Grandma's Perogies

My Grandmother lived in Toronto, but whenever she came to Winnipeg to visit, she’d spend at least one full day cooking and baking my dad’s favourite foods.  Perogies and holupchi and borscht and those buns with the mashed up prune and apricot centres that he loved so much.  Our house would smell like Christmas for a week afterwards.         

Christmas, because that is what Grandma’s house smelled like when we went to spend the holidays with her in Ontario.  Warm, inviting and full of promise: a promise of a huge spread of Grandma’s best cooking, served on real china plates and fine wine glasses filled with grape juice.   Grampa would help me to cut my meat.  He had caring, tender hands that I never appreciated at the time, for I thought I was too old to need help.          

I was twelve when she first allowed me to help pinch the Perogies.  I tried hard, not just because my Grandma wanted me to learn this skill , but because I sincerely liked to cook.  I had scrambled my first egg when I was six, and quickly moved on to more complicated recipes.    Using my ‘Carnation Milk Cooking for Kids’ cookbook, I conjured up such treats as Hungarian Goulash (macaroni and cheese with ground beef and sour cream) and orange sherbet, made in an ice cube tray in the freezer.     

I remember the best batch of fudge I ever made was during Expo ‘67 in Montreal.  I had just turned seven years old.  My parents were playing cards with the Thompsens - the family  we were staying with while attending the fair.  They had let me play a few hands of poker with them, but when they said that they wanted to play for real, without me, I got upset.  I can’t guarantee that it wasn’t a tantrum that I threw, but, whatever you want to call it, my mom knew how to appease me... she sent me to the kitchen to cook.  Mrs. Thompsen didn’t have a kid’s cookbook, but I was able to find a simple recipe from her collection.  It turned out sweet and rich and smooth.  I was proud of myself.           

That day in the kitchen with Grandma when I was twelve was something new, however.  There were no recipes, no measuring spoons or cups.  Just a thousand years of tradition being passed down.          

My weak fingers didn’t do a very good job pinching the dough, and she tried her best to be patient with me.           

“Don’t just press the sides together.  You have to squeeze them.  Like this.”  She enveloped my fingers and squeezed hard - it hurt.  “And be careful, don’t get potato on the edges.  It won’t stick together.”

 Despite my Grandmother’s instructions and demonstrations, many of my Perogies fell apart when dropped into the boiling water.  She didn’t get frustrated or discouraged by my lack of ability that day, and neither did I.  She just told me that the skill would come in time.   I never doubted her.          

Even after Grandma returned home, I practised my Perogy making skills.  Pinching the dough would be my biggest challenge, but there were others.   My young arms and hands held trouble at every turn: The potatoes took a very long time to peel, and the pungent onions were very tough on my tender little eyes.  There were always bits of onion skin and the occasional potato eye left over to mar the colour and texture of the filling.  I had yet to become a perfectionist.  

The creation of the dough was a formidable task in  itself.   Grandma never used a recipe, she just trained me to be aware of the density and the texture of the dough - not too sticky, not too dry.  I found that I could get the balance of ingredients right, but then I had to knead it.  It took a long time, because I’d have to stop often to rest my arms.  I have to admit that occasionally I’d slip off my shoes and socks and use my toes to knead the dough.  I’m pretty sure I washed my feet first.           

Then came rolling it out to just the right thickness, and cutting it up.  Grandma simply cut the flattened dough into squares, but I wasn’t very good at judging the size.  I used an empty can as a cookie cutter.   It meant I’d have to roll out the excess dough again, but I was learning that you had to make choices in life.  I chose to have uniform sized Perogies.