The Secret Ingredient

My husband’s mother is mother to more than just him. She has six other children, a whole mess of grand and great-grandchildren, and has been married for over fifty years . Several years ago, she partnered with her husband running a 500 cow dairy farm in western Wisconsin. This brings me in a round-about way to the subject today.

First, I must elaborate a little more.

She has always cooked for a big family. She has always cooked for a table full of hired farm hands, plus her seven children and grand children. She cooked in quantity - seemingly effortlessly. On the farm, meat and potatoes were plentiful, a staple of the meal. She used a pressure cooker to tenderize less desirable cuts of meat. She served fresh vegetables from her garden. Yes, dinner was in the oven while she was milking cows.

My mother-in-law collects cookbooks. She cuts recipes out of magazines and newspapers. Her recipe cupboard is filled to the brim, the doors bursting at the seams – propped shut with a ruler slid between the pulls. My mother-in-law loves to get ideas from the recipes she collects.

She just doesn’t like to follow the recipes.

I remember one time there was an insurance salesman at the house. She offered him a slice of fresh peach pie. He loved it. He asked her for her recipe. She just laughed and changed the subject.

After he left, she told me that she added the morning’s leftover pancake batter in with the pie crust dough.

Yes, she adds this, and leaves that out. She doubles this and substitutes that. She doesn’t measure, she just knows.

And it all turns out. And even though we know this, we still ask her for her recipe. And she can’t give it to us, because she didn’t use one … exactly, anyway. But still we ask.

The subject today – the secret ingredient.

In preparing the turkey for our family’s Thanksgiving dinner, I wanted to get the same delicious results that I’ve had eating turkey dinner that my mother-in-law has cooked. So I boldly asked her for her recipe, confident that whatever she told me would be good enough for me.

“I stuff the bird with chopped up carrots, onions and celery. I season it and put it in a cooking bag. Oh, and drizzle some maple syrup on top.”

I must admit, it turned out delicious. But I didn’t write it down.

The next fall I called her again, pleading “Could you please give me that recipe again for turkey? I promise I’ll write it down this time.”

She is more than willing to share with me. “I stuff the bird with apples and dried apricots. I season it and put it in a cooking bag. Oh, and drizzle some maple syrup on top.”

I finally figured it out. It really doesn’t matter how you cook it. As long as you use the secret ingredient, that is. Maple syrup.