Date I made this recipe:
January 20, 2017 – Inauguration Day
The Mondale Family
Cookbook by Joan Mondale (Minnesotans Walter "Fritz" Mondale and
the late Joan Mondale were Vice President and Second Lady under President Jimmy
Carter, 1980-1984)
Published by the 1984 Mondale for President Committee, Inc.
© 1984
Recipe: Minnesota Wild Rice
Casserole – p. 44
Although I have been known to pull a cookbook off my shelves
to observe an event – a food holiday, a national holiday, or a "holiday"
holiday - this time around, I hadn't planned to make anything for Friday's
inauguration and yes, I know – shocking.
I just had a lot going on and just wasn't in the frame of mind to go on
a search and destroy mission through vast cookbook list to find just the
"right" one.
And then fate intervened.
This Christmas, I acquired several books and so I finally carved out a
few minutes to update my cookbook data base (read: Excel spreadsheet – so fancy!). One of the books I acquired was The Mondale Family Cookbook and I was
all set to put it on the shelf when it dawned on me I could make something for
Friday's Inauguration and so I did.
Was that incredible timing, or what?
Because during an inauguration, like the one we had today, a
President and a Vice President are sworn into office, and 40 years ago on
January 20, 1977, Minnesotan Walter
"Fritz" Mondale (of the "cookbook" Mondales!) was sworn
in as President Jimmy Carter's Vice President.
Since I was in college during this election and eligible to
vote for the first time, I remember well the Carter/Mondale administration. But with the exception of some sweet little
adorable five year old who can name every President and Vice President, and who
appears on talk shows to show off her prowess, most of us cannot normally
recall Presidents, much less their second in commands. And so let's test ourselves on how well we
remember these dynamic duos, okay? (Hint:
You're looking for the names of 45 Presidents and 48 Vice Presidents.)
"All right then - pencils up, eyes front and...GO!"
[Minutes, days, hours later] "And....time's up, pencils down."
How'd you do? I'm
guessing fair to middling. Will it help
if I show my work?
Since I know for sure that my knowledge of our earliest
Presidents and Veeps is fuzzy, I decided to test my knowledge starting with
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), our 32nd President. Why FDR?
Several reasons: 1) most of my history classes focused on the Great
Depression and WWII which was when FDR was in office; 2) my dad grew up during
the Depression and was a Marine in WWII, and 3) I have a better chance on my
own history test if I start with what I know and that's the start of what I
know!
Well, almost. FDR
served three terms (1933-1945) in office (bonus points if you knew this and
also knew that he was the only president to serve three terms) but I have no
recollection of Vice Presidents One and Two so I cheated and Googled and they are John Nance Garner
(1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945).
Please make a note of this.
When it comes to FDR's third Vice President though, I have
this on lock and load: Harry S.
Truman. My dad loved Harry S. Truman and
his whole "The buck stops here" approach. My dad was also a Marine during WWII and
credits Truman with seeing to it that he came home from the Pacific theater so
there's that. (Bonus points if you knew
that FDR oversaw V-E Day (Victory-Europe Day), but died before he could see the
end of the war in Japan
known as V-J Day (Victory Japan Day).
Harry S. Truman brought an end to the war in Japan after stepping into the
Presidential seat held by FDR.
After finishing out the rest of FDR's third term, Truman ran
for election, won, and became the 33rd President. (Bonus points if you recall the surprise
outcome to the election and another bonus point if the word "Dewey"
rings a bell.)
Okay then, so Harry S. Truman was President and his Vice President
was....give me a second...and...nope.
The guy's name was Alben W. Barkley.
For some reason, I had [the name] Adlai Stevenson rolling around my head
but dear heavens, Adlai Stevenson was Grover Cleveland's Vice President and
they served from 1893-1897. Please note
that I was only off by 48 years. I think
I'll award myself a half point for remembering the name even if I couldn't
place him with the correct President!
After Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower became President (I knew
that so point for me!) and Richard Nixon was his Vice President. Not that I recall Nixon being his Vice President
so that's a deduction. (But I get points for knowing that Nixon became President
eventually, and I also get points for knowing – because I watched it firsthand
– all about Watergate.)
After Eisenhower, President John F. Kennedy and Vice
President Lyndon Johnson served in office (2 points for me), and after Kennedy
was assassinated, Johnson became President and Minnesotan Hubert H. Humphrey
was his Vice President, and people, I am on a point roll! (By the way, I was
not living in Minnesota
at this time nor when Carter and Mondale were in the White House.)
Unfortunately, Johnson's Presidency was a rocky one (bonus
points if you know about the Chicago
Democratic convention and the Vietnam War), and so he decided not to seek
reelection ("I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my
party for another term as your President."
Major bonus points awarded if you not only knew he said this but
came up also with the exact quote; I came so close but didn't nail it). This left the field open for Democrats Hubert
H. Humphrey and the late Bobby Kennedy (among others) to run, but it was
Republican Richard Nixon who won the day.
Richard Nixon's first Vice President was Spiro Agnew and
then after Spiro stepped down, it was Gerald R. Ford who was from my home state
of Michigan . And I cannot pass up the opportunity to tell
you a small story about Spiro Agnew.
While in law school, I took a Corporations Law class and
during one class session, we reviewed a court case involving Spiro Agnew. Since I attended law school later in life, the
only people in this class who were not 26"ish" (the average age) were
me, my friend, Melissa, and our professor who was only a few years older than
the two of us. In fact, the professor
attended Kent State
University during the famous Kent State
Anyway, so the professor started the case review by asking
if anyone in the class knew who Spiro Agnew was. And Melissa and I were all "Oh, oh, Mr.
Kotter! Mr. Kotter!" (I reference
the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter from
the 70's – starring John Travolta) because of course we knew who he was, we
lived through that era. But nobody else
in the class did. Nobody.
"Oh people...people....[sigh]. Nobody knows?" I
have never seen a professor so dejected.
Can I just say though, that for once, I felt pretty chuffed that I was
old enough to know this information instead of feeling like a mom/den mother?
Moving on. After
Nixon resigned, Gerald R. Ford became President and his Vice President was....dammit...it was....I know I know this
and....nope. Answer: Nelson
Rockefeller. Right about now is when I
started to feel like I was on the TV show, Jeopardy,
in that I knew Nelson Rockefeller's name had to be in the "Vice
Presidents" (for 10) category someplace but I just couldn't figure out
where! My initial thought was Ronald
Reagan which as you will see, is wrong, wrong, wrong!
Still, I rallied and now things started looking up
because after Ford, Jimmy Carter was
elected President and our aforementioned Walter
F. (Fritz) Mondale his Vice President.
After Carter, Ronald Regan was elected President and his
Vice President was George H. W. Bush.
Then Bush (senior) became President and Dan Quayle was his Vice
President. Bush (senior) was followed by
Bill Clinton whose Vice President was Al Gore.
After Clinton
came George "W" Bush and his Vice President was Dick Cheney, and
after that Barack Obama and his Vice President, Joe Biden, and today Donald
Trump and his Veep, Mike Pence were sworn in.
Whew, right?
And before I get to the reason we are really here – The Mondale
Family Cookbook, let me just share a few other facts that I
uncovered in my research:
*11 out of 48 Vice Presidents were from New York State
*To my surprise, six of the 48 Vice Presidents hailed from Indiana , including the
recently sworn-in Mike Pence. I guess I
wasn't expecting Indiana
to yield so many. On the other hand, 13
states produced one and only one Vice President including the 13th
Vice President, William R. King who hailed from Alabama .
And with that, we conclude today's – Inauguration Day 2017 –
history review and test. Please tally up
your scores, (keep it honest folks,) pass your papers in, and to those of you
who scored low, you know what you need to do!
So onto the book we go! In 1984, Mondale decided to run for
President and so the 1984 Mondale for President Committee, Inc. published
this cookbook, The Mondale Family Cookbook, likely as a fundraiser
or thank you gift for donors. The book contains family and friend photos, a
Mondale family tree (loved that!), and recipes from the family and their
friends, as well as recipes and menus from the Vice President's House. And it was from one of those menus that I selected
today's casserole recipe.
But first, I must mention – must – the "recipe"
that cracked me up the most when I saw it:
"Hot Dogs and Tab (the soft drink)" from family friend, James
A. Johnson. To make this recipe, you heat the hot dogs in a pot on the stove
and then pour yourself a Tab and ta da, instant dinner!
As tempting as that recipe was though, it wasn't exactly
Inauguration-worthy and so I had to pass, settling instead on the Minnesota Wild Rice Casserole that was
served to former First Lady "Lady Bird" Johnson, widow of President
Lyndon B. Johnson, when she visited the Vice President's House, January 10,
1979.
Still folks.
Still. I cannot say that I've
ever associated a Minnesota
casserole with a Vice Presidential dinner and that is because casseroles are
usually reserved for:
a) a Lutheran church basement funeral repast
b) a neighborhood pot-luck
c) a bridal or baby shower
d) all of the above
But this was 1979 and "fancy" casseroles were
making the rounds of many a dinner party and those with wild rice, like the
Mondale casserole, are fancier still. You
should know that wild rice is not rice at all but rather a grass/grain and has
the distinction of being the official Minnesota State Grain. Perhaps this is
why it ended up on the dinner table? (Dress to impress, cook to impress?)
That said, as any Minnesotan (or transplant like me) knows,
a bona fide, true blue, all-American, specifically-Minnesotan casserole (or, as
the natives say, "hot dish") contains at least one can of Cream of
"X" soup, where "X" equals Mushroom, Chicken, or
Celery. There are no exceptions to this
rule, and in fact, if this requirement has not been codified, i.e. made into
law, it should be.
Other popular casserole ingredients (although not
necessarily mandatory) are Tater Tots and Velveeta cheese. And it is ingredients like these that have
people diving at the pot-luck table time and time again.
In fact, so popular are casseroles to these parts, that United
States Senator Al Franken (D-MN) hosts an annual Minnesota Congressional Delegation Hot Dish Off (like a Bake Off, only not) every year and let
me tell you, last year's results were interesting. http://www.franken.senate.gov/files/documents/2016HotdishRecipes.pdf
Last year's results were interesting because Representative
Tim Walz's (D-MN-1st District) winning recipe, Turkey Taco Tot Hot Dish contained not a single can of Cream of
"X" soup. Not one. And he
wasn't alone as five – FIVE! – out of 10 submissions did not use soup. Well, that's downright...un-Minnesotan! How did it come to pass that we elected these
people?
I am speechless.
Really. How is this even
possible? No soup (for you)?
And so a shout out to the following people who followed the
rules (and possibly state statutes) and used at least one can of soup: Senator Al Franken; Representative Collin
Peterson (who made his casserole using rabbit.
Hmmmm. Interesting choice, that.);
Representative Betty McCollum; Representative Keith Ellison, and Representative
Erik Paulsen who used three cans of soup, one of which was Cream of Mushroom,
cream of Mushroom being the "official" casserole go-to around here,
"don't ya know."
So that's impressive and the rest of you have your work cut
out for you!
Now then, so used am I to seeing Cream of "X"
soup, that I thought that was what the Mondale's Minnesota Wild Rice Casserole called for but folks, it did not and
now I have further proof that I need to get my eyes checked.
The Mondale's recipe, as served to Lady Bird Johnson, called
for 1 can of Mushroom Soup (not a "Cream of" in sight) and ½ cup
consommé. Technically, that's a
violation and I'm sorry former Vice President Mondale, I'm going to have to
"ding" you for that.
Frankly, I'm a little confused by these two ingredients as
it's basically beef on beef. Campbell
Still, because of my misread, I used Cream of Mushroom and
the consommé, and all was well with the world and the dish was really
tasty. Very tasty. But brown people, very brown.
And I only mention the color because it's in sharp contrast
to the usual and customary white food of which many Minnesotans of Scandinavian
descent are quite fond. In fact, it is
usual and customary to see a holiday
dinner of boiled potatoes (white), white fish (or actual Whitefish, a Lake
Superior delicacy), pickled herring (ew – but white), lefse, a white crepe of
sorts made with potatoes, and the ever-famous but never-popular, lutefisk which is white fished soaked in lye and
then dried, I kid you not. Never, ever
will I eat that – never, and herring is out, but I can deal with the rest of it
so long as I can add a splash of color known as Lingonberry jam!
Similarly, the Mondale's feast was a mixture of brown and
white as follows: Oysters Casino (oysters are white/gray); Roast Duckling with Kumquats (duck is brown); Minnesota Wild Rice Casserole (totally brown); Baked Cucumbers (sans the skin, cucumbers are white); Small Croissants (white/golden); Poached Pears (white) with Sabayon Sauce (sabayon sauce
contains eggs – white and gold), and then in a complete about-face, they added
a Bibb Lettuce and Watercress Salad with
Slices Avocado – green, green, totally green and the dinner party was
saved! I am kidding, of course, as it all sounds lovely and delicious and the
very brown Minnesota Wild Rice Casserole
was mighty tasty even though I defaulted to the Cream of Mushroom Soup. Old cooking habits are hard to break!
So that's the story of my accidental inauguration dinner, a
look at Presidents and Vice Presidents through history, and a further peek into
the crazy casserole times of native Minnesotans. And by the way, lest you think my history
lesson was all for naught, everybody should have a few interesting anecdotes
tucked away as nobody likes a boring dinner party guest. In fact, when I took a class on [Geoffrey]
Chaucer in college, my professor insisted that all of us learn to recite the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the
original Olde English, for the express purpose of impressing party guests. (I
can still recall the first eight lines and then after that I'm a bit lost, sort
of like my Vice President recollection!)
And so when you get that call and subsequent party
invitation from the Vice President's office? You're welcome!
And now to end our little historic look-back at the office
of the President and Vice President, I wanted to let you know that Walter and
Joan Mondale returned eventually to Minneapolis
where he still resides; Joan passed away in 2014. Joan was a well-known artist (pottery) and I
completely forgot until I read her bio on Wikipedia that she was nicknamed Joan
of "Art." She compiled all the
recipes in this book.
Walter continued on in law and politics and in 2013, was
keynote speaker and honoree at a Law and
Inequality Symposium titled Civil
Rights & Civil Justice: 50 Years Later, at his law alma mater, the University of Minnesota Law School. I was
in that audience then (I'm a fellow attorney) and marveled the entire time how
up close and personal I was to a former Vice President of the United States .
Would that I had known about the Minnesota Wild Rice
Casserole though. Would that I had
known.
¾ cup long-grained rice
¼ cup wild rice
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons diced celery
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped green pepper
1 pound ground beef
1 can (10 ½ ounces) mushroom soup (Ann's Note: Not CREAM of Mushroom Soup. Mushroom soup.)
½ cup consommé
½ pound fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
¼ cup slivered almonds
In separate pots cook the long-grained rice and the wild
rice according to directions on packages.
While they are cooking, sauté the vegetables in the butter. Add the ground beef and brown. Stir in the mushroom soup, consommé,
mushrooms, and almonds. Cook for 10 to
15 minutes. In a casserole, combine the
rices with the vegetable-beef mixture and keep warm in a 250 oven until served.
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