Grandma's Cakes and a Bloody Pain

My grandma looked the part.  She was round and soft, with arms like ham shanks.  Only took her pinny off when she put her hat on to leave the house. Oh yes, she looked the part, but her cooking left a lot to be desired. It was a very limited repertoire according to my mum, who was brought up on undercooked potatoes and soggy greens. 

One thing she could do though was bake a mean rock cake. Nobody was ever sure if that was the intended outcome but they were delicious if rock bun was the expectation. It was grandma’s signature dish - if only that title had existed 60 years ago.  I have a vivid memory and I think it only happened once - perhaps grandma was protective of her secret recipe - but we squeezed into her tiny kitchen and together made of batch of the famous buns.  For me this was a treat. Not the baking, as I did that with my mum quite regularly, but baking with grandma.  I had one of her huge pinnies tied around my waist, hands washed, ready for action.  

Grandma had an old enamel table where all the action took place.  The scales came out, complete with the different sized weights, which fascinated me. If I remember rightly the weighing was a pretty casual activity.  Grandma had had very little education and I wonder now whether the scales were only used to impress me.  I can see those ham shank arms now, bowl under the left one, right hand frantically beating the marge and sugar with a worn wooden spoon.  I was allowed a turn but my beating wasn’t a patch on grandma’s and the bowl was soon back under her arm.  Eggs were next.  I was allowed to break one, and hoped grandma’s eyesight wasn’t up to detecting the tiny shards of shell that fell into the mixture. It was agreed that I could add the currants, and I’m sure this particular batch of cakes suffered a significant deficit of fruit through this one decision. 

The best part was adding the flour, which came in a huge bag that I was told not to touch. I’m guessing grandma had probably experienced the split flour bag in the past and didn’t want it repeated.  I remember watching, fascinated, as she tipped the flour into the pan to weigh.  I was facing the window as the sun shone through and found myself  mesmerised by the white powder caught in the light*.  I don't think grandma possessed a sieve.  Finally, and without ceremony, spoonfuls of mixture were plonked onto a greased baking tray - no dainty paper cases for grandma - and placed in the oven.  By the time we’d washed up, the cakes were out and cooling on a rack.  The biggest treat was being told I could eat one fresh from the oven - lots of blowing and oohs and ahhs whilst trying not to burn my mouth. That was when the cakes were at their best. Fortunately there were always lots of willing testers, and the inevitable rapid deterioration of such a random mixture was rarely experienced. 

I carried on the baking tradition

Against all odds my mum became an excellent cook and an equally proficient baker. In fact she went on to teach Cordon Bleu Cookery which was all the rage in the '70s.  I’m sure this is where I gained my love of cooking, and eventually went on to start up a cake making business which ran for several years. It was at the time when shops were displaying loose goods in huge tubs as a way to lure customers into buying more cheaply.  Each week I would go to Fine Fare and fill bags with all the baking essentials. 

One week the flour tub was empty.  I asked an assistant if they had any more, and slightly huffily, she said she’d look.  Whilst I waited I wandered around the nearest aisles, picking up other items from my list. I heard two voices approaching the tub section and started up the aisle to collect my flour.  As I approached the women from behind I heard the following exchange:

Assistant one: it’s that bloody woman wanting flour.

Assistant two: oh she’s a pain, always wanting something that isn’t there. 

Without missing a beat, I said icily, ‘Well that pain of a bloody woman is right behind you, so could she have her flour now, please?’ 

The flour was handed over without a word, both assistants’ eyes fixed firmly on the floor.  I think it’s the only time I’ve done an about turn that could be accurately described as a flounce. 

I can laugh about it now - no doubt I was a bloody pain - but at the time it gave me great pleasure to think of those women staring worriedly at each other, without uttering a word, and squirming as I waltzed off to the till with my bag of flour. I just hope I hadn’t got my skirt tucked in my knickers...

*It’s such an abiding memory that I’ve tried to recreate it several times with my photography. 

The Windmill by Jill Reidy

It stands proud, solid 

Here to stay

Arms waving 

Paddles whirling

Water flowing 

Whilst inside

In a tiny room

Round as a penny

More whirring 

More grinding

Blades spin

Devour the wheat

With little fuss

And fine white powder 

Settles on every surface 

Flour 

Main player in the staff of life 

Thanks for reading - Jill x

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Flour - Fred, the Flour Dredger

I hated Cookery at school. Nothing ever worked out for me. The shortcake made that morning, of which I was so proud, arrived home as a mass of crumbs in my tin. I came last in my Third Year exam because I’d forgotten my very necessary egg. On another occasion I was ridiculed by the horrid Domestic Science teacher for my choice of crumble – banana. It was the only fruit available to me and at least I’d made an effort.  It worked and tasted fine with custard. Looking back, I don’t think she, or any of my teachers, was aware that my mother was terminally ill and I was looking after myself and the family when my grandmother couldn’t be there. Perhaps, she might have been more kind to me had she known. When the ‘O’ Level options were announced, she geared me towards needlework, not that I needed any help with my choice.  If I learnt anything about cookery at school, it was the importance of a flour dredger. It was the one thing I was going to have when I had my own kitchen.  Many years passed before that happened and a flour dredger wasn’t included.

From somewhere along the years I’ve mastered enough cookery skills to feed myself properly when I lived alone and raise my family on a well-balanced diet and some home-baked treats,  Christmas cake, birthday cake, biscuits, flapjack and bread. There’s usually something tempting by the bread bin.

As Covid 19 hit, a national shortage of all important things happened overnight. It wasn’t just toilet rolls and domestic cleaning items with the basic food stuffs, flour became impossible to find.  I was in Dumfries & Galloway as lockdown commenced and found an abundance of various flours in Kirkcudbright’s Co-op. I bought one packet of bread flour and one packet of plain flour to bring home. We came back into self-isolation, relying on shopping deliveries or family members picking things up for us. I told everyone to look for flour and buy me any sort, also baking powder, which had vanished from stock lists everywhere. Flapjack became the usual home bake as porridge oats and syrup were still easily available. I even blitzed some oats to make a flour suitable for melt-in-the-mouth oaty cookies. They were so successful, that I’d like to believe the nasty Domestic Science ma’am would have a tiny word of praise.  She will be quite old by now, possibly shaking her flour dredger in the next world.

I have lots of flour now, of all types, even some organic rye flour, ideal for making almond shortcake, according to the blurb on the packet. I had to try out the recipe and it is delicious, as my disappearing waistline can confirm.

Ah, flour dredger, a Fred one from Homepride. I’ll put it on my birthday list.

My poem,  Flour Shortage

And on the Home Baking aisle, shelves are bare,

Devoid of flour that's usu'lly there.

No bread flour, no self-raising, no plain,

Not even that fancy rye or whole grain.

The entire selection is out of stock

Because too many people ran amok

Filling their trolleys with endless supplies

Of bread and milk and beans and frozen pies.

And flour.

I brought some home from Scotland, back in March.

Some plain and some wholemeal flour, low starch.

I bake a lot and I like my own bread

Otherwise, Hovis is perfect, instead.

I use up my flour then need some more,

I'm shopping on-line like never before.

No rice, no pasta, no cheese? Human greed

Means there's no provision for what I need,

No flour.

Pamela Winning 2020

Thanks for reading, keep baking and keep safe, Pam x

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Everyone Say Cheese

Say ‘cheese’. No, it’s not a continuation of my Selfie blog from last week, though this started at around the same time. It was the typical chat between me and a colleague during one of the rare moments that we had chance to pass the time of day.

“What’s for tea tonight, then?” She asked me.

She took a phone call as I thought about what to do with the left-overs from our Sunday roast.

“Cold meat and boxty, with some cabbage and leeks, I think.” I replied, starting to feel hungry and looking forward to some sauce or pickle to go with it. I remembered the rhyme, but kept it to myself – Boxty on the griddle, boxty in the pan, if you can’t make boxty, you’ll never get a man. – It made me smile.

“I’m doing homemade cheese and onion pie. Not done it for ages.” She was typing frantically and didn’t look up straight away.

“Oh, now you’ve done it. I’ll crave that all week.”

I love my own cheese and onion pie and I hadn’t made one for a long time, either. Served with jacket potato and baked beans, it’s a favourite family meal I have grown up with. I would make it on Saturday. It was only Monday but we would be out for three evenings and Friday was ‘chippy tea’ and not to be missed. If I made a large pie, there would be enough to enjoy cold for lunch the next day.

Cheese and tomato sandwiches are a favourite lunch. If the cheddar is just the right flavour, it takes me back to my childhood and the pub we had up in the hills near Glossop. I attended the local village school that was very close by, and for the only time in my school days I came home for lunch. It would be there, waiting for me on the kitchen table. Fresh white bread filled with grated cheddar cheese and thinly sliced tomato. It might have been an odd choice for an eight year old, but I loved it, even more than chicken paste or potted meat. How lovely it is for something so simple to transport me back to a time full of fond memories.

Saturday couldn’t come soon enough and the afternoon found me elbow deep in plain flour and grated cheese with eyes watering from finely chopped onion. The end result was delicious, with the longed for jacket potatoes and baked beans. Comfort food at its best. The next day, I was delighted to see my toddler grandson devouring strips of the cold pie and dipping it in a tiny spoonful of pickle. Can’t beat Nanna’s homemade snacks.

“Did you make your pie at weekend, then?” My colleague asked, during a lull in the Monday morning mayhem.

“Yes, it was perfection. Can’t you tell?” I pointed out my increasing girth, which of course, isn’t the result one cheese and onion pie.

I found this poem.

 

A Parable

The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there,

And warmly debated the matter,

The Orthodox said that it came from the air,

And the Heretics said from the platter.

They argued it long and they argued it strong,

And I hear they are arguing now;

But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese,

Not one of them thought of a cow.

  
                                                                                                   by Arthur Conan Doyle

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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