Food and Culture at Raven

The Last of a Breed

by Nancy Wilbur Woods

My Father's Sourdough Pancakes

First of all, be a man who's lived in Alaska most of his life. Be up the Good Paster River visiting Slim, an old coot who lives up there with his dogs. When your riverboat hits the clay bank, hear the sound of Slim's dogs barking from the sod rooftops of their houses. Then see Slim walking toward you, snow-haired and slim, wearing long underwear under suspenders and trousers. Have him invite you into his cabin, which is small and dark and smells of leather.

The next morning, be a man and choke down a couple of Slim's famous bitter pancakes. Back home, be grateful for your own family and sourdough starter, bubbling out of a brown crock in the fridge. Out of appreciation, whip up a batch of your own sourdough pancakes. When you pour the batter onto the grill, reveal your fine sense of timing by not turning them too soon. Wait until the tops are riddled with bubbles and have started to turn dull, then flip each pancake once without catching an edge and cook a final time. 

Stand at the stove cooking pancakes and passing them out to your family, seated and eating, until they yell, “Enough!” “No more!” “We're stuffed!” Only then cook up a batch for yourself. Eat it while sitting alone at the table while your dog whacks her tail against a table leg and you wonder how Slim is doing.

My father was the last of a breed, a tall, thin, sheet-metal worker who arrived home each night with shards of twisted steel embedded in the bottoms of his boots. A fierce man, he stomped around the house on his size-thirteen feet shouting, “When I give you an order, I expect you to jump!” “I'm the boss around here!” “I don't care what you think!”

Dad was the unquestioned head of the household, a Rotarian Republican, a man's man, an outdoorsman. I can still see him—he's just walked in the back door after another hunting or fishing trip. His canvas pants are crusty with moose blood or grouse guts. Fish scales drip from him like jewels.

Crispy Grayling

Be Alden Wilbur. Have just spent three days up the Salcha River with your brother and son. When you return home and stomp up the back steps, have your wife greet you with “How'd it go, hon? Welcome back.” Give her a pat on the behind, then say “Great! Everyone got their limit!” Then plunk the fish-smelly, wicker creel down on the kitchen counter. Have your brother and son lean against the door jam and fridge.

You've already gutted and scaled the fish that lay on green grass inside the basket, so stand relaxed for a few minutes, just glad to be home. Be wearing an old work shirt, crusty pants and a beard. Have your wife and two daughters—one blonde, one dark—wander in from the dining room where they've been sewing. Tell them all about your trip, about what fun you had. Let your son tell some of the story. Then, after allowing for a moment of silence, clap your square hands together, get an eager look on your face and ask, “How about a little pain killer, being as it's Tuesday?”

Then pour a stiff drink for you and your brother and a weaker one for your wife. When you've finished yours, ask “How about another one, being as we don't have anywhere to go?” then pour a second round for your brother and yourself. Take pride in your son and ask your daughters, “What've you been up to?” Laugh when one of them says, “Making more ugly clothes that don't fit.”

When the phone rings, let one of the girls answer it. Have it be your sister-in-law. Have her say, “Tell your Uncle Jack to get his butt home now. His dinner is getting cold.”

Have Uncle Jack gulp the last of his drink then head out the door with a wave. Rub your hands together and ask, “Well, who's in the mood for some fresh fish?” When your youngest jumps up and down shouting, “Me! Me! Me!,” get out the big, black cast-iron skillet, set it on the stove and turn up the heat. Using the familiar spatula, scoop a generous amount of bacon grease out of the can labeled “Grease.” Put the fat in the pan and scrape it off on the edge. As it melts, have it slide down into the center of the pan, turn clear and spread out. Meanwhile, get a plastic plate and dump some flour on it. Don't be too neat.

Open the creel and pull out the fish one at a time, pointing out what a “beaut” each is. Line them up on the chopping block according to size. Argue in a pretend way with your son about who caught each one. Make sure he gets “first dibs” on eating his own fish.

Dip each headless grayling, pink-meated and finely shaped, in the flour, covering both sides. Fry each fish until brown and crispy, then order your girls to “get your crap off the table so we can eat.” Serve with fresh slaw, mayonnaise and one of those plastic lemons filled with juice. Don't forget to eat the crunchy tail. Some say it's the best part.

  At times, dad was a son of a bitch, but he was also a loyal family man who walked in the front door each night at 5:07 p.m. 

“Is anybody home?” he would call in a sad voice. “Who's going to get me my slippers? My feet hurt.”

At the sound of his voice, my sister Jean and I would fight for the chance to be the one who got to put dad's worn slippers on his tired feet. We'd run to the bedroom, kneel down on the hard floor and search with our hands for dad's paint-spattered slippers hidden under the bed amongst the dust motes.

Then we'd run back into the living room, where dad would be sitting in his red leather chair, the chair in which no one else was allowed to sit. Jean and I would each get down on our knees in front of one of dad's feet, untie his warm boots and replace them with his slippers, making sure to transfer his orthodotics as well.

Recipe for Mooseburgers

Be my father, then wait until moose season to hitch your long, narrow riverboat to your pickup, the one with “Wilbur Brothers Mechanical Contractors” stenciled on the side. (For authentic 1960s mooseburgers, let the kids and the dog rattle around in the back of the pickup, along with the camp stools, camp cots and metal boxes of Blazer gasoline.)

Make sure it's a cool Saturday morning, then head out of town a couple hours later than you've planned. Every so often, yell “Get a move on! We don't have all day!” Then drive for an hour down the Alcan until you come to the Salcha River. Pull into the boat landing. Have your wife wander off to “check out the berries” while you jackknife the rig a couple of times and almost run over the dog. Have the kids run all over the place completely unsupervised, even climbing onto the bridge and throwing rocks into the water for the dog to fetch, while you transfer all the gear from the truck to the boat. Every so often, grumble, “What is all this crap, anyway!? You'd think we were going for a month!”

Call for your wife to come back. When she eventually returns, showing off her berries and saying, “I hate to leave them. They're just begging to be picked,” complain, “Time's a wastin'! Everyone into the boat!”

Take turns with your son navigating the boat up the shallow river. More than once have the boat get stuck. Each time, stop and replace the cotter pin. If your son is at the helm when the pin gets sheared off, yell, “For god's sake! Watch where you're going!” If you're steering when the boat gets stuck, have everyone get very quiet.

Continue upriver, breaking and replacing cotter pins. Have your middle child, a girl, spend the entire trip reading a book while hunkered down out of the wind. Then spot the same side channel where the weekend before you spotted a moose but couldn't do anything about it because hunting season hadn't started. Hiss, “Now everybody keep their trap shut. If there's a moose up here, we don't want to scare it!” 

Steer the boat slowly up the channel with the sound of the motor bouncing off the trees on either side. Your son kneels on the bow of the boat, towline in one hand. There are plenty of reeds growing in the river and the water looks like green glass. The slough takes an easy right, then left, then right again. The engine makes the only noise. The boat comes around a smooth bend. A moose is standing in the middle of the river, its head under water. The sight of the moose is sudden even though you were hoping for it.

The youngest child, a girl, starts to shout. Just in time, have your wife clamp her hand over the child's mouth. Have the middle child put down her book. When your son looks back at you with a quizzical look, nod yes. Cut the engine and turn the boat toward shore. Have your son step out, holding his gun. Step out yourself, just as the moose lifts its head, water streaming down its jaw like a beard.

Fire shots. Have the moose buckle, then lurch for shore, making a lot of noise as it crashes through the brush. Follow behind. Fire more shots.

With the help of your son, cut the moose into large pieces, then haul it all back to the boat. Back in town, wrap the pieces in cheesecloth then hang them from the kids' swing set to cure before hiring a butcher to cut it into smaller pieces and wrap it in stiff paper labeled: moose burger, moose pot roast, moose stew.

One evening some time later, have your wife tell the middle child to go to the basement to fetch a package of frozen moose burger. When the child whines, “Why do I always have to do everything?,” have the mother answer, “Because I told you to.” Have the child grumble, then stomp downstairs to get the meat. At 5:07 p.m., walk in the front door and cry, “I'm home! I'm hungry! What's for dinner?”

At 5:45 p.m., have your wife fry the meat patties until crusty and black in an electric skillet set on high. At exactly 6 p.m., take your seat at the head of the table in the only chair that has arms. Bite into your mooseburger, covered with mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard, and served inside a Santa's Bake Shop bun.

For some time now, the experts have been telling us that there isn't anything worse than being raised by a rigid, overbearing father, a man who spends his mornings giving orders and his afternoons taking charge. According to those experts— who like to think they know best—such a father can only cause problems for his children, who will no doubt grow up kowtowing to authority when they aren't failing to be empowered.

But fortunately for me, I was raised by just such a man. If it weren't for dad's barked orders and his there's-only-one-way of thinking, I wouldn't be here today. No, I'm not talking about my conception. I'm talking about the day I almost drowned in the basement of my father's house.

It was the fall of 1967 and the Chena River had just flooded my hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska, surrounding our house with several feet of muddy water. My mother, father, sister and I (my brother happened to be out of town) were in the basement, hauling stuff up as fast as we could when, for some reason, I happened to look up from what I was doing and notice a stair-step crack running down the cement-block wall.

“Was that there before?” I asked my dad as I pointed to the spot. As a child, I tended to hand my father problems like gifts on a platter. This time, he took one look at the wall before shouting, “Everybody out! Now!”

Now, when you're standing in the basement of a house surrounded by water, a house with a foundation that's about to give way, the last thing you need is someone who wants to build consensus, someone who wants to hold a meeting or exchange ideas or take everyone's feelings into account. What you do need is someone who feels comfortable taking control, someone who can make a decision fast.

Later, after it was all over, my neighbor told me he heard us scream, but I don't remember running up the basement steps. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the back yard, knee-deep in river water. Everyone had made it out safely. Even our black lab was paddling about. Back in the house, river water lapped at the top of the basement steps. The basement wall had collapsed from the weight of the surrounding water, resulting in a rush of water that had thrown the deep freeze from one end of the basement to the other. If dad hadn't gotten us out, the freezer would have killed us if the water hadn't.

Al's Wonderful Stinky Sauerkraut

One Saturday afternoon in the fall, walk in the back door holding a cardboard box filled with cabbage you bought from the same guy you always buy it from out on Farmer's Loop Road. Drop the box onto the stainless counter you built with your own hands, then clomp down to the basement to locate the ceramic crock and sawed-off baseball bat you used the last time you made sauerkraut. Back in the kitchen, pull out the big butcher knife, the only one you ever use. Sharpen it against the wand-shaped whetting stone while making a lot of noise and acting like two knights fighting with swords.

Cut the cabbage using sure strokes. Refuse to be fussy. This isn't a delicate dish. Toss the cabbage cores into the empty box on the floor, then carry the chopped cabbage downstairs and stuff it into the crock, alternating it with layers of salt. Pound everything down with the bat. When your kids crowd close, yell, “Back off! Do you want to get hurt!?” When the crock is full, cover it with a kitchen towel, then weigh the whole thing down with a plate. Back upstairs, wipe off the kitchen counter, put the knife away and pour yourself a stiff drink.

Over the next several days, every so often, go downstairs and check on the cabbage. If it's climbing out of the crock, beat it back down with the bat. Scoop off any scum. If the kids try to touch it yell, “Keep your mitts off! Do you want to ruin it!?”

Then, one day, walk in the front door, smell sauerkraut and pronounce it “done.” Spoon into jars and seal. Give more than half to your brother and his family. Store the rest on the wooden shelves in the basement. When your wife serves it with sausage for dinner and your kids pinch their noses and refuse to eat, say, “Good. All the more for me and your mom.”

Most of the time, dad could be found sitting in the living room in his worn leather chair within arm's reach of the radio and Paul Harvey. He'd be surrounded by the accoutrements of his smoking habit: his hand-carved Meerschaum and burnished briars, his packs of pipe cleaners and cigarette papers, his piles of used flints and containers of lighter fluid and, most important, his creamy colored, cookie-jar-shaped humidor that held his pipe tobacco. Sometimes dad let me open it, the ceramic bowl with the screw-down lid, releasing the heady aroma of Sir Walter Raleigh or Half and Half.

For years, my dad smoked Camel cigarettes, until his doctor told him to quit. Then dad switched to smoking pipes, cigarettes he rolled from pipe tobacco and regular cigarettes he bummed from me and my friends.

“Oh, hi, Terry,” he would say, when my Carlton-packing friend walked in the front door. “How are you? Can I bum a coffin nail?”

Though my father seemed to be ashamed of his habit, his response was to make a joke.

“It's not like I'm really smoking,” he'd say, looking sheepish while reaming out one of his pipes. “I spend most of my time just trying to keep the damn thing lit.”

Periodically, my father would set himself on fire. He'd be sitting in his chair after dinner, refilling one of his lighters, when he'd spill some of the lighter fluid on his hairy arm. Which meant the minute he put the lighter back together and gave it a flick, his whole forearm would go up in flames. When he saw the shocked look on my face, he would laugh, then quickly douse the fire with a broad hand.

In my first memory of dad, it's winter and he's standing on our back porch, encased in a sheet of ice. An icicle hangs from his nose. Had he just returned from putting out a fire? I don't know. It's possible. At one time, I think he served as a volunteer fireman. I do know I grew to have a deep fondness for my father, for his six-foot-three-inch frame, his bushy eyebrows and sore feet. To me, he was strong and funny and impermeable to fire. He inhaled smoke, played with it, wore it like clothes.

It was from dad that I learned to smoke, and though I haven't had a cigarette since July, 1976, in some ways I'm still a smoker in search of a drag. Instead of lighting up, I get angry, at life and at people and the fact that I'm still so strangely attracted to the dangerous, deadly cigarette, the “coffin nail” that cut several years from the life of my wonderful, vulnerable dad.

A Strong Belief in Popovers

Popovers are tricky, requiring a relaxed but confident attitude combined with preheated pans. My father cooked them on Sunday in exchange for not having to go to church. He'd wait until everybody was dressed and out the door, then sit down with a drink and the dog. When he'd finished the drink, he'd pour one more, then get out the Joy of Cooking cookbook and prop it against the Sunbeam Mixmaster. If the Zipper whined, he'd feed her, then get to work.

He'd mix together lots of eggs and milk, melted butter and flour, along with some salt. If it was Communion Sunday, he'd make an extra-large batch because we wouldn't have eaten before we left. He'd time everything so the popovers came out of the oven right when we walked in the front door. This isn't as easy as it might seem, because it meant he'd have to take the exact time the service was over and add to it the length of time mom would spend in the parish hall visiting with her friends.

He'd mound the popovers on a plate and serve them with plenty of margarine and homemade raspberry jam. He'd bring out more as begged for. Best when eaten piping hot, the popovers released a cloud of eggy steam and the promise of a Sunday afternoon with absolutely nothing to do.

Nancy Wilbur Woods was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. She now lives in the Hollywood district of Portland, Oregon, which means she gets to call herself a Hollywood writer without having to live in L.A. For several years Woods wrote a humor column for The Woman's Journal. She now edits a community newspaper. Her essays have been read on Oregon Public Radio and published in the Oregonian, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Nostalgia, Nervy Girl! and An Ear to the Ground: Presenting Writers from 2 Coasts (Cune, Seattle). This essay is an excerpt from her unpublished memoir, A Continual Longing for Home. Contact her at wordpics@aracnet.com.