Down From Hand to Hand, Apples & Thyme

Inge of Vanielje Kitchen and Jeni from The Passionate Palate are hosting a beautiful Blog Event until the 10th of November. It's called Apples & Thyme ~ a celebration of mothers and grandmothers and time spent with with them in the kitchen . I was very excited when I found out about it as I am a real family type of person, and the women in my family have always been very important to me.



I'm very lucky in that I have been given photos through the years of various Great Grandmother's and Great Aunts and Aunts and I was old enough before most of them passed on, that I can remember them fairly well. All except for my Great Great Grandmother that is.



My Great Great Grandmother was a woman named Ida McNayr Smith. Her grandfather had emmigrated to Nova Scotia from Scotland as a young boy of 8 and become a Blacksmith there. Those were harsh times in a very rural, wild and young country. A lot of the recipes in my family have been handed down from those harsh times and incorporate very simple ingredients. Living in wilderness meant lots of hard work. Houses had to be built, land had to be cleared, food had to be grown and hunted. There was not a lot of time for what they might have deemed as "fancy" cookery, nor was there the availability of fancy ingredients. Life was harshest of all for the Scots who settled in Nova Scotia. The French had been able to make friends with the native Indians living there, called the Micmacs. The English and the Germans received rations, weapons and tools from the British Goverment. The New Englanders or Loyalists that came up during the American Revolution arrived armed with a knowledgeable experience of colonial life.

The Scots, however arrived poverty stricken, having been driven from their lands by the fall of the Clan system and the outrageously high rents imposed on them by landlords. They had no money and few personal effects, other than the clothing they wore. They were also highly un-educated and had the added disadvantage of not being accustomed to the type of land they were now faced in clearing and making their lives upon. They were a hardy lot though and determined and so they accepted the challenges set before them and thrived. I come from such stock as this.



My Grandmother, Nina Best was the Grand-daughter of Ida McNayr Smith. She, too, was a strong and determined woman. Bringing up a family during the Great Depression when employment was scarce, and money in short supply, meant hardship and economy on a grand scale. There was no place for "fancy" cookery or meals in those days either. This is the only picture I have of my grandmother. She was a very shy woman, and, even in this picture, she has her face buried in her breast.



I loved my Grandmother Nina more than words could ever say. She died when I was only six years old but, for the first year of my life I had lived with her. I was a very difficult baby and being my mother's first, she was a very nervous mother and could not cope with me, and so I was taken to my grandmother's loving arms very early on in my life. I stayed there until I was much older and my mother past her nervousness, but that first year of my life, spent in her tender care, forged a bond with my grandmother that I don't think any of the other grandchildren ever had.

I have loving and warm memories of cuddling into her lap and snuggling into her ample bosom. I can still smell her warmth. She smelled like spice and woodsmoke ... she smelled like love. She would sing to me lovely songs and I can still hear her shy voice whispering in my ear how much she loved me and cared for me. She was a fantastic cook. My mother can tell stories of wonderful meals prepared by her mother's loving hands and how good everything always tasted. She used to make wonderful soups and stews, beautiful fluffy loaves of bread, flaky pies filled with lovely fruit and meat fillings. My mother says that when she trys to cook the meals her mother prepared, they never taste the same somehow. . . but that is the way it always seems to go.



My own mother was not a fancy cook either. My dad didn't like a lot of spice in things and so she was never allowed to let her flights of fancy take hold or to explore her culinary fantasies to any great degree. She was a good cook though. Her home Baked Beans were legendary, as was her Pea and Ham Soup. Somehow mine never taste quite the same . . . not sure what the missing ingredient is, but I expect that oftimes things get built up in our memories and minds so much that we can never hope to replicate them in reality.



So it is with these cookies. This is a Molasses Cookie recipe that has been handed down generation to generation. My mom says her's never taste as good as her mother's did and mine, of course, do not taste as good as my memory of my mother's. I suspect that they all taste exactly the same, and that it is the memories of a mother's loving ministrations that make the difference. My own daughters will probably say the same about mine . . . love is the secret ingredient.

When I first got this recipe it was scribbled on the back of an envelope in my grandmother's un-educated scrawl in pencil that was beginning to fade quickly. She used to use rendered bacon fat in these, but one can scarcely afford the risk to one's health or cholesterol these days to be so indulgent! Oven temperatures were not given, nor were directions. Those I had to figure out by myself. Here is my interpretation of the "family" cookie. Simple and plain, wholesome and good. These are the stuff that dreams are made of . . .



*Grammy Woodworth's Molasses Cookies*
Makes approximately 4 dozen

Handed down through four generations of women in my family, this is the cookie that would have always held place of pride in the larder. Wonderfully fragrant when they were baking, a couple of these and a tall glass of cold milk were a special treat for us children after school on a cold winter's day.

1 cup sugar
1 cup mild molasses
1 cup of hot melted vegetable shortening
(my grandmother used rendered bacon fat)
2 medium eggs
3 heaping teaspoons of ground ginger
1 tsp salt
4 teaspoons of baking soda, stirred into 1/2 cup of hot water
enough flour to make a stiff dough (approximately 4 - 5 cups)

Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/375*F. Lightly grease several baking sheets and set aside.

Put the sugar and the molasses into a large bowl. Pour the hot fat over them and mix it all together very well. Allow it to cool until it is just warm to the touch and then beat in the eggs. Mix in the ginger and the salt, along with the water and soda. Stir in the flour a little at a time until it is all incorporated. No amount of flour was given in the original recipe but I find that it ranges anywheres between 4 and 5 cups. This seems to depend on the weather and humidity. Some days 4 cups is enough and others I need more. You need a dough that is pliable without being sticky.



Dust the counter with some flour and roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a floured 3 1/2 inch fluted cookie cutter. Place onto the greased baking sheets, leaving 2 inches of space in between each. Gather the scraps and re-roll until all the dough is used up. Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until dry to the touch and lightly browned on the bottom. Don't overbake. They should be nice and soft to the bite. Delicious!