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.
I do it half in the machine, half by hand. I let the machine do the mixing and some rising, then I pull it out, hand knead it, shape it how I want it, then do the second rise (or 3rd, I'm not real precise, I pretty much set the machine on "pizza dough" then pull it out and do my own thing with it :lol: .
I have carpal tunnel in one hand so minimizing the kneading helps my wrists. But finishing it up myself is satisfying, plus since we really like crust around here I usually end up making rolls, not bread.
LQ
The first project My family undertook nearly eight years ago, when we got our first mighty 486 computer, was to produce a family cookbook.
My mother and my mother-in-law both had personal cookbooks that included hadwritten recipes and clippings. We scanned the handwritten ones and typed in the clippings. We printed out the results, one recipe per page, put them in clear plastic sleeves, and made books for ourselves, our children and our siblings.
My Grama got the bread started every Sunday morning while making breakfast. There was so much to do that I just always remember working on bread with her.
Later, when I moved out in the country myself and my house didn't have central heat I used bread baking to heat the house. At that time the bread-baking between us kinda switched from her to me. She always looked forward to me driving up with a nice warm loaf when the weather got cold. It was a nice circle. She swore I baked the best bread, but mine is exactly how she made it every Sunday of my kidhood. :-)
Shut up, dope.
That's OK. I love biscuits, with gravy or just butter n' jam.
Great story...my mom always made homemade bread, coffee cakes and such...I always loved the smell of the bread, while rising...the smell of yeast was all over the house, and we knew something yummy was coming...
When my boys were growing up, during the winter months, Sunday, was always homemade bread, and homemade soup day...I made lots of different sorts of bread all day long, and had a big pot of one sort or another of homemade soup going on the stove...
That sure brings back lots of wonderful memories...
My 9 year old learned to bake bread this past winter. She makes wonderful bread though I usually help knead. We make four loaves at a time and the dough is too much for her to handle for the 20 minutes of kneading my recipe calls for. I usually do the initial kneading and when the ball is contained I let her finish.
My grandmother was a baker extraordinaire. While I was growing up (forties & fifties) she baked everything, from bread to laced crust pies.
Of course, being as my grandfather was a baker by trade, it kind of ran in the family.
This should make you laugh. My grandmother, who raised six children, even polished my grandfathers high top work shoes every night, including the soles, and had them sitting just outside the kitchen door ready for him at 2am when he went to work.
She was quite the woman. I still can hear her saying ... "Buddy, do you want a cookie?" ;)
My grandmother was raising kids and helping with grandfather's lumber business in Czechoslovakia during WWII. In addition to her regular work, she had to deal with wartime shortages and air raids. Recipes had to be modified to work around missing ingredients. They made their own beer, wine, ersatz coffee, and bread, of course. Clothing was carefully mended and altered to accommodate children's growth during the long years of shortages during and after the war.
One of my great treasures is grandmother's treadle Singer sewing machine. My relatives recently arranged to ship it to me. When I think of the countless hours she sat at that machine, sewing for her family, I'm inspired by her love and diligence. I didn't have much time with her because of the Iron Curtain years, but the memories are good ones.
* bump *
We must be related as my ancestors came from Bohemia. ;)
It's not a very big nation - we could be related. Mom's family is from Moravia (Zdar nad Sazavou) and Dad's is from Bohemia (Pardubice area). Where do your ancestors hail from?
my mother in law taught me how to make bread and I loved kneeding the dough and waiting for it to rise...but the best part is how it smelled while it was baking and how it tasted!
Ah, memories.
"Bout ready to get together and get some bread baking?"
hee hee yeah.
Heh, Maybe that's what we both need! :-)
Thanks for posting, it sure brings back memories.
My grandmother taught me to make bread, my mother made great biscuits, but never caught the hang of making bread. I did, though, and taught my daughter and DIL.
Over last Christmas, the grandkids and I made bread together, then braided the dough after the first rising, made it into a wreath, let it rise again, and baked it into a huge brown round loaf...at Christmas supper they could hardly wait to break the hot loaf, and dip it in melted garlic butter...
The smell of nearly finished bread in the oven--one of the best things about being alive...
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