Gingerbread houses and other Christmas Decorations

Christmas time is a great opportunity for crafting and creating homemade treasures.  My children made a gingerbread house this week.  Now, it was just from a kit and was super easy because the actual gingerbread was already made and perfectly formed with right angles and everything.  But it did get me to wondering what is the history of making and decorating gingerbread in the shape of houses and such?

Turns out this tradition of adorning gingerbread houses is very old and comes from the same country that tradition says gave us the Christmas tree – Germany.  According to Wikipedia, in the 1600’s in Nuremberg, Germany the baker’s guild used both master bakers and skilled craftsmen to “create complicated works of art from gingerbread.” The racing gingerbread man is a little older, dating to the 15th century.  European’s took their gingerbread-making pretty seriously, forbidding anyone except the professionals from baking it except at Christmas and Easter in the 17th century.  They were given as gifts to both children and adults, particularly at weddings where guests might each receive a figurine.

World's lagest Gingerbread House in Bryan, TX

I also got to thinking about decorations historically.  Today we love brightly colored electric lights – you can even have flame-less and wireless candles these days.  Big displays can be remote controlled and lights can be projected in intricate shapes on high points.  (Just as an aside, we went to view a light display in town and there were tons of lights way high in the trees. I kept asking, how did they get them up there?  Well, they didn’t – they were projected up there!)

However, in the not very distant past, Christmas baubles were a luxury most on the mountain couldn’t indulge in.  But this holiday started in the humblest of locations – an animal stable with a babe lain in a manger.  It stands to reason God would provide options to adorn the holiday.  Holly with red berries is one of the cheeriest sights in a winter landscape and as I mentioned above the Germans really developed our modern tradition of decorating a tree at Christmas back in the 1500’s when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes.  This was largely a tradition of Protestant Germansand one that immigrated with them.  However, by the mid-1800’s the noblemen of Europe had embraced the tradition and Christmas tress could be seen from Austria to France and the young Princess Victoria wrote about them in her 1832 diary.  Marrying her German cousin, Albert, no doubt helped to further establish this tradition among the English.  Godey’s Lady’s Book even featured an image of Queen Victoria and her family around their Christmas tree.

Those early trees were decorated with sugar-ornaments, fruit and nuts.  Not until the mid-1800’s did German entrepreneurs begin making glass, paper and tin ornaments for the trees.  That idea caught on fast and by the end of the century the decorations were being exported to America.  By 1890 Woolworths was selling $25 million worth of them – and that was at a five and dime.

So the Son of God came to earth as a baby over two thousand years ago.  But the traditions most of us will observe this weekend are only about two hundred years old.   

I hope you have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Molassy Bread

Christmas season is in full swing and with it all the sweet treats that we remember and crave.  I recently had friends over and needed to whip up a last minute dessert.  Having a fresh jar of mountain made sorghum molasses sitting on the shelf an old standard came to mind – Molassy Bread.

Now my Grandpa Livesay (who got us calling this soft gingerbread “molassy bread”) remembered this was about the only cake or dessert he had while growing up.  Accordingly he was pretty burned out on it and when Grandma would bake a pan of molassy bread he wasn’t nearly as excited as the rest of us. 

I find that there is something of an acquired taste for many of our mountain foods.  This is one that I assumed people might not enjoy on the first eating.  However, that’s not the response I got.  My friends loved it.  My children loved it.  That’s what made me think you might enjoy remembering this goody.

As I mentioned, Molassy Bread is a soft gingerbread cake sweetened wholly or in part by sorghum molasses.  Last week I talked about molasses because many people are unfamiliar with them – or at least with our version of molasses.  But this is the sweetener we can produce from start to finish right at home.  Therefore, farm families have enjoyed it for generations.  One comment from last week’s blog claimed molasses are magical – they can make a pan of hot biscuits disappear before your eyes!  If you’ve got the taste for their thick, twangy sweetness you’ll agree with that comment wholeheartedly.

Molassy bread is kind of the same way.  The molasses give the sugary taste we crave but the ginger, cinnamon and cloves add a spice that can either overwhelm your tastebuds or intrigue them enough to finish the whole pan.  Served warm and topped with applebutter, you can’t buy a better dessert.  In fact, you can’t really buy molasses bread – sure you may find Gingerbread on a bakery shelf or even in a mix, but something isn’t quite the same.  Maybe it’s the love ingredient that Mamas and Grandmas add. 

As I move through this beautiful season of the year I can’t help but reflect on Christmases spent by families like my Grandpa’s.  His mother is renowned in the family for her culinary abilities.   Yet, love was the only ingredient she ever had in abundance.  Like so many mountain families from the 1930’s and before, they eked out a living devoid of many luxuries we think we can’t live without now.  Grandpa said they’d plant half the mountaintop in corn only to raise enough nubbins to feed an old mule and a milk cow through the winter.  So the bags of white sugar we will pour out this month in fudge, iced cookies and even sweet tea was unheard of in their homes.  Yet they had this simple food, Molassy Bread.  So maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Just out of curiosity, I did a little internet search for Molasses Bread and was surprised to get several hits.  However, the recipes didn’t resemble the gingerbread cake I am familiar with.  Several referred to New England origins of the bread and they are true bread recipes with very little sweetness, no spices and apparently a loaf-bread texture.  Isn’t that interesting how foods differ so much across our country?

Now it’s your turn… has your family enjoyed sorghum molasses through the years?  Did you ever have Molassy Bread?  What’s your favorite way to eat molasses?

Sorghum Molasses

It goes without saying that the isolated Cumberland Plateau has been populated by self-reliant and resourceful people.  The combined effect of few cash resources and limited transportation required they live on what the land could produce.    And I guess mountain-folk like sweets the same as anybody else but sugar cane just wasn’t going to grow in our short summers and thin soil.  Honey is always a good sweetener and beekeeping has been popular for generations.  But sorghum molasses have always been a staple as well.

I decided to share a few thoughts on this subject after talking with a reader from Michigan who said she’d heard about sorghum but didn’t quite know what it was. 

Now we always just call this molasses, however, today’s technical description of molasses is “a viscous by-product of refining sugarcane.”  That by-product tag may be why blackstrap molasses are so often used in animal feed.  So “Sorghum Molasses” tends to differentiate the source.

Well like I said, sugar cane requires more of a tropical climate than the mountain can offer.  Of course sugar beets grow in the colder mid-west climate but other than a few hunters hoping to bait deer I’ve never known of anyone on the Plateau growing sugar beets.  However sorghum cane is as old as the hills – or at least as old as the settlements in these hills. 

According to a Purdue (https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/forage.html) site, the plant is indigenous to Africa and was first introduced to the United States in the early 1600’s.  However, it wasn’t extensively grown until the mid-1800’s.  I wonder what “extensively” means there?  I’d hate to argue with the scholars at a respected university, but I’m thinking the Scots Irish that trekked into the mountains in the 1700’s brought this crop with them.  That seems logical if only because the crop and the tradition of making molasses was so entrenched among a people who lived in veritable isolation for over a century.  Now the question of where those immigrants got it is another question entirely. 

See, the British had been trading with the West Indies from the early 1600’s.  They immediately enjoyed all of the wonderful products from those exotic lands.  Even then, however, refined sugar was a luxury for the wealthy, as was the case when sugar was imported to the American colonies as well.  Early sugar production  was extremely labor intensive and therefore the finished product was very expensive. But that’s where research of products in the mountains kind of breaks down. 

With established trade routes from Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, sugar became much more widely available in Europe and I imagine in the oldest of American colonies as well.  The Appalachian peoples were much more isolated and they were not often included in those trade routes.  Even if the products were available, we’ve already established they had very limited cash resources therefore the average thirty-six pounds of sugar consumed by every European in 1850 would have simply been impossible to buy. 

I can hardly imagine the reception of a crop that could be grown and refined right at home into a sweetener for cookies and cakes or cooked down into candy.  With the shifting economy following World War II, that generation that grew up in the mountains in the 1920’s and 1930’s may have quickly grown tired of the molasses goodies.  But just a generation before taste buds weren’t nearly so choosy and that is no doubt why our tradition of making molasses held on for us to enjoy them today.

Many memories and stories from the pre-war years remain and maybe you can share some of your own.  A stir-off was a community event that attracted quite a crowd.  The cane would be crushed and the pommies piled high.  By day’s end when the cooking was well underway young folks always enjoyed chewing this ground cane for the last bit of sweetness it held. 

Molasses-making takes a long time, especially on the smallpans most communities had.  And I say community because there were only one or two cane mills and pans around and folks came from the whole area with their cane on wagons to cook down the molasses.  The owners of those mills and pans were happy to help their neighbors in exchange for a share of the molasses.

Can you even imagine the festive atmosphere as the long awaited harvest is finished and the sweet product of your labor can be enjoyed?

Tater Cakes

NOTE:  You probably got this in your inbox earlier in the week and I apologize - I simply got the date very wrong!

Blogs across the web will abound this week with recipes and suggestions for using Thanksgiving leftovers.  I doubt I’ll ever burden you with one of my recipes, but I did enjoy a leftover dish this week that always reminds me of home and Grandma.

Tater Cakes, also known as Potato Pancakes, Latkes or Botkin Pie are always a treat when I make them and I remember my Grandma Stepp frying them while I stood by the stove and practically ate them out of the skillet.  She always cooked bacon – or side meat – at the same time and now I wonder just why.  I suppose the bacon drippings made for more flavorful Tater Cakes and together it was a quick and easy meal. 

I wondered how widespread is this resourceful use of leftover potatoes so I did a quick internet search  and I also reached out to some friends around the world.  I was rewarded with an abundance of information.  From Germany to Ireland Potato Pancakes are loved.  Latkes are a traditional Jewish food for Hannukah – although my favorite Middle Eastern Jewish resource doesn’t remember them being among their traditional foods. 

I’ve mentioned before how I’m amazed that our mountain traditions can so often be traced way back to the original immigrants to the mountain and here again we see our Scots-Irish heritage reflected.  In Ireland, Boxty or Poundies are larger than I’m used to seeing, looking more like a real pancake. 

Scottish Tattie Scones look a lot more like our Tater Cakes although some are larger and cut into quarters before serving – and their use of “Tattie” for potatoes sure sounds a lot like our “Tater”, doesn’t it? Well their little cakes are soft rather than crispy and the texture seems dependent on making them while your potatoes are still warm.  Come to think of it, as an ancient recipe fried potato pancakes would keep better than leftover mashed potatoes so without access to refrigeration you might be in the habit of cooking them right away.  The scone recipes also have a lot of butter in them and I’m going to try that the next time I make my own Tater Cakes.

Tell me, do you remember eating Tater Cakes?

The Power of Smell

In the 1950’s and 1960’s movie producers experimented with incorporating scents into the theater experience.  Their project didn’t work too well but they had a great idea.  Our sense of smell is a powerful trigger to our memories.  I suppose that’s one of the key drivers of the multi-billion dollar scented candle industry.  Everyone loves for their home to smell like Grandma’s apple pie or fresh baked cookies.

Well there are scents that will forever remind me of my childhood home.  The unmistakable odors of cattle or sun-dried hay would hardly make popular candles but it will always take me back to hard work and happy days. 

This olfactory stimulus is one of the reasons I still regularly dry my laundry in the fresh outdoor air.  These days in our drought-stricken valley, we’re surrounded by wildfires (nearly 7,000 acres are burning across Tennessee) and the smoke is working its way into everything including my laundry.  Again, wood smoke wouldn’t sell very well but I grew up on sheets dried beneath the smoke from the wood stove and that’s what I’m reminded of while folding laundry today.

If you ever lived on or visited the mountain twenty years ago you too will identify with this memory.  It used to be that everybody heated their homes with wood.  This renewable energy source could be harvested from every hill and holler.  Hard winters often toppled the trees for you and chopping up stove-sized pieces would keep you warm for two days – the one when you chop as well as the one when you rest by the fire.  And since you’re gonna’ need a fire from November till April, every load of laundry gets a dose of the smoke.

You won’t ever find towels stiffened by cold winter winds and infused with wood smokein a luxury motel where they think you’ll be so impressed with their linens you may buy a set for your house.  But if you’ve ever had the pleasure of wintering on the mountain, I imagine you can appreciate them.