Recipes of Home #5 - NOSTALGIA

NOSTALGIA

You can have more than one home. You can carry your roots with you and decide where they grow.  – Henning Mankell

 

Anna Adams shares this story and recipe:

“My Dad would have turned 100 in June of this year. He passed in 2009, Dec. 22. His mom used to make and steam this “pudding” (cake) in an empty 5 pound lard bucket, they were metal and had a handle. It kept for months and the family would have it for a treat throughout the winter. My Mom used to make it for him every fall, and helped me make a batch when I was in my thirties. It is a hard mix, not all wooden spoons survive. After the chosen vessels are filled with batter, they are covered with foil and tied below the rims to keep the moisture from turning it to liquid. When coffee used to come in metal tins, I would use them, but now I use stainless steel bowls.  

When the kettle is stacked with puddings and simmering away, one must keep an eye on the water level in the kettle and add more boiling water as it evaporates.  

I do not particularly care for the end product, but my brother Philip occasionally asks for some. It’s been a few years since I made this, I hope he is not still sawing pieces of the old batch off with his jack knife to snack on when he stokes his furnace.  

No one has asked to be schooled in this process, nor am I eager to create interest in the chore of gathering ingredients and vessels to make another batch. My steaming kettle has been passed on to another brother, the task shall be his, should there be a call for more plum pudding.”

 

Anna’s story and accompanying recipe give me a sense of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically a period or place with happy memories. In this case, it is a happy memories shared over generations in a family.

Take a close look at the picture of the recipe. There are notes added by different hands over the years, including “Mom didn’t use much because dad doesn’t like it.” The recipe is a picture of home shared from one generation to the next. It gives me pause to appreciate my ancestors and what has been passed on to me. I wonder what I am to pass on from the ancestors to the next generation?

 

Gramma’s Plumb Pudding

2 cups  suet

Or ¾ cups shortening + ½ cup butter

 

1 cup               molasses

1 ½ cups          brown sugar

2 or 3               eggs

2 large spoons of each: cinnamon, cloves, allspice

½ tsp   salt

½ tsp   soda

¼ cup  milk

2 lbs     raisins

2 lbs     currants

1 cup   mixed peel

5 cups flour

Steam covered pudding in a large pot over boiling water 3-4 hours

 

PRAYER- Stir up is us a spirit of discernment, to attune to what we have received from our Ancestors and determine what to share with future generations. May we add our own wisdom to that which we have received. Amen.