Grandma's Cookbook

Hello all! Christine Johnson here today on the eve of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. I love this holiday because it's all about food and family (and American football). What's not to love?

Holiday food is especially poignant because it brings back taste memories. My mom's sweet potatoes and mincemeat (actually mince-fruit) pie instantly transport me to Thanksgivings past. Christmas comes with a load of food memories. One I can still taste today is my grandma's plum pudding.

Educational Point #1 - Traditional pudding does not come in a box. For those of us who grew up in the Jello generation, this kind of pudding is a rich and moist cake. 

When I began writing this November's book, Legacy of Love, I wanted the heroine to attempt to make my grandma's plum pudding. To portray this accurately, I needed the recipe. So I asked my mom if she had it. She didn't, but she remembered my grandma saying it included suet. Suet? I instantly thought of the blocks of greasy birdseed that we put out for the birds in the winter. That wonderful moist cake included birdseed?

Educational Point #2 - Suet doesn't have to have birdseed in it. Apparently it's fat rendered from beef, as opposed to fat from pork, which is called lard.

Though I figured that out, I was no closer to the actual recipe. After extending the search, one of my aunts not only had the recipe, she had the whole cook book! 

 

 

Here is the very page with the recipe, from the Modern Priscilla Cook Book from 1924. As you can see, it's very well-used. It's also called plum duff, though Grandma always called it plum pudding. She served the pudding with hard sauce, so called because of its texture. The firm butter and sugar sauce would melt on the warm pudding. Oh yum, I'm getting hungry! Maybe I should make it. Then I read the recipe.

 

Educational Point #3 - Older recipes can be less than precise.

 

First, the cook needs to mix a lot of dried fruits and nuts into the suet and let "ripen" for a week. Okay. How does one "ripen" fruit and nuts in fat? I suspect it does not involve a refrigerator. Cooking also involves steaming in molds for four hours at an unknown temperature. How? Alas my grandma didn't leave any notes in the margin for future generations, but she did tuck into the cook book a modern photocopy of an English Plum Pudding recipe with more detailed directions. Though I can understand this recipe more easily, it lacks the charm and simplicity of the 1924 version. My heroine, a novice cook, might have produced a perfect plum pudding instead of the catastrophe that summoned the hero to make a food rescue.

 

For me, Christmas will always recall the taste of my grandma's plum pudding. What special taste memories do you have for the holidays?



His goose was cooked by Pat Davids

November is here and Thanksgiving is so close I can smell the turkey roasting. Except, this year I'll be in Cancun Mexico for a wedding instead of chowing down on my favorite pumpkin pie and whipped cream. I know, poor little me. Boo hoo.

Anyway, I thought I'd talk about one of my special Thanksgiving memories. After more than fifty years it's hard to pick one Thanksgiving memory out of so many wonderful ones, but I got a chuckle thinking about this one and thought I'd share it with you.

My brothers, all four of them, were hunters. Pheasant, duck, quail, goose. You name it. If it had a season they shot it. One day, just before Thanksgiving, my brother Mark came in with two big geese. Now geese in the wild aren't like the ones that live here in the city and beg for bread crumbs in the park. Bagging a goose takes skill and luck and Mark had TWO.

Thanksgiving was at our house that year and Mom decided to cook the geese instead of the usual turkey. I admit they smelled good as they roasted throughout the morning. When everyone was assembled at the table, my mother brought them in. My brother Mark watched with pride as his trophies came to the table. After cautioning everyone to watch out for buckshot, mom carved them up.

My grandpa, as the oldest, got the first piece. He took a bite and nearly pulled his dentures out. After mulling his mouthful for a while, he gulped and looked at Mark. "You didn't shoot these.""But I did," Mark insisted. By this time we were all trying to eat the tougher-than-boot-leather birds and not having much success.

"Nope," said Grandpa, pushing his meat to the side of the plate. "This one died of old age when your gunshot scared him to death."We all laughed but I did feel bad for Mark and my mom. Thank goodness there was plenty of side dishes to go around and plenty of pumpkin pie to fill us up. No one when away hungry, but goose was never on the menu at our house again.

I invite you to share a less than perfect Thanksgiving memory. I'm sure you've had one or two.