Recipe for history

This is a little off topic for this blog, but struck me as a good subject. My daughter has been encouraging me to write a food blog so maybe this will be the start or the transition. Don’t expect a recipe at the end though. This is a story about what is behind a worn recipe card.

Several years ago I became interested in my paternal family history. A distant relative had already completed the maternal side and no one had looked in to the paternal side of my family. Great grandparents were traced back to Italian villages. Birth/death/marriage certificates, passenger manifests, and sundry documents were located and collected. What was discovered right in my cupboard was the impetus for this blog.

I have always treasured family recipes that live on in my daily and holiday cooking. Every family has a worn cookbook or recipe card from a relative. Sometimes more than photographs these are our connections to our heritage. The dish from the past can be created and brought to life in the modern world, living anew within our kitchen. The smells and tastes transport us to that relative’s kitchen where we helped or anxiously awaited the results from the oven or stovetop.

What set me on this culinary journey was a pastry. A little cookie that is sometimes filled with a minced citrus nut concoction. The cookies were remembered from my childhood but more recently as the cookies made their way into my children’s lives. We always knew them as Gloves as that was the name passed down by my Italian grandparents. There was a lull in the glove eating business until one day a package arrived from an aunt and uncle. Stuffed full was a box of gloves! Going Christmas tree hunting the next day the gloves accompanied us on the hunt. Every year we looked forward to the treat.

Making gloves is a little labor intensive and time consuming. Although we looked forward to the arrival of the package it did not come every year. We always got a little food gift but not always the gloves. I had family recipes but I did not have this one.

When I asked about the recipe, my aunt was quick to share. She hadn’t realized how much the gloves had become a part of my family’s holiday traditions. The preparation takes a lot of work and we all get busy during the holidays. Sometimes there just wasn’t the desire or open schedule to make the cookies. I, myself, make pizzelles every year. Some years it just seems like too much of a chore. Sometimes it takes a lot to drag out the pizzelle iron and set aside the time to make them. So I understood. I also found out from my aunt that the main reason our source dried up was because the uncle in the equation didn’t leave enough to share.

Like I needed another holiday treat to make, I never attempted to make the gloves. I did get the recipe and tucked it away. Last Christmas my daughter got me a blank recipe book for me to fill with old and new family recipes. That way they are all in one book, which could become our family’s recipe book to pass on. Certainly, all of the old recipes went in. While transcribing the glove recipe I noticed that there was an omission as to how to shape the cookies and the tool to use. Knowing that we would be visiting my aunt and uncle I put the recipe on hold until I could speak to them in person.

Once together, my aunt was more than happy to pull out her cookbook. I had family recipes, but to see the original pages and cards in her and my grandmother’s handwriting was touching. It was like visiting the family homestead in the old country or holding a certificate of marriage or birth of an ancestor. History. In your hands.

I found the information I was missing but also learned some more family history that I had never known. Turns out the crimping tool that is used to make the edges of the cookie was fashioned out of car parts by my grandfather. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist but he had an engineer’s mind and apparently (another family tidbit) was helpful in the kitchen when it came holiday baking time. When observed, the crimping tool is like any you’d see for crimping the edges of ravioli, wavy metal wheel on a wooden handle. Except it was hand made by my grandfather. Another thing to hold and behold.

Also learned was that in addition to gloves, the family called the cookies ewans. Never had I heard that reference. They were always gloves and I never questioned the meaning or origin. Just ate them. Well, my aunt and uncle could not provide any insight into the naming of the cookie. We just chalked it up to Italian-English translation diluted into family colloquialism.

But I couldn’t let it go. So once home I started researching the ingredients and names I had for the cookies to no avail. Thinking about the translation angle and no “W’ in the Italian language I was curious about the family name for the cookie “ewan”. I tried searching the Italian word for gloves, guanto or guanti. Now I know I should of started there but sometimes your mind processes the way it processes. Anyway, once that search was begun-Bingo! The recipes were filling up the search returns. Continuing the search I came across similar recipes for “wandies” and one that explained why the family called the cookies “ewands”. Finally! A connection. 

Once I had all of this information I could see how the literal translation of gloves to guanti would become wandie or ewands or even ewan. 

It was an interesting journey that made me realize all of the family history that is packed into a recipe card. Although I had enjoyed the cookies for many years and passed them on to my children I had never sought the meaning behind the recipe. 

This year will be my first attempt at these cookies. Fairly confident I’ll get it close. Maybe I can encourage some family help. Make some new traditions. But I do know that they will definitely be going into the holiday baking rotation.