Week three will be sharing family recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation. Laura told of the varied meals, special sweets, and holiday fare that Pa provided and Ma so lovingly prepared in all the locations where they lived. Almanzo even shared in good fresh farm food fare in Farmer Boy. Did your grandmother make the best fresh apple cake? Did your aunt make melt in your mouth molasses crinkle cookies? Mine did! Perhaps you will begin the tradition of handing down a current family favorite, share it! This week you can link up to share your family recipes and tell us a story of where and how they were served and why this particular recipe means so much to you.
Nana's Pumpkin Bars
Cream 4oz butter and 1 cup sugar add 1 beaten egg, then 1/2 cup cold mashed pumpkin. Sift in 1 1/2 cups plain flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teas. ginger. 1/2 teas allspice, 1/2 teas carb soda and pinch salt then 1/2 cup chopped dates and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts mix well. Spread in flat tin. Bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes.
The recipe is before metric came in. I went to school and learnt imperial then metric came in and I remember my Nana discussing it after buying milk I think at the shop. She was discussing it with the lady she worked for. I think the question they posed was how could you buy a pint of milk. Is that the size it came in, anyway, whatever they usually ask for obviously changed.
I like recipes that are not metric. My Nana I think told me how to cut up a lb. of butter to bake with. I know what 4oz of butter looks like. Butter now is like 1/2lb in Australia, not the full square like it used to be. She lived in a village sized town and bought her butter from the shop. I am pretty sure we had ours delivered. Usually they came with a brown paper bag around them to keep them clean.
Recently my husband came home from the grocery shop with his groceries in his hands. Nana did this too, with smaller amounts. Of course you don't get nice bags for your cold things now. Maybe he should have popped something into a plastic fruit bag. Our supermarket has banned plastic shopping bags, and he doesn't know how to get a box. I said you have to look on the back wall where you came in to see if there are any boxes left before you buy anything. They mostly have something as their system has had the bugs taken out of it I hope by now.
Another thing you will notice about the recipe is bicarb or carb soda. That is what we call Baking Soda. These days the American way of saying the same thing is often printed on the package with the traditional Australian name.
Pumpkin is a favourite in Australia. My daughter was playing Home Among The Gum Trees on Youtube a couple of days ago. Her class is dressing up and singing it today.
by W. Johnson and B. Brown
I've been around the world a couple of time, or maybe more,
I've seen the sights, I've had delights on ev'ery foreign shore,
But when my friends all ask me the place that I adore,
I tell them right away.
Give me a home among the gum trees
With lots of plum trees, a sheep or two, a kangaroo.
A clothesline out the back, verandah out the front
And an old rocking chair.
You can see me in the kitchen cooking up a roast,
Or vegemite on toast, just you and me, a cup of tea.
Later on, we'll settle down and mull up on the porch
And watch the possums play.
Give me a home among the gum trees.
With lots of plum trees, a sheep or two, a kangaroo.
A clothesline out the back, verandah out the front
And an old rocking chair.
There's a Safeway on the corner and a Woolworths down the street,
A New World's just been opened where they regulate the heat,
But I'd trade them all tomorrow for the simple bush retreat
Where the kookaburras call.
Give me a home among the gum trees.
With lots of plum trees, a sheep or two, a kangaroo.
A clothesline out the back, verandah out the front
And an old rocking chair.
Some people like their houses with fences all around,
Others live in mansions, and some beneath the ground,
But me, I like the bush, you know, with rabbits running round
And a pumpkin vine out the back.
Give me a home among the gum trees.
With lots of plum trees, a sheep or two, a kangaroo.
A clothesline out the back, verandah out the front
And an old rocking chair.
We boil our pumpkin or roast it with our roast meat. I have only had one can of pumpkin.
I made Nana's pumpkin bars, and also tried American Colonial bars. I think I improved on Nana's recipe a little. It seems like we both shared a love for collecting American recipes. Australian cakes like that would be called a slice. Nana's collected a lot of slice recipes. She always had cake to take with her on the train. She went every week during football season to watch the games in the city. Her cake was put into an icecream container in pieces so it didn't have to be cut.
I bought some American pumpkin pie spice from www.usafoods.com.au that was a treat for me. Such a tiny canister.
I think the favourites from Laura's books where what Caroline served Nellie for the visit, and also the candy made in the snow.
The most special thing I think I remember Nana making were sponge lillies.
Nana bought walnuts in their shells. She cracked them with a hammer on newspaper. I helped sometimes and put them in a jar I think. Walnuts were a special feature of my growing up. The cockatoos had to be scared away from the trees on the neighbour's farm. We had a non-working walnut orchard that my Great Grandma planted. I love walnut trees. We planted one at our hometown where I lived after leaving my childhood farm. It wasn't the same climate and it died. I am planning an orchard now and live in a cool climate so should buy one soon.
I have been thinking about simple living. My kind of simple living is not so much decreasing income or asking my husband to take a less stressful job, it is having those things like the pumpkin vine , at the moment living a long way from Safeway, does anyone remember when Coles was called New World?
Please click on the picture to be taken to Quill Cottage.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - Untitled Comment
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