... is what I was doing when at work yesterday. Thinking about childhood holidays. Just odd little bits and pieces of things that stuck in my brain from growing up in a small town. Being a kid in a place and time when parents assumed it was safe to let their offspring roam the streets unsupervised.
One set of grandparents lived on a small farm several miles from the center of town. Though my granddad came into town to work every day, in a local bank, I remember my brother and I spending a good bit of time out there 'in the country', doing whatever kids do when left to their own devices. I think he spent a lot of time in my granddads workshop, hammering nails into everything he could find. I must have spent more time with my grandmother, but do recall a lot of sitting up high in the limbs of a large magnolia tree in their yard.
Having the benefit of living in close proximity to grandparents on both sides means our family saw a lot of them. We would have Thanksgiving lunch with one set each year, and Christmas dinner at the home of the other. Occasionally wondering from year to year, where to go? Which place we ate at the previous holiday?
The group at the house on Court Street was always larger, with more extended family available to crowd around the table. Aunts, uncles and cousins living in the adjacent house, and other adults in close proximity meant lots of family gathered for the holiday meal. Since this grandmother was an avid bridge player, there were plenty of card tables and chairs to set up all over the house in hallway, living room, where ever a space could be made, to use for children to sit. Where cousins would get loud and rowdy, with uncontrolled laughter and smothered giggling. To be thoroughly threatened by adults who never put down their forks or got up to carry out the threats of deadly force.
I am sure grandmother, who had a cook, pulled out all the stops for the holiday meal. With turkey and ham, cornbread dressing and gravy, rice and more gravy, various vegetables and homemade yeast rolls. Stuff that takes days to prepare, and hours to cook. Magically having everything appear on the table at the same time. And of course, setting the table with the best china, sterling flatware and crystal. Linen table cloth and diligently ironed napkins.
I don't recall specifics of the menu other than always 'ambrosia'. Which is a combination of peeled and sliced citrus fruits, along with bright red marischino cherries and grated coconut. I am thinking the coconut was not available for purchase in grocery stores, so was tediously prepared by hand. Meaning you have to: buy the coconut, intact. A little hard round, dark brown shell, about the size to fit in an adult hand, with three little grouped together indents that look for the world like a face, with eyes and mouth.
Pay for it and take it home. Get out the ice pick or screwdriver and hammer to punch holes in the 'eyes', turn it upside down on a small bowl or measuring cup in order to drain out the liquid/milk. If you are smart you will now wrap it in a towel. (I wasn't ever that clever, not thinking ahead.)Take it out in the back yard and whack it several times with a hammer. Crack it open, to get to the inside on a brick in the back yard (with occasional pieces going flying in all directions.) Then you have to pry the 'meat' from the hard dark brown outer shell. Then you have to wash all the dirt and sand off the white meat. And get out the grater. Proceed to grate each of the pieces, and your knuckles to get as much coconut as possible to add to the citrus/cherry mix.
Much, much later in life I realized I don't like coconut, and continue to look back over the decades with surprise that I ate so many things I did not want to put in my mouth. Don't care for the taste or texture of. But ate because I knew not to refuse. I think with the ambrosia, the ingredients were such a rarity in that time, so 'dear', and such a rarity: fresh fruit in winter, that it was a treasured item, with both the citrus and the coconut being a scare, therefore expensive commodity that it was considered a real treat. So I was given my dish of ambrosia. And ate it without question. But now, I would like to say: "none for me, thank you", and hope to leave my portion for others who really enjoy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment