Posted on 04/12/2005 4:24:03 PM PDT by SJackson
As I stood there looking in my mother's cedar chest, I fought back tears.
Eighty years of my mother's life were represented in this mahogany box she referred to as her "Hope Chest." And now, weeks after her funeral, I was the only one of my 12 remaining siblings who would take on the task of distributing all of mom's accumulated and handcrafted items. Yet somehow I managed to get through the task without shedding a tear; and then lost it when I got to my mother's cookbook from her mother.
Sobs spilled forth as I held that old cookbook. My first ceremonial baking lesson came from this book by way of my mother 56 years earlier, when I was 12 years old and living on the Rock River in Ashippun.
I can still hear her gentle voice saying to me: "Learning to make bread is a rite of passage, a journey back to your family history. So today we are going on a journey."
She spoke of how her journey with her mother began much the same way, as they, too, stood at an old wooden kitchen table wearing aprons her mother also made from a flour sack.
"You take this much flour," she instructed. "Dump those six cups in a large bowl. Then you add one cake of yeast, crumbling it into the flour. Take the cooled two cups of boiled milk in which we melted the ¼ cup of lard (butter), and mix this with the flour and yeast. Here, now you do it," she said.
Using her wooden spoon to mix this gooey mess, I had no idea what I was going to end up with. Certainly not bread at this point, I thought. Yet, I knew my mother would give me a hint when I got to the right stage in the process.
After all the ingredients were blended, mother said, "Now you must turn this dough out onto the floured table and knead it until smooth and satiny, about eight or 10 minutes. You do that by 'working' the dough. Working the dough means rolling and folding it over and over using your hands like this."
While mother had me working the dough, she put the teakettle on - a sign that this also was going to be a lesson in listening without interruptions.
She began by speaking about her farm days and how the town's folks considered their family to be poor because they had so many children. But the family never let those remarks bother them because they never felt poor, nor did they really lack for anything, Mom quickly added.
"In fact, we were always dressed nicer than most. That's because my Mom patterned and sewed all of us children the latest fashions she saw in the catalogs. Mother had a knack for re-patterning old clothes and flour sack material to create us the latest styles. She also had a knack for creating tasty meals from fresh or garden canned fruits and vegetables, wild game, chicken, beef, pork and wild game, farm fresh milk and eggs, which produced homemade pies, cakes, cookies and baked bread. Bread that my mother taught me how to make from her handed-down recipe, taught to her from her mother's mother, she noted.
"Speaking of bread, Mom," I said, hesitant to interrupt her reminiscing, "it's been 10 minutes. You need to inspect my kneaded dough."
Mom ran her hand over the dough's surface, and murmured, "Very smooth. Just like what I was taught from my mother. Now you must place the dough in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the dough's other side."
After doing that, I covered the bowl with a clean, damp dishtowel and set the bowl in a warm place for the dough to rise, doubling in bulk, per my mother's instructions.
While the dough was rising, we sipped tea. And mother continued telling me about her world growing up with her nine brothers and sisters on a 120-acre farm in Wisconsin Rapids. She talked of games they played like "Red Rover, Red Rover," and "Ante, Ante Over" during her one-room school days. She described her one-room school much like the one in the "Little House On The Prairie" book. She recalled how each row of desks represented a grade, and how they had to wear coats, hats and boots in school during winter because the room wasn't insulated and only had a small wood-burning stove.
"In fact, chopping ice off our drinking water in the school room during sub-zero temperatures or running outdoors to the outhouse to relieve ourselves would be considered a cruel hardship for the children of today," she said with a chuckle.
On and on she went, relating stories of her prairie day existence, about how she helped plow the fields, plant crops, bale hay, milk cows, slop the pigs, feed the chickens, gather the eggs, pick berries and all the other fun and adventure they had mixed in with the dawn-to-dusk farm work.
As she continued talking about those days, a rosy blush covered her make-up-free face, and her hazy eyes sparkled and danced. It was plain to see she genuinely enjoyed all the good times of her farm life, even through there were many hardships.
"Landsakes," mother gasped. "I almost forgot about the bread dough. Bread dough, you know, is a lot like life," she added. "If you allow things in your life to get out of control, they can consume you."
With the bread dough being doubled in size, almost spilling over the bowl, mother showed me how to punch it down again and set it aside, but this time for only 30 minutes. During that time, mother also revealed some of her childhood antics of tossing live chickens at her brothers when they walked around the corner of the chicken coop, scaring the "hellion" out of them. Or sneaking up on her brothers, tossing a bucket of water over their heads so their mother could hear them cuss and punish them.
Again, Mom got so into her life story that she forgot about the bread dough, which was ballooning over the bowl, and I once more had to interrupt her.
"Gracious me," she said. "I'm getting just as long-winded as your granddad with the spinning of his yarns. But lordy, time sure has a way of slipping by a person. I guess that's why we should see and seize the best in every moment. Hurry child, we need to shape this dough into loaves, place them into two greased bread pans and let them rise for 30 more minutes."
As soon as the dough rose above the sides of the bread pans, with me being anxious to see the "fruits of my labor," I hastened to place it in the oven at 350 degrees. Thirty minutes later, I removed the bread from the oven to cool. Seeing the two perfect loaves of bread, Mom gave a sigh of satisfaction, and, looking over at me with a grin, said, "There. Now that's a job well done."
And somehow I knew she meant more than just the making and baking of the homemade bread.
BTTT
Well worth bumping.
Few things are as precious as learning to cook from a loved one. My 89 year old grandmother stayed with me for a couple of months last year, (my love of cooking surely came from her and the years spent in her kitchen), she taught me how to make and can "French Kraut", a sweet cabbage, pepper onion in a vinegar sauce, one of the best moments in my life. Wonderful post FRiend.
"Bread making a rite of passage"
I still remember the first time I poured the white bread packet into the bread maker and pushed the button to make it run. I will treasure that memory always.
It's a LOT more fun than learning to grocery shop from a love one, more common today.
LOL!
Me too. I've always wanted to bake my own bread.
Every time I try the old fashioned way, I get biscuits.
Ping!
Or .... learning how to order at McDonald's from a loved one.....nice story.
As the poster of this article, what is your take SJackson?
Homemade bread ... dee-licious!
Do what I do - put in 50% more yeast than the recipe calls for. That, and "best for bread" flour and you can hardly ever fail.
Bout ready to get together and get some bread baking?
I learned to make bread from my mom, my kids do it in a machine. But they know about breaking ice, outhouses (and fields), gardens, game, et al.
Heh.
I taught myself how to make bread. Mom usually baked the quick bread types like biscuits or popovers. She made the raised kind occasionally, but I wasn't watching at the time.
I think you'll enjoy this. I had the same conversation with my Mom while learning to make bread. (I never did get the hang of it. That's why they make bread machines.)
It was my Grandmother who made the bread. After I was out on my own I bought a large cutting board table and took a bread making class. Pretty soon I had Challah, Rye, Sourdough, Whole Wheat, and Regular White Bread. Yum.
My mom didn't make bread that often. But when she did, she pulled out all the stops. We had an electric grain mill and ground the flour fresh. She made cinnamon rolls (with store-bought flour) every Christmas Eve, though, and that's a tradition I'm continuing.
A good friend of mine gave me her father's bread machine. I HATED it.
I love making bread. I loved this story. I really need to teach my girls to bake bread.
There was nothing better to come home to on a cold winter day than Mom's home made bread, fresh churned butter, and piping hot stewed tomatoes. If I close my eyes, I can almost taste it. Yum! It even smelled wonderful. We'd dive on it and devour every bite, while she stood in the corner, smiling at the seven of us. I think she enjoyed it as much as we did.
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