Flashback
While I'm not always thrilled to be living 10 minutes from my parents and the Mennonite community in which I grew up, it does have its perks - and borrowing a copy of The Mennonite Community Cookbook with duct tape for binding and my mom's handwriting inscribed on the cover page is one of them.
Actually, the journey of The Mennonite Community Cookbook into my kitchen has been something of an adventure. In the interest of finances, I decided to screw sentimentality and order a copy off of Amazon (as noted by J, I could purchase one for only $13). By some cunning twist of fate, or perhaps due to my own ineptitude, that copy got sent not to my address here in Massillon, but the one I'd lived at three years ago in Portland, Oregon. In a panic that January would draw to a close before I got my cookbook in the mail, I did what I should have done in the first place: I called my mother.
Frankly, I didn't even know if she had a copy, but she ensured me that she did and that it had been consulted often. "You'll find mostly farm cooking in there," she warned me. She recommended the Date Pudding which she and my grandma had both made on different occasions, and which is "so easy." This would be quite a contrast from the recipes in the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook I got for Christmas from a close friend of mine, in which at least one ingredient per recipe is not available in my local grocery store.
So Date Pudding I did make. Specifically, Date Pudding II, since after examining both recipes, that one looked easier. Mary Emma recommended trying it with whipped cream, and Joe & I love any excuse to get out our carbon-charged whipped cream maker. The baked pudding turned out wonderfully. I had my doubts making it because the recipe calls for you to "pour" the batter into the dish, and mine was not pouring consistancy - more like cookie dough. So I added an extra 1/4 milk, and then plopped the batter on top of the syrup. Joe loved it and we both had seconds on the whipped cream! The only thing I would change if I were to do it over again would be to cut the sugar in half - it calls for ALOT of brown sugar and was too sweet for my taste. It would have been perfect with a really dark cup of coffee, but I wasn't about to go to the work of making decaf at 9 pm. The best part of making this recipe was pulling it out of the oven and having a flash memory of my mom doing the same thing years ago.
Actually, the journey of The Mennonite Community Cookbook into my kitchen has been something of an adventure. In the interest of finances, I decided to screw sentimentality and order a copy off of Amazon (as noted by J, I could purchase one for only $13). By some cunning twist of fate, or perhaps due to my own ineptitude, that copy got sent not to my address here in Massillon, but the one I'd lived at three years ago in Portland, Oregon. In a panic that January would draw to a close before I got my cookbook in the mail, I did what I should have done in the first place: I called my mother.
Frankly, I didn't even know if she had a copy, but she ensured me that she did and that it had been consulted often. "You'll find mostly farm cooking in there," she warned me. She recommended the Date Pudding which she and my grandma had both made on different occasions, and which is "so easy." This would be quite a contrast from the recipes in the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook I got for Christmas from a close friend of mine, in which at least one ingredient per recipe is not available in my local grocery store.
So Date Pudding I did make. Specifically, Date Pudding II, since after examining both recipes, that one looked easier. Mary Emma recommended trying it with whipped cream, and Joe & I love any excuse to get out our carbon-charged whipped cream maker. The baked pudding turned out wonderfully. I had my doubts making it because the recipe calls for you to "pour" the batter into the dish, and mine was not pouring consistancy - more like cookie dough. So I added an extra 1/4 milk, and then plopped the batter on top of the syrup. Joe loved it and we both had seconds on the whipped cream! The only thing I would change if I were to do it over again would be to cut the sugar in half - it calls for ALOT of brown sugar and was too sweet for my taste. It would have been perfect with a really dark cup of coffee, but I wasn't about to go to the work of making decaf at 9 pm. The best part of making this recipe was pulling it out of the oven and having a flash memory of my mom doing the same thing years ago.
posted by A Knutson at 11:40 PM
2 Comments:
I love date pudding! We always had that at the big family gatherings on both sides at Christmas or Thanksgiving. Some people even tried to call it a "salad," but it really falls in the dessert category. The sweeter the better. I wonder how "Date Pudding I" compares...do we need a cook-off?
I say a cook-off is immenant! Who will be challenger to the defending Date Pudding II????
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