3 bay leaves
8 black peppercorns
Tops from two stalks of celery
1 teaspoon margarine
Cut double thickness of cheesecloth 6 inches wide. Place bay leaves, peppercorns, celery tops, and margarine in center of cheesecloth. Pull corners of cheesecloth together, and tie with kitchen twine.
Drop Dumplíngs
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) butter
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
Sift flour, salt, and baking powder into mixing bowl. Add butter, mixing with fingertips, then milk, until mixture is consistency of grainy cornmeal.
Fríed Yellow Summer Squash
SERVES 4
5 yellow squash
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sautéed diced onions
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
Slice squash. In large skillet, sauté squash in oil and butter. When slightly brown, add onions. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat 3 more minutes, but do not allow squash to become mushy. Sprinkle with rosemary, and keep warm until served.
Green Peas and Lettuce
SERVES 4
1 small head iceberg lettuce
2 cups fresh green peas
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pep-
per, to taste
½ pint heavy cream, warmed
Remove heart from lettuce, and fill with peas. Tie up lettuce head with kitchen twine to secure. Place in heavy pot with stock nearly to top of lettuce. Cover and steam until peas are tender, about 30 minutes. (Open the lettuce carefully, take one pea out, and test it.)
Remove twine and discard. Open lettuce, season with salt and pepper, and pour cream over lettuce and peas. Serve at once.
QUILTING BEES WERE EAGERLY anticipated by southern black women. They offered the only nonlabor, nonreligious occasions where women could gather and exchange all the communities’ good and bad news. The women planned for weeks. Then they selected and cooked their favorite dessert dishes and brought them to the gathering. The bees were always held in the back of the store, which meant that Bailey and I could look forward to some delicious cakes and pies and, if the event took place in the summer, some luscious hand-cranked strawberry ice cream. Usually cranked by us.
Mrs. Sneed, the pastor’s wife, would bring sweet potato pie, warm and a little too sweet for Momma’s taste but perfect to Bailey and me. Mrs. Miller’s coconut cake and Mrs. Kendrick’s chocolate fudge were what Adam and Eve ate in the Garden just before the Fall. But the most divine dessert of all was Momma’s Caramel Cake.
Momma would labor prayerfully over her selection, because she knew but would never admit that she and all the women were in hot competition over whose culinary masterpiece was the finest.
Momma could bake all the other women’s dishes and often made them for the family, but not one of the other cooks would even dare the Caramel Cake (always to be spoken of in capital letters). Since she didn’t have brown sugar, she had to make her own caramel syrup. Making her caramel cake took four to five hours, but the result was worthy of the labor. The salty sweetness of the caramel frosting along with the richness of the batter made the dessert soften and liquefy on the tongue and slip quietly down the throat almost without notice. Save that it left a memory of heaven itself in the mouth.
Of course Bailey and I were a little biased in Momma’s favor, but who could have resisted the bighearted woman who was taller and bigger than most men yet who spoke in a voice a little above a whisper? Her hands were so large one could span my entire head, but they were so gentle that when she rubbed my legs and arms and face with blue-seal Vaseline every morning, I felt as if an angel had just approved of me.
I not only loved her, I liked her. So I followed her around. People began calling me her shadow.
“Hello, Sister Henderson, I see you got your shadow with you as usual.” She would smile and answer, “I guess you got that right. If I go, she goes. If I stop, she stops. Yes, sir, I have me two shadows. Well, three by rights. My own and my two grandbabies.”
I only saw Momma’s anger become physical once. The incident alarmed me, but at the same time it assured me that I had great protection. Because of a horrible sexual violence I experienced when I was seven, I stopped talking to everyone but Bailey.
All teachers who came to Stamps to work at Lafayette County Training School had to find room and board with black families, for there were no boarding houses where they could gain admittance.
All renting families acted as individual chambers of commerce for the newcomers. Each teacher was told of the churches and the preachers, of the hairdressers and barbers, of the white store downtown and the Wm. Johnson General Merchandise Store where they were likely to get accounts to tide them over between paychecks. The new teachers were also alerted to Mrs. Henderson’s mute granddaughter and her grandson who stuttered seriously.
Summer was over and we returned to school with all the other children. I looked forward to meeting the new teacher of the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade classes. I was really happy because for the first time Bailey and I were in the same classroom.
Miss Williams was small and perky. She reminded me of a young chicken pecking in the yard. Her voice was high-pitched. She separated the classes by row. Sixth-graders sat near the windows, fifth-graders were in the middle rows, and fourth-graders were near the door.
Miss Williams said she wanted each student to stand up and say his or her name and what grades they received at the end of the last semester.
She started with the sixth-graders. I looked at Bailey when he stood and said, “Bailey Johnson, Jr.” At home he would make me fall out laughing when he said what he wished his whole name was: “Bailey James Jester Jonathan Johnson, Jr.”
Because I didn’t talk I had developed a pattern of behavior in classrooms. Whenever I was questioned, I wrote my answer on the blackboard. I had reached the blackboard in Miss Williams’s room when the teacher approached me. We were nearly the same height.
She said, “Go back to your seat. Go on.”
Bailey stood up over by the window.
He said, “She’s going to write her name and grade on the blackboard.” Miss Williams said to me, “I’ve heard about you. You can talk, but you just won’t talk.”
The students, who usually teased me relentlessly, were on my side. They began explaining, “She never talks, Miss Williams, never.” Bailey was nervous. He began to stutter, “My…Maya can’t talk.”
Miss Williams said, “You will talk in my classroom. Yes, you will.” I didn’t know what to do. Bailey and the other children were trying to persuade her to allow me to write on the blackboard. I did not resist as she took the chalk out of my hand. “I know you can talk. And I will not stand for your silliness in my classroom.” I watched her as she made herself angry. “You will not be treated differently just because your people own a store.”
“Speak, speak.” She was fairly shouting. Her hand came up unexpectedly and she slapped me. Truly, I had not known what to do when she was winding herself up to hit me, but I knew what I had to do the second her hand landed on my cheek. I ran. I ran out of the classroom with Bailey following shouting, “Wait, My, wait.” I couldn’t wait. I was running to Momma. He caught up with me on the porch of the store.
Momma, hearing the noise, opened the screen door.
“What happened? Why aren’t you in school? Sister, why are you crying?”
Bailey tried to answer her, but his brain moved faster than his tongue could form the words.
I took my notebook and pencil and wrote, “Miss Williams slapped me because I wouldn’t talk.”
“She slapped you? Slapped? Where?” Bailey said, “Fa …fa…fa…face.”
Momma told Bailey to go back to school. She said she and I would be coming soon.
Momma’s calm voice and unhurried manner helped Bailey to settle down enough to speak.
“You want me to tell Miss Williams that you are coming?”
Momma answered, “I want you to go back to school and get your lesson.” He looked at me once, saw that I had stopped crying, so he nodded and jumped off the porch and headed back up the hill.
“Sister, go to the well and put some fresh water on your face.” I went around behind the store to the well.
When I returned to the porch Momma had put on one of her huge freshly washed, starched, sun-dried, and ironed aprons. In her hand she had the board that was slipped into pockets closing off the front door. We had a similar plank for the store, which we used every night to let customers know we were closed. I don’t remember there being a lock for the house or the store.
Momma dropped the board into the slots, and in a second she was striding up the hill to the school.
I hurried beside, hoping to read her intentions in her face.
She looked as she always looked, serene, quiet. If she planned something unusual it did not register in her face.
She walked into the school building and turned around to me.
“Sister, show me your classroom.”
I guided her to Miss Williams’s room. She opened the door and Miss Williams walked up to Momma. She asked, “Yes? May I help you?” My grandmother asked, “Are you Miss Williams?” Miss Williams said, “I am.”
Momma asked, “Are you somebody’s grandbaby?”
Miss Williams answered, “I am someone’s granddaughter.”
Momma said, “Well, this child here is my grandbaby.” Then she slapped her. Not full force but hard enough for the sound to go around the room and to elicit gasps from the students.
“Now, Sister, nobody has the right to hit nobody in the face. So I am wrong this time, but I’m teaching a lesson.” She looked at me. “Now find yourself a seat and sit down and get your lesson.”
Momma left the room and it was suddenly empty and very quiet. Miss Williams left the room for a few minutes. Not a word was spoken. Miss Williams reentered and said, “Students, turn to lesson one on page one.” I looked at Bailey and he gave me the smallest nod. I turned to page one, lesson one.
No one spoke of the incident on the way home, and when I returned to the store Momma and Uncle Willie were sitting on the porch.
Uncle Willie said, “Sister, there’s something on the kitchen table. Bring it out here please.”
I went into the kitchen and on the chopping table stood the most wondrous Caramel Cake looking like paradise, oozing sweetness.
Carefully I brought it back to the porch and it was nearly worth being slapped just to hear Bailey gasp.
Uncle Willie said, “This cake can’t pay you for being slapped in the face. Momma made it just to tell you how much we love you and how precious you are.”
Caramel Cake
SERVES 8
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
1¼ cups sugar
¼ cup Caramel Syrup (recipe follows)
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
Caramel Frosting (recipe follows)
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two 8-inch layer cake pans with greased wax paper.
In large mixing bowl, beat butter, and add 1 cup sugar gradually until light and fluffy. Beat in syrup.
In medium mixing bowl, sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add sifted ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating with milk.
In separate medium mixing bowl, beat eggs about 3 minutes, until foamy. Add remaining sugar, and beat until there is a fine spongy foam. Stir into cake batter until blended.
Divide batter between cake pans. Bake for about 25 minutes. Remove pans from oven. Gently press center of cake with forefinger. Cake should spring back when finger is removed. If it doesn’t, return to oven for 10 minutes. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out onto rack, and remove wax paper. Let cakes cool to room temperature before frosting.
To assemble: Center one cooled cake layer on cake plate. Cover top and sides with generous helping of frosting. Place second layer evenly on frosted layer. Repeat frosting procedure. Make certain that sides are completely frosted. Cool in refrigerator until ready to serve.
Caramel Syrup
1 cup white sugar
1 cup boiling water
Heat sugar in heavy skillet over low heat. Stir constantly until melted to a brown liquid. When it bubbles over entire surface, remove from heat. Slowly add boiling water, stirring constantly. Pour into container and cool.
Caramel Frosting
6 tablespoons (¾ stick) butter
One 8-ounce package confectioners’ sugar
4 tablespoons heavy cream
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Brown butter in heavy pot over medium heat—be vigilant or it will burn. Allow butter to cool. In large mixing bowl, add confectioners’ sugar, cream, vanilla extract, and salt to the butter, and beat until smooth. If frosting is too stiff, add tablespoon of half-and-half or full cream to thin.
Coconut Cake
SERVES 8
⅔ cup soft butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 ½ cups sifted cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
⅓ cup milk
4 large egg whites
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
4 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut flavoring
Coconut Frosting (recipe follows)
1 cup shredded sweet coconut
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two 9-inch layer cake pans with greased wax paper. In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar, beating until light and fluffy.
In medium mixing bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. Add to cream mixture, alternating with milk.
In separate medium mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Beat again for 2 minutes. Fold in salt and cream of tartar. Set aside.
In another medium mixing bowl, beat egg yolks. Add yolks to cake batter, then fold in whites, vanilla extract, and coconut flavoring.
Pour batter into layer cake pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until cake springs back when center is pressed gently with forefinger. Cool in pans for 10 minutes; then turn out onto rack, and remove wax paper. Let cakes cool to room temperature.
To frost, place first cake layer on cake plate, and spread frosting on top. Sprinkle some coconut on top of frosting. Place second layer onto first layer, and cover entire cake with frosting. Sprinkle coconut on top of cake, and place shreds of coconut on sides of cake. Refrigerate, and serve cold.
Coconut Frosting
1 pint whipping cream
½ cup powdered sugar 1 teaspoon coconut flavoring
In medium mixing bowl, whip cream until frothy. Add sugar and coconut flavoring, and whip until it holds stiff peak.
Chocolate Fudge
MAKES ABOUT 10 PIECES
3 cups sugar
3 cups milk
2 tablespoons corn syrup
6 ounces semisweet chocolate pieces
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
Butter 8 × 8-inch pan.
In large, heavy saucepan, bring sugar, milk, corn syrup, and chocolate to a boil.
Put a drop of mixture in 1 cup of ice-cold water. When the drop forms a soft ball, remove from heat. If ball does not form, continue cooking and repeat until ball forms.
Add butter and vanilla extract to hot mixture. Cool. When saucepan with chocolate mixture has cooled to a lukewarm temperature, beat mixture with spoon until it loses its gloss and becomes thick. If you want nuts, stir in pecans
before mixture cools completely. Cool in pan. Cut in desired size squares.
EACH YEAR AFTER THE FIRST FROST, men and women wearing heavy clothes and carrying rifles and sawed-off shotguns stalked around inside the store buying peanut patties and candy bars.
Bailey called them the killing crew because they went around the neighborhood killing all the hogs and cows that had been selected for slaughter.
For the next two weeks, or as long as our icebox could keep the meat, we would be sure that Momma was going to cook some exquisite fresh beef and pork dishes.
She told me that she could cook a whole hog and make people love to eat it. “Everything but its hooves.” She said when it came to hogs, poor people had to learn how to use everything “from the rooter [its snout] to the tooter [its tail].”
The neighborhood women would bring the hog heads and intestines to the store. They would put the heads on tables that had been set up outside between the wells and the iron pots where we washed out clothes. They would carry the intestines far beyond the outdoor toilet and empty them in a hole in the ground, dug for that purpose.