It’s an onerous task to contend with 40 years of household matter when a loved one dies. So it was when my husband’s grandfather, Opa, passed away this spring. He kept everything. Fortunately, he kept books, and we left his house with a small library. On the culinary shelf, I found a tattered copy of Butte’s Heritage Cookbook, edited by Jean McGrath and published by the Butte-Silver Bow Bi-Centennial Commission in 1976.
My husband’s family lived in Big Sky Country for many years, and we both earned our journalism degrees at the University of Montana in Missoula. Suffice it to say, I’m a Montana fan. Big time. One of my best college buddies comes from Butte, and she used to tell me stories about skipping school to spend the day with Evel Knievel, the town’s second claim to fame. The first, of course, was copper mining, which boomed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Back then, Butte was home to nearly 100,000 people from 50 ethnic backgrounds. The town was the most cosmopolitan culinary spot between Chicago and San Francisco. And the cookbook contains 290 pages of recipes and lore from around the world. What a find—everything from Native American pemmican (dried meat pounded into a paste) to Laksloota (the Finnish casserole of salmon, onion, and potatoes) to Yugoslavian krvavice (blood pudding) to Thai-style chicken curry (courtesy of one Mrs. Chandruang, a student from Thailand). Not only that, the book is full of local history and tidbits—pretty much everything you’d ever want to know about Butte. Take for example the Success Cafe, noted as the smallest in the world at 3 feet wide and 13 feet long, with one table to seat four. It’s no longer there, but Pork Chop John’s is—and that’s as good a reason as any to visit Butte.
Pinterest
