Don Canney

Let’s think back of the foods we ate as a kid. Of course, my memories as a kid and your memories as a kid may be decades apart. But I’m going to share what I remember as a part of my French-Canadian heritage.

Low fat? Low sodium? Nah. It wasn’t even in our vocabulary. I remember many great tasting and very aromatic foods growing up in Nashua. In fact, I remember walking or bicycling through several neighborhoods and pretty much knowing what the heritage of each neighborhood was, just by cruising on a Sunday morning before the big meal.

My cousin and neighbor, who owned a tree street variety store, did business with the former Nashua Beef, a meat wholesaler that was located on the corner of Spring and Hollis streets back in the day. She would often cook a huge roast beef dinner, complete with potatoes, carrots and onions for the fattiest, juiciest, saltiest meal money could buy. The beef was “fork cuttable” and literally melted in your mouth. After a typical meal, the adults would need a nap or time to just sit on the stoop. We kids would go outside for a game of baseball, football, street hockey or a bike ride. We’d eventually work it off. But we’d all typically do everything then that doctors today tell us to never do. Eat all a lot of fat and sodium, then become sedentary or exercise immediately. It’s amazing how we survived.

On a warm day, the entire neighborhood would smell of roast beef or other fantastic meals cooking on the stove, as no one had air conditioning and our windows would be wide open.

If we cruised through a neighborhood with an Italian influence, the aroma was often of garlic, oregano pepperoni and spices being used in preparation of the big Italian pasta feast. Neighborhoods with a Greek influence might resemble the smell of lamb, again with all the appropriate spices, or baklava, moussaka, spanakopita, et al. Yum!

If you’ve never had an authentic New England boiled dinner, just close your eyes, and imagine the smell of ham, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, and whatever else Mom would toss into it. Another yum!

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had Gorton (or, pronounced the French-Canadian way, [GAW] + [TUHN]. Made with pork butts, its appearance resembles boiled Hamburg with various spices. Once cooled, after some of the fat is skimmed from the top, we would eat it on toast in the morning, on crackers any time or just on bread with mustard for a quick sandwich. To appreciate it, you must have tried it. It’s not something that sounds very appetizing in print, but it can still be had at several Nashua establishments.

Many of us have enjoyed the aroma of fresh baked beans wafting in the air. There is nothing like it with pork, bacon, molasses, or onions as flavor inducers. I can remember my mother “washing” the uncooked beans after spilling them onto the table right out of the bag and actually separating the “stones” (no, not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards) from the beans. It was indeed a tedious process, but canned beans were a no-no.

Home made bread was another delicacy in our house. But, before the bread, as the dough was rising, we’d cut off a piece of the raw dough for a special treat. We often wondered if it would rise in our tummies. Can you say Michelin man?

Pieces of that dough would find their way into a pan of awaiting Crisco, to become what we all called galettes. Per Google: “Galette (from the Norman word gale, meaning “flat cake”) is a term used in French cuisine to designate various types of flat round or freeform crusty cakes.” In our case, it was not a cake per se, but more like a piece of fried dough you’d get at a Carnival. With a little butter and sugar, it was, as they say, “to die for.” Sometimes though, we’d cheat and for an after-school snack we’d just take a piece of Wonder bread, spread some butter on it, sprinkle some sugar and voila!

Anyone hungry?

Don Canney is a freelance writer and professional voice artist. He was born and raised in downtown Nashua with great interest in Nashua history circa 1950-1970. He now resides in Litchfield.