BASTION OF WORDS: Christmas Past and Present

I started collecting family recipes in 1983. My Aunt Karen, my mother’s sister from New Zealand, started my collection by giving me a small recipe book with a few of her favorite recipes. She wrote;

I am not a good cook, I did learn that through trial and error. I quickly become overwhelmed in the kitchen, especially when constructing a large dinner. I decided very early on to specialize in a few dishes and learn them to perfection. I followed my Aunt’s advice and never followed measurements, and so have mastered a small repertoire of dishes that I will start sharing on this blog. The most well used, the French salad dressing, was last week. With Christmas approaching I thought it timely to reveal our Christmas dinner staple.

The recipes that came after the recipes from New Zealand were dishes that my grandparents, Gus and Renee, often prepared. I would watch them cook with my little recipe book in hand, carefully trying to record the steps they took to prepare a number of savory specials. Although I started recording this recipes 1983 it would be many years later before I would actually try them. The Leeks au Gratin made it’s debut as our Christmas dish in the year 1993. Brent and I were living on the farm in the Atwater Cabin and were celebrating our first Christmas with a child, our son Mico. There was such a sense of optimism as we settled into our lives on the farm with our own family, and for many years we could host the major holiday celebrations.

The original recipe is as follows;

Our first Christmas as a family on the farm, 1993, my father, Eddy, and my brother-in-law, Byron, helping themselves to dinner that included Leeks au Gratin.

Christmas 1993, Caroline, Mico and Brent.

Christmas 1994, our table has gotten bigger. Soon we would outgrow this cabin.

Christmas 1994 finds us with two sons, Mico and Aidan, pictured here with their Uncles Burke and Byron.

True to my Aunt Karen's suggestion I have made modifications over the years. Following are the instructions to how I have modified the dish, unfortunately perhaps adding quite a bit of calories in the process.

It is important to take the time to clean the leeks as the dirt gets right up into their stems. I cut the leeks in half and then run water over them.

Slice the leeks and boil in water. Do not overcook.

O.K. here comes the calories. To make the dish creamier I use a Bechamel Sauce.

Add the cheese to the sauce. I use the leek water to help thin out the sauce and add more flavour. Also add fresh ground black pepper.

Now we come to the sad part of the recipe. I only use Gruyere cheese in this recipe and I have not been able to find good Gruyere in Canada. For some demented reason Switzerland exports the very worst cheese possible. Below is the true Gruyere that was given to me during my last visit in Switzerland. The cheese is grated and put into the sauce, saving some to put on top of the dish.

Every visit back to Switzerland my family purchases this beautiful cheese for me. The only place they buy the cheese is in the little village of Hermance. The grocery store there has always purchased their supply of cheese from the same farm in Gruyere.

The sauce is mixed in with the cooked leeks and allowed to bake well over an hour, particularly if the sauce turned out to be a little runny. I like it to be cooked until it has a nice brown cover.

This dish was produced for our office Christmas party however it will be made again on the 25th.

Christmas is not always a happy time for people. In fact in my work as a Social Worker the end of November until Christmas is one of the more challenging times to support my clients. People grieve for what was or what they wish could be. The stress of trying to make a celebration with limited resources creates a terrible strain on families. The emphasis on cheer can make those suffering from loses feel their grief more acutely.

Christmas has become a time for me to acknowledge my own loses and honor the stories that people share with me about their own sad times. I look back with love to those family dinners with my family, and allow the grief to take a seat at the table too. Allowing the truth to be recorded on these pages brings back to me my history on this farm and brings with it the challenge to accept the present. I still will have people I love dearly and deeply at my dinner table, and we will have the Leeks au Gratin, where ever that may be.