Hanky Pankys

Growing up, I was lucky to be the child of parents with friends who loved my twin sister and me like their own. Dinner parties, cocktail hours, and weekends with friends were some of our favorite times to impress grown-ups with our comedy routines, fashion shows, and general antics. They tolerated all this gracefully and left their own impressions by including us in the festivities. As is the custom in the South, almost every group has its own signature delicacy, whether it was Molly’s homemade mustard, Diana’s toffee, or Sybil’s Bread. This recipe is one of those signature treats, with exotic ingredients that my vegetarian, natural grocery-loving mother usually did not have on hand: Velveeta, liquid smoke, and sausage being key ingredients. I only knew this as “the thing Toni makes” until recently when I aspired to include it in Snacky Hour. Only then did I find out it had a name and an origin: Hanky pankys, an appetizer hailing from Cincinnati. All of this makes sense now—Toni grew up in Ohio—but I’ll always remember eating it on a screen porch in Tennessee with the clink of ice and grown-ups laughing in the background.