A Rack of Memories - A Return to My Midwestern Roots

Last week I visited my family who has resided in the suburban fringes of Columbus, Ohio for several years. Although I have been firmly planted in the Mid-Atlantic for over four decades, I still consider myself a Midwesterner at heart and in temperament. So I always enjoy these infrequent visits to that native soil that nourishes my deep Midwestern roots.

Such visits provide me with an opportunity to reconnect with places and events that trigger pleasant memories of my early years when I called the Midwest my home.

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/03/going-home.html

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/02/aint-that-america.html

Such memories include all the wonderful things I ate while growing up which are difficult, if not downright impossible to find elsewhere. In the past I have written about some of these with loving affection. Top on the list would have to be the indigenous cheeses of Wisconsin.

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-cheese-that-brings-back-memories.html

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2009/05/confessions-of-cheesehead-part-1.html

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2009/05/confessions-of-cheesehead-part-2.html

Add to this the Michigan-brand cottage cheese that was pablum throughout my youth and still available in certain markets in the Midwest (including Columbus). My mom’s refrigerator is always well-stocked when I visit and I frequently bring a stash home with me. Mom always stows some in her luggage when she visits us in Maine every summer. So far TSA has not interfered with these welcomed care packages.

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/05/cottage-cheese-memories.html

And who can forget the de rigeur Friday fish fry dinners? Healing piles of the ubiquitous yellow and lake perch although every once in awhile one was lucky enough to score fillets of fresh caught walleye. I personally consider it a crime to fry such a delicate fish; I prefer mine broiled or poached which is how it was served the last time I had it five years ago while passing through central Minnesota.

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/03/some-kind-of-minnesota-heaven.html

Speaking of Minnesota, who can long forget a well-prepared lutefisk which is a traditional holiday "treat" for Midwesterners of Scandinavian and Finnish descent?

https://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/06/when-lutefisk-is-outlawed-only-outlaws.html

I enjoyed my fill of Michigan-brand cottage cheese on this most recent trip, but the sharpest memory surfaced when I spied a six-pack of Hamm’s Beer – a rack of Hamm’s – in a rural farm store. When I was finally old enough to buy beer in the USA (I was drinking it in Germany long before I turned 21), it was Hamm’s or the local Pabst Blue Ribbon brewed in Milwaukee (my son rolls his eyes every time I mention my affinity for PBR). Hamm’s had been brewed in St. Paul, Minnesota since the end of the Civil War and was only available in the Midwest until the early 1950s. Thankfully, when I left the Midwest for Arizona in the early 1970s the brand had been bought by the Olympia Brewing Company, in Washington State, and I was able to find Hamm’s "In a Barrel" at my local beer depot in Tucson. A happy reminder of home. PBR has remained a staple over the intervening years, and that brewery subsequently purchased the Hamm’s brand in 1983. Yet I have seldom found Hamm’s in the cooler when buying beer. It is now brewed by Miller/Coors and a flood of memories surfaced when I rediscovered it in Ohio last week. And only five bucks for a rack!!

http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2010/08/living-in-past-rediscovering-retro.html

In the words of that great philosopher Dr. Seuss . . . "Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. My recent return to the Midwest brought that home in spades.