4 February, 2022

Classic Goulash Denny Style (Granny’s Jumbo Gums)

Comments : 1 Posted in : A Pellman Original, Beef, Favorites, My Favorites, Pasta, Story on February 4, 2022 by : Dennis Pellman Tags: favorites, Story

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The Story of Granny’s  “Jumbo Gums”

I grew up living in a two family home.  My family lived on the second floor and my grandparents , my mom’s mom and dad, lived on the first floor.  I lived there until the end of my Junior year of college  which is when I got married, and  purchased my first home. 

My grandpa drove an18 wheeler, my grandma, who I called Nanny, worked in a candy factory, Greaters.   They were very basic blue collar people who had experienced and lived through some tough and demanding times in their life including the “Great Depression”.  I spent a great deal of time with them.  It was almost like having two sets of parents.  Spending time with them meant sharing meals, especially dinner.  The meals Granny prepared were influenced greatly by having to stretch what little food they had during those tough times.  One evening meal  for example was a small portion of meat along with potatoes with a large serving of gravy.  The next dinner was simply left over gravy from the previous meal along with a slice or two of bread.  Another “Depression” influenced meal was stretching hamburger by adding noodles and whatever else was available.  I loved that hamburger and noodle meal as well as gravy bread night.  Eventually, after my grandpa passed away and I moved to New York due to a job transfer, my parents moved into my first home. I became my parent’s landlord, and granny moved in with them. Granny would occasionally cook for my mom and dad.  One night she made one of her signature dishes, hamburger and noodles, and my dad asked her what she called it.  Granny replied, “I don’t have a name for it”.  He looked at the dish and said, “ jumbo gums”.  From that point on that is what my family affectionately called this dish.

The following recipe is my version of Granny’s Jumbo Gums which of course includes some ingredients which were not available when Granny was first making this dish.  She never had a written recipe so this was the best I could do while still attempting to respect the integrity of the original recipe.  Full disclosure……… I also took the liberty to enhance the original dish.  Her original recipe includes one or her most important ingredients, bay leaves.  Bay leaves seemed to be used in everything she cooked.  When I would come across one in my food I would be sure to suck every bit of  the  flavor out of it.  Renee’ took this tradition one more step with her children concerning the bay leaves.  She would reward whoever came across a bay leaf in their food with a $1 bill.  I am sure the game was fixed.