The memories of food

Do you remember the wafting scents of dough rising in the oven on Tuesday afternoons? It was between Transformer wars, I’m pretty sure.

Then there were the dimly lit winter evenings when the house filled with taunts of a roast beef, your mind barely able to concentrate on the homework spread out before you. Dinner those nights was a happy distraction from algorithms and five-paragraph essays.

I suppose, too, you recall the trips to see Gram and Gramps — greeted, every blazing hot summer, with watermelon popsicles that stuck to your lips. They were so incredibly sweet, it took days to wash the sugar off your face.

I remember some of these things. But lately, I’ve had recurring dreams of the food I enjoyed as a little nothing of a man in Germany. I was barely 12, if memory serves me still, when my family would pile into a whale of a Volkswagen and putter down the autobahn to visit my German cousins. They lived in an idyllic little dorf on the border with France — a village named Klingenmünster.

Every trip down to the lush hills and vineyard-blanketed countryside in that region was something of a realized fantasy — a postcard world that might only be experienced in the writings of Lewis Carroll. But every summer and fall, we would see those fictions made real, running like mad around the castle of a house they called home. In my mind’s eye, there were soaring balconies and lavish Victorian couches, ornately framed paintings and imposing glass steins. In the kitchen — where my family spent much of our time — I remember the dark wood cabinets and the voluptuous curves of the window frames. Outside, tiles paved a rustic patio with rows of vines dancing in the distance under the fog.

Like any good Steens, we spent our vacations in Klingemünster eating. There were roasts and sausages, cheeses that tickled the nose and breads that made you swoon. For many a midday feast, the rabbit farmer down the road would slaughter his own stock and bring three heads up for a meal or two. After our bellies bulged, we rolled down to his barns and played with the rabbits that remained — skittish creatures, but playful and full of personality.

Every trip — short or long, rainy or sunny, cold or warm — my German aunt would toil over her tiny stove to make an enormous pot of Bohnensuppe, or bean soup. To a 10-year-old weaned on the best food of the West, there was nothing more satisfying than a bowl or two or three of this masterpiece: plump beans simmered with carrots and celery, vying for space in a broth brimming with smoked sausage and ham. I inhaled every bowl they served me.

Like so many dishes of childhood renown, Bohnensuppe simply couldn’t be duplicated. I never bothered to ask for the recipe and, I’m pretty sure, my mother left the dish in my aunt’s purview — something of a delicacy to be enjoyed only during trips to Klingenmünster.

This past summer, I returned to Germany after 20 years in absentia, my stomach grumbling for the meals that sustained me as a kid. But the memories I had stored of happy days past didn’t quite match what I experienced in adulthood. Logic may tell us that people grow older, times change, and memories will not be re-lived, but it’s hard to reconcile that with what we crave. For me, the core of my craving was a steaming hot bowl Aunt Rosi’s inimitable Bohnensuppe.

I will tell you that memory served me well in this case, however. Yes, aunt and uncle had aged — they’re in their 70s now. And yes, the entire fortress of a house I remember is a bit smaller than it seemed 20 years ago. But some things never change, and Bohnensuppe was one of them. The thick, meaty broth; the weighty white beans; the bright, tender vegetables; the gentle smoke; the earthy sausages. It was all perfect.

I returned to Denver in late September, intoxicated by the rekindling of relationship. There was something in me that believed in the invincibility of my cousins, my aunt, and my uncle.

If 20 years had passed and they were still alive and well; if the chairs and couches in their living room had not moved or sagged; if their humor was still bright; and if Bohnensuppe still made its way to the table, then it would always be there — all of it. It was eternal.

But a few weeks ago, I got an email from my dad. Not good news, he said. My Uncle Willi was in the hospital for a tumor in December. He seemed to recover well but then, found himself back in a hospital bed on New Year’s Eve. Blood poisoning, Dad said. All those years of drinking and smoking.

Suddenly, the farce of eternity vanished. Reality set in. Some day, and perhaps some day soon, the smiling faces of Klingenmünster would disappear. The house would age and cripple. The vineyards would wither. The green turn to brown. And the soup — that life-giving soup of my youth — would become nothing more than a distant memory.

Maybe it is just a soup, but it’s a powerful one. It stands for everything I loved as a child and everything that was possible in my future. It was a comfort and a consolation. It was family and it was safety. It was home. And now, 32 years old and half a world away, all I can do is watch it fade into the dark fog of a Klingemünster yesteryear.