Sanvidge Susan - Apple Betty and Sloppy Joe: Stirring up the Past with Family Recipes and Stories

Apple Betty & Sloppy Joe

Stirring Up the Past with Family Recipes and Stories

Susan Sanvidge
Diane Sanvidge Seckar
Jean Sanvidge Wouters
Julie Sanvidge Florence

Note: No garlic was harmed in the production of this book.

Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Publishers since 1855

2008 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

E-book edition 2013

For permission to reuse material from Apple Betty & Sloppy Joe (ISBN 978-0-87020-386-2; e-book ISBN 978-0-87020-517-0), please access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users.

wisconsin history .org

Cover designed by Sue Ellibee

Interior designed by Jill Bremigan

Illustrations on front cover and page 230 by Cloo Stevenson

All photographs are from the authors collections

Other art credits appear on

12 11 10 09 5 4 3 2

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Sanvidge, Susan.

Apple Betty & sloppy Joe : stirring up the past with family recipes and stories / Susan Sanvidge... [et al.].
p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-87020-386-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cookery, AmericanMidwestern style. 2. CookeryWisconsin. 3. WisconsinSocial life and customs. 4. Oshkosh (Wis.)History20th century. I. Title.

TX715.2.M53S36 2007

641.5977dc22

2007026320

Our very own salt and pepper shakers, before kids...

and after kids.

It does look like Dad tore some of his hair out, and Mom needs glasses now after all those years of seeing what we were up to. We couldnt have been too bad, because they still look good.

One of our favorite salt and pepper shakers in Grandma Sanvidges collection was the bride and groombefore and after the wedding.

This cookbook is dedicated to Mom, as a small thank you for the big job of getting meals on the table for four kids all those years, and to Dad, for working so hard and for making breakfasts, Sunday night suppers, and popcorn.

This book was Dianes idea, but as Mom would say, We all put our two cents in.

Girls! Time to come in!

The bell Mom used to call us in to eat is on the shelf above her head, and the cups from our play tea set are sitting on the counter behind her, in front of the cake saver.

O ur summer began when the freezer was stocked with Reimers hot dogs and brats and the old basement fridge was crammed with grape pop, cream soda, root beer, Pepsi, 7UP, and beer. We went strawberry pickingand hulling and eatingand Mom made jam with what was left. We bought corn from roadside stands. We had beets, tomatoes, carrots (rubbed on the grass and eaten on the spot), peas, and beans from our own garden. We ate wild asparagus from Grandma Sanvidges ditch and raspberries from Grandma Noffkes garden. Summer was watermelon with salt, ice cream cones at the Sunlight Dairy on Main Street, the single piece of rhubarb pie Grandma brought over for Mom (because she was the only one who liked it), and the dreaded berry-picking with Grandpa Noffke. (How come he never needed a bathroom?)

In the fall, we went to Rasmussens for bushels of apples, cheese, and maple sugar candy and headed out on leisurely Sunday afternoon drives to gather hickory nuts. I remember the dim root cellar at Grandma Noffkes with a dusty ray of sunlight that made the green beans, red tomatoes, and yellow beans in the Mason jars glow.

We ate oranges that Grandma Noffke brought back from Florida, Georgia pecans from Uncle Cliff and Aunt Millie, cheese from local cheese factories, smoked sturgeon and chub, deer sausage, venison passed off (unsuccessfully) as beef, elk, partridge, pheasant, duck, trout, and, in good years, lobster.

We all remember the fragrance of Moms bread baking in the oven, the chewy brownies, and the beautiful birthday cakes. We remember meals with our grandparents: Grandma Sanvidges Blue Willow dishes, Grandpa Sanvidge saying, I ate quite freely of it, Grandma Noffkes yellow and brown plaid dishes, and Grandpa Noffke definitely eating quite freely of it. We remember Grandma Great teetering in with her little cloth-covered pan of Suet Pudding at Christmas, the sound of the mixer in the mashed potatoes, the cranberry sauce that ran into the potatoes, turning them pink, the rice in Ciles pale green glass salt shaker with the dented top, the falling-apart-tender pork roast, the clown cookie jar, the cocoa pitcher and the sighing percolator... Im hungry. Whens supper ready?Susan