It’s my last blog post for 2020 and time to think back and reflect on the past. Not just this past year, but even further back. Since I’m starting a series on charcuterie, I want to go way back to wonderful memories of childhood and remember the delicious charcuterie and pastries my grandparents served up daily in Minnesota.

My full-blooded Finnish grandmother, Glady Saari, married my full-blooded German grandfather, Fritz Arnold, in Minnesota in the late '30s. Their distinctly ethnic gene pools, with their deep and rich culinary traditions, created a wonderfully diverse culinary environment for me whenever I visited my grandparent’s home way up in Ely, Minn. There were lots of exotic foods for my young taste buds to discover that weren’t part of my normal Colorado farm diet.

There were German-style sausages and fresh Finnish pastries at every meal. My grandma Glady spent the majority of every day in the kitchen, from dawn to dusk, cooking and baking and making sausages weekly. A meal at grandma’s house always included a large variety of foods. There was no such thing as a simple three- or five-course meal at grandma's. No doubt this is one reason my grandparents were overweight, but they could’ve cared less about that. They loved preparing food, serving food, and having people over non-stop to eat. Food and hospitality was obviously their love language.

The very first dish that grandma Glady served a guest upon arrival to her modest home was a plateful of sausages, liverwurst, fresh-baked bread and crackers. Grandpa Fritz would supplement with room temperature Schlitz malt liquor, in case the guest didn’t want to get a caffeine high from Grandma’s strong coffee. Grandma always had a fresh pot of coffee brewing and it was so strong that just one cup on an empty stomach would send your brain cells soaring to new heights.

Grandma made her own liverwurst from pork she’d sourced at a local butcher store. At times she bought premade liverwurst from the store, but she was picky about the brand. I don’t remember the name, but there was a brand from neighboring Wisconsin that she particularly fancied.

My mother would pack my brother, sister and myself into her white Ford Pinto every summer and we’d make the long drive from the farm near Brighton, Colo., to Ely. We’d normally stop in Omaha or Des Moines and spend the night to break up the monotony of being trapped in a tiny car for 19 long hours of what seemed like endless corn fields and tumbleweeds.

Upon arrival in Ely, after hugs and kisses and the “Oh my, how fast you are growing up” comments, we were greeted with a large table of grandma’s pride and joy of a life-long devotion to fine foods.

I loved all the wonderful food, but the liverwurst on fresh-made hot sourdough became my absolute favorite. To this day, whenever I see liverwurst in the store (which is not too common in Colorado or out West) or get a chance to enjoy some, I get a big smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart as I remember my grandmother and grandfather and their daily intake of delicious liverwurst. It seems that food that can evoke those kind of memories should fit at least one definition of "comfort food."

Grandma always finished each meal with a variety of fresh-made Finnish pastries. My favorite pastry was called "Christmas Stars" which, despite the name, Grandma made year-round from fresh pastry with plum jam or minced-meat filling and coated with fine lines of sugar icing.

Do you have any good memories reminiscing about liverwurst, sausages or other foods that make you smile when you see, smell and taste them again? What foods fit your definition of "comfort foods?"

Liverwurst! Or, end-of-the-year reflections on comfort foods

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