Draft 2

Nannie’s Recipe Box




My grandmother died eight years ago, but her recipe collection became mine in 1991. “You can have these now, darlin’,” Nannie had said. “I won’t be needing them any more. Cooper Hall has a chef, you know.” 1991 was also the year I got married. Nannie’s daily cooking ending the same year my began.

The green metal box bulges with recipes written on 3X5 inch index cards. There isn’t room for a single additional card. All of the cards are yellowed, and the best ones are also food-spattered. A few of the cards have recipes cut from the pages of Southern Living or the old “Loved and Lost” column from The News and Courier. Those do not interest me. I only study the ones written in Nannie’s perfect English teacher-turned librarian handwriting. When I hold the open box to my nose, I believe I can smell Nannie’s kitchen: flour, butter, sugar, and a little Crisco smeared on waxed paper to grease the pans.

Despite the fact that I’ve had the recipes so long, I’ve never used a single one. Now, I already had some of the recipes in my own collection and still others I’ve borrowed from my mother, but I don’t cook from these recipes. Instead, I visit with them.

How appropriate that the first section is Biscuits&Bread. Nannie always baked her own bread, biscuits, and rolls. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial loaf of bread and certainly not a bread machine or a tube of anything from the Doughboy in Nannie’s kitchen. I stack all the cards from this section on the kitchen counter. The first recipe is a long one, two index cards paper clipped together and titled Bread. The paperclip is just starting to rust. I read through the ingredients, the directions, and the side notes: yeast, warm milk, and unbleached flour. Here’s something I never knew: Nannie’s bread contained a cup of instant potatoes! Behind the bread recipe I find something that makes me cry a little. There are two other cards, both of which have only the first part of the very same bread recipe. The bottom of each card reads over, but the backs are empty. The handwriting on both is a very shaky version of the original. Nannie had tried twice to copy her beloved recipe. For me, maybe?

After the bread, is Nannie’s roll recipe. Sister Schubert’s rolls from Harris Teeter’s frozen food section are what I tell my son homemade tastes like. I wonder what he would have though about Nannie’s. They were so light and fluffy you really didn’t even have to chew, like warm buttery cotton candy. This recipe calls for a stick of oleo. I remember trying to get Nannie to call it margarine. Oleo just didn’t sound like something you should eat.

Behind the roll recipe are two cards for banana bread, the top one a recipe that I have as well. Nannie’s banana bread was the first kind of bread I learned to make. The combination of no yeast, no waiting, and almost rotten bananas made it very attractive to a child. The first recipe is labeled (Mine) and is covered with brown splotches. The second recipe is labeled (Evelyn) and has only one splotch on it. Sorry Evelyn. At least you made it to the box, though. The only remaining recipe in Biscuits&Bread ,written by an unknown hand, is on very clean card with a picture of a cornucopia on it. Bran Muffins from the Kitchen of Elizabeth. Thanks anyway, Elizabeth.

I smile, arrange the cards just the way they were, and put them back into the box. Thank you, Nannie. Next time, Cakes&Cookies, by far the largest section in the box.







Bread

3 yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup instant potatoes
1 cup sugar
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups warm milk (I use powdered.)
7 cups flour (plain/all purpose)
4 more cups of flour (I use unbleached.)

Dissolve yeast in warm water to which you add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put in small bowl, for it will rise.

Mix together cup of instant potatoes, cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and 7 cups of flour. To this add the oil and milk. Mix well. Then add the yeast and the 4 cups (or enough to make a soft dough).

Grease a large container. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then place in large container. Cover.

Put in oven with a pan of hot water underneath. Let rise until doubled—about 1 ½ hours.

Grease 4 loaf pans. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll out with rolling pin. Fold over into loaves. Put loaves into pans and put in oven with hot water beneath. Let rise until doubled.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Then turn down to 325 and bake until brown—about 25 minutes altogether.






Rolls

1 yeast
¼ cup warm water Put yeast in warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar.


¼ cup sugar
1 stick oleo Mix these three and let cool.
½ cup hot water

3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup milk

After the oleo and water has cooled, add about a cup or more of the flour. Stir well. Then add yeast, beaten egg, and milk. Then add the rest of the flour. Stir well. Put in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.

Grease pans and bake in oven (350 to 375) about 25 minutes or until brown. Makes 20-25 rolls.




Banana Bread (Mine)

3 ripe bananas 1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup butter
2 eggs 2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

Mash bananas. Add sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter, and lemon juice. Then add flour and other dry ingredients. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes one loaf pan.