Hello and welcome to a birthday Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is March 9th and it's the Sixth Grader's birthday!
Recently, I heard an interview on public radio titled: The ‘kitchen ghosts’ of Black Appalachia who guide Crystal Wilkinson in which former poet laureate of Kentucky Wilkinson asks her audience, "Who are your kitchen ghosts and what do they help you cook?" Kitchen ghosts are people from your past with whom you associate a certain recipe and/or culinary memories. As Wilkinson describes in her cookbook, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks, these ghosts of culinary pasts peek over our shoulders, stirring nostalgia in our hearts for family favorites, secret recipes passed through the generations, or just a good dollop of love that warms the body with savory sensations.
My favorite memories are those unsprung by the senses. Spying a certain angle of dirt road winding through tall pine trees will remind me of the Czech Republic. The sound of waves lapping on sandy shores will remind me of childhood summers dreaming of my future. The spring scent of manure takes me right back to Belgium riding my bicycle on a narrow lane between farmers' fields to my friend's home in the next village. I know - it sounds weird and gross - but the memory of this trek over that land thirty years ago is so vivid and infused with hope, curiosity, and daydreams; I can't help but love it.
My paternal grandmother comes to mind right away when I think of my own kitchen ghosts. I think of her at least once a week if not more. My grandmother taught me how to scramble eggs - a technique I use to this day. She crosses my mind when I use the soup pot she gave me or when I wipe my hands on the dish towels she embroidered. My grandma was a gracious host, knowing how to create a feast with few items. I can't open a can of olives without recalling how she would place them in a bowl and set them on the table with a fancy serving spoon. When I chop pickles, I remember how she would place hers in a small crystal dish. My favorite: a single cylinder of jellied cranberries slid successfully from its can into a white Corelle bowl. Her small round table resembled a banquet. My own children surprised me once with their own memories of dinner at my grandmother's house enjoying all her little dishes and the variety of foods.
Last Saturday I went on an absolute baking blitz. It started with buchta, a simple coffee cake recipe from my mom in a set of recipe cards my sister-in-law made for me as a wedding gift. Over the years, I've learned to make it my own by improvising with whatever fruits I have on hand - a type of homage to my mother-in-law who first showed me a recipe is just a starting point. Saturday's version was a plain coffee cake with apples mixed into the batter and raspberries on top.
Chocolate chip cookies followed as do the memories of the man who helped me stir my first batch. As I cream the butter with the sugars, I think about how far I've come from his method of melting the butter completely. I follow the Tollhouse recipe like millions of others, but there's something about mine that makes them soft unlike everyone else's. His were too. A blessing from my special friend's kitchen spirit.
My favorite kitchen spirit moment last Saturday was that of my stepmother in the form of chocolate-covered peanut butter Ritz crackers. I haven't made these - or probably even eaten one - since I was a teenager. I pulled out the peanut butter and crackers and showed my kids how to blop the peanut butter onto the cracker then press the top cracker down gently. I melted the chocolate almond bark and handed over the warm bowl so they could dip to their hearts' content. Each kid's work was peaceful and unhurried. There was no bickering or complaints of sticky fingers. I like to think that Grandma Peg's loving hands from heaven guided and nudged them. I'm glad I remembered this holiday favorite cookie. I'm glad we made them on an ordinary Saturday. I'm glad for the kitchen ghosts.
Excellent post. My mother (1909-1982) had been a threshing camp cook during harvests here in NW Minnesota, cooking for large groups of hungry men. After she and my father were married, she was the one, at church, who was called upon to cook for big church suppers. She excelled filling our table at home during the holidays, especially lutefisk at Christmas. We always had leftovers when I was a kid; as though scaling things down was not her specialty. Nobody went hungry.
ReplyDeleteJack Pine Savage commenting here hidden by the ubiquitous "anonymous." Enewaze,
ReplyDeleteI, too, have many culinary memories and handwritten recipes in a small ring binder where I accumulated family recipes while I still lived in my original home with extended family. Actually, nearly all the recipes were from my maternal grandmother whose own mother had bee a cook in the Kaiser's kitchen. I learned so much standing at the hem of her apron. I still use that little black book; it is seductive with its immense variety. I really should type out my favorites as these original 5 x 3 inch as a lot of them are stained with sugars, juices and unidentifiable wops! Thanks for the memories, Kim.
ReplyDeleteMy ghosts are the Iron Chefs from Nippon, China and France. Bonsai!