare arguments Ken and I had was over this word. I insisted on calling Mom’s cake fasnachtkuche and he insisted that it wasn’t German and that it wasn’t even a word. Turns out we were both right. It’s not German but it IS a word. 

My eldest was planning to come over on Friday to make my mom’s peanut butter cookie recipe for a party he was going to on Saturday. We made these cookies recently (and turned them into chocolate-ganache-filled sandwich cookies) as a gift for a friend. They were such a hit that he was asked to do it again.  Unfortunately, a big coding assignment interfered with our culinary plans. 

Growing up, I probably made those peanut butter cookies at least once a month. They were large — the size of a saucer — and crisp on the outside, rolled in sugar before they were baked so they’d darken to a rich, golden brown. They were sturdy enough for an ice cream sandwich, great with coffee (so my mom used to tell me), and a hot seller at every marching band and literary club bake sale.

So, anyway, on Saturday morning, I made them. My son stopped by with his friends on their way to the party and picked up the 8 dozen or so cookies (less 6 that I kept for us to nibble). It felt like we were carrying on a tradition and my mom would have been thrilled beyond words to know that she was a part of it.   

I don’t mean to sound like a cooking blog (!) but I will confess to feeling a strong connection to my family when I open Mom’s old cookbook and trace her writing on the food-stained pages or pull out her or her mom’s recipe box, looking for a specific handwritten card and maybe, too, a bit of memory. 

A few years ago, one of my cousins asked if I had the recipe for lasagne that our Italian Aunt Emilia brought to our very Irish family when she married our uncle. The garlic! The oregano! This may shock you but I didn’t learn to cook with garlic until I married my Italian husband. I have no memory of a garlic clove ever entering our house when I was growing up. For sure, we had garlic salt (sprinkled on the toasted, buttered Italian bread we ate with our Ragu-covered spaghetti) but I KNOW you aren’t going to try to argue that garlic salt is anywhere equivalent to cooking with fresh garlic. 

Unfortunately, I did not have Emilia’s recipe. My cousin thought she’d written it down for my grandmother but if Emilia was anything like my lovely Italian mother-in-law, the recipe was more like “a little bit of this, a pinch of that” than an actual recipe. My grandmother may very well have taken one look at Emilia’s recipe and given up. When my MIL lived with us, she explained her sauce recipe as I wrote. It didn’t fit on a recipe card but my husband made it many times, freezing the sauce in bags for later use. He was never quite satisfied with the recipe, though. I know, I know; partly he was trying to recapture a taste memory, which is difficult to do, but I think there’s more to it. 

The one thing that can’t be captured on a recipe card is the experience that comes with tasting and refining your recipe over generations. Margaret knew what to add if the sauce was slightly more acidic than usual or the onions weren’t quite as flavorful. It’s not on the recipe card because she probably wasn’t even aware of the little tweaks she made as she cooked.

Even if it’s not quite right, we still use that recipe. I just gave my son the last bag of sauce we had in the freezer. On Saturday, the house will smell again of spicy onions,  slightly sweetened tomatoes, oregano … and garlic, lots of garlic.

I don’t participate in Lent; but if you do, I hope you’ve had some fasnachtkuche today — authentic or not — and that your fasting brings you closer, in empathy, to Christ.

Much love.