Family Reunion and Barbecue

I have never been much of a cook. To me food has represented a good meal with good company. As I have grown up my parents and others have cooked as a way to bring the family together. This practice was taken to its extreme at the family reunion and barbeque this summer in Wisconsin.

My father’s side of the family has largely stayed in Wisconsin and Iowa, where they have long history of large family reunions. Unfortunately the last reunion occurred when I was two years old, and growing up in Seattle has only allowed me to meet a small subset of the people who show up at these reunions. The fiftieth wedding anniversary of my grandparents, the return of my aunt and uncle from a two year Peace Corps expedition in Ghana, and the high school graduation of my cousin gave the family too may things to celebrate, so it was decided that there would be another family reunion this summer.

The reunion needed a lot of food: a whole pig, 120 ears of corn, as well as many tubs of beans, potato salad, and ice cream. The pig roasted over five hours and needed little care, so my grandfather could socialize as he raised the lid to baste the pig and let other view his progress. The food attracted almost a hundred relatives to the reunion.

I took advantage of the family reunion to acquaint myself with people I would have never met otherwise. It was also fun to see family interacting as a whole. The food was great, even if I did spend most of my time running it in and out of the house. It’s likely there will never be another family reunion of this size, but I heard the previous one had also been called the last family reunion. I can only hope there will be another.