I spent this morning the way I imagine my grandmother and my mother spent their days.
They cooked.
Every day.
From scratch.
But today I really tried to think about my grandmother - a woman I barely remember who lived with us for a few years until her death - and how her days were spent, caring for a house, and cooking for a husband and seven children. I was thinking about a particular time in her life, the summer of 1937. The first summer after my grandfather had died, but while several of her children were still at home.
I started by going to my deck garden (she would have gone to her garden behind the house on 10th Street in the southwest Indiana town) and gathering a few things for today - kale, greens, chives, tarragon - then watering in advance of a hot day. Her garden was likely fenced against animal intruders. Mine is relatively untouched even in an area where heron are seen at the pond a few yards away, deer wander across nearby streets and packs of coyotes have been spotted in my little Michigan town.
After putting away my harvest (I'm am confident my grandmother had an icebox since my grandfather had been stationmaster for the Pennsylvania Railroad and could afford modern conveniences), I decided to bake. Logically she would have baked early in the day, before the house heated up. Baking was hot work without air conditioning, mixers, food processors and likely with poorly insulated ovens. Late in the day a kitchen might be hotter than it was outside, depending on where it was located in the house and if there were trees shading it. But cooking needed to be done because the other option was eating at a restaurant. More importantly, I think, in that time and in my mother's as well, cooking was expected.
I used a recipe on a worn 3x5 inch recipe card written in my mother's handwriting, making "Apple Sauce Cake De Luxe" clearly noted as "Mrs. Bartholome's". Although my mother was "Mrs. Bartholome" too, there was no mistaking that this was my grandmother's recipe.
The cake called for unsweetened applesauce which she would have very likely made previously. My mother made applesauce from Transparent apples, one of many varieties in our backyard. Fortunately I've found a source for those same apples and pulled a jar of last year's applesauce from the pantry.
The recipe didn't mention icing so I left the cake un-iced. I wanted the first taste to spur a memory of my grandmother or at least of having had this handed down recipe cake as a child. After it cooled, I cut a square and prepared to be transported. Nothing. The cake was good, really good. A neighbor on whose porch I'd left some while it cooled wrote an email to rave about it. I would make it again and enjoy it. But I can't use it to call up the memory I wanted. Yet, I still feel connected and that I know something about my Grandmother because of making that cake. I'd had the recipe forever but never made it. Now I have the memory of making it in honor of her and of my mother who preserved it.
In addition to applesauce, it has cocoa, nutmeg, cinnamon and more spices. I didn't follow the recipe exactly since they don't make Spry anymore, but I think my grandmother would have liked mine as much as I liked the experience of making it.
Here is the recipe just as it was handed down:
1/2 c. Spry
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs unbeaten
1 1/2 tsp. soda
2 c. sifted flour
3/4 c. dates, chopped
3/4 c. raisins, chopped
1 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
3/4 c. nuts, chopped
Blend Spry, spices and cocoa. Add sugar gradually and cream well. Add eggs singley, beating after each. Add soda to flour and sift three times. Sprinkle 2 Tbsp. flour over fruits. Add remaining flour to creamed mixture alternately with applesauce, mixing after each addition until smooth. Add nuts and floured fruits to batter and blend. Bake in 10x10" greased pan. 55-60 minutes at 350 degrees.
