Pa g e 2 Gho s t T o w n s a n d Hi st o r y o f Mo n t a n a N e w s l e t t er A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF MEADERVILLE, MONTANA AND LYDIA'S My dad, Rudy Giecek, was born and raised in Butte, Montana, specifically Meaderville, Montana which was an mostly Italian-American suburb of Butte. Meaderville was named after Charles T. Meader in 1880. Meaderville was swallowed up by the Berkeley Pit, an open pit mine, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, lost forever except in stories and fading memories of its past citizens. Meaderville was in its own right a story upon itself with its abundance of restaurants, taverns, night clubs and specialty grocery stores. So much so, that it earned the nickname “Little Monte Carlo.” Lydia, a world famous Italian style restaurant in Butte, began its life in Meaderville before moving to the Flats in 1946 where it is still currently operating in still much the same way it was back in its early days, good food and plenty of it. A year ago, I was going through my parents’ belongings in preparation for moving out of the house (a long story in its own right involving the state taking said house after my parents’ passing) and discovered one of the cookbooks that my grandmother had given to my mom. Inside it was a couple of pieces of paper with some handwritten notes, some looking like my mom’s and the rest in some hard to read script. “What the hell,” I thought, “It’s been a few days since I wrote a blog!” and settled down into some translations. THE RAVIOLI RECIPE ~DOUGH~ 3 Cups of Flour 3 Eggs 1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1/2 Tablespoon Salt About 2/3 Cup Warm Water (NOTE FROM ME: No instructions on making the dough. We assume you know what to do! If you screw up, the spirit of my grandma will come back and kill you! Just kidding, she was a sweet lovely lady, my grandfather though will kill you!!!) ~FILLING~ 1 Cup Lean Ground Pork 1 Cup Cooked and Ground Chicken 1 Cup Cooked and Ground Veal 1 Cup Cooked chopped Spinach 1/2 Cup Parsley 1/2 Cup Ground Celery 1/2 Cup Ground Onion 1 Cup Bread Crumbs (soaked in chicken broth) 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1/2 teaspoon Allspice 1/4 teaspoon sage 3 Extra Large Eggs 2 cloves of ground garlic
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