My family has dwindled down to just a few individuals, but
it was once quite large, and we would have a yearly reunion where several
hundred of my mother’s relatives would gather for photographs, celebrating new
additions, and a time of remembering.
My mother’s mother was born in 1893 and was the last child
of a very large family. Her mother
passed away when Granny was just a few months old, and her father remarried and
raised another large family. My own
mother was a late child, and by the time I came along, the family was huge.
My mother’s cousin Winnie decided in the late 1950’s to have
a family reunion. Many of my
grandmother’s generation were now in their 80’s, and Winnie thought it would be
great to bring everyone together one last time. Little did she know at the time, this reunion would take place
every year for another 18 years before time took its toll.
Many of my grandmother’s brothers and sisters made it past
the century mark. At the last reunion,
one of her older sisters, Annie, had her photo made with her daughter,
grand-daughter, great-grand-daughter, and great-great-grand-daughter. Five generations. Amazing. But just as
amazing was the fact that Annie’s mother/step-mother was still alive at the
time, and she ultimately out-lived a number of her children. She was well over one hundred twenty years
old when she passed away.
Those reunions are long over and few, if any, of the
descendents other than my two siblings and myself remember them. The three of us gathered together a couple
of years ago (as we try do every few years) and reminisced about the old
reunions. We remembered the washtubs
filled with ice water and Dr. Peppers, Nehi and Grapette sodas, RC Colas, and
Big Reds. There were always piles of
fried chicken, potato salads, cakes, pies, and other things, but all we could
remember were the sodas and the piles of fried chicken, potato salads, cakes,
and pies. Lots of pies. Oh, the pies!
Even the names of everyone are fading after all these
years. The three of us could remember
only about fifteen or so of our grandmother’s brothers and sisters, and no more
than about ten of the descendant’s names (other than our own, of course). We had to look on one of the ancestry sites
to come up with the names.
One of my grandmother’s older brothers was John. His wife was Gertrude. I wrote a little bit about her and her pecan
pie in “Dessert Wars.” But she had
other pies that were just as good. This
one she always brought to the reunion, and this is the recipe she wrote out for
me. After John died, she made no more
pies.
Chess Pie
Mix some sugar, flour, cornmeal, and salt, and add some eggs
and butter. Cream well, and add vanilla
and lemon. Mix and pour into an unbaked
pie shell.
Just like her ‘Circle X Pecan Pie’ I wrote about in “Dessert
Wars,” this recipe was from a very experienced cook who worked more by habit,
feel, and intuition than anything else.
Below is how I remember her making it, and I think this recipe is
extremely close to hers, but no matter how hard I try, it will never be just
like the ones at the reunion.
Chess Pie
1 ¾ cups
sugar
2 tablespoons all
purpose flour
1 tablespoon
cornmeal
¼ teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
½ cup melted
butter
1 teaspoon
vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon
extract
1 (8-inch)
unbaked pie shell
Mix together the first four ingredients, and add the eggs
and butter. Cream well, and add the
vanilla and lemon extracts. Mix and
pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake at
375F for about 45 minutes. If the crust
starts getting too brown, protect the edges with some aluminum foil. Keep a close eye on the pie after 30
minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
I’ve seen a few recipes for Chess Pie over the years, and
most contain milk or buttermilk. This
does not and I always wondered about that.
Anyway, this is how she did it, and it was always the first pie to
disappear.
No comments:
Post a Comment