Growing up my mother always did a lot of baking. Fruit cakes (even candied some of the fruit that went into it), black walnut cake, pound cake, Japanese Fruit Cake. So we had these for goodies.
For Christmas dinner she had regular ham (pink) and corned ham. For those who are not familiar with corned ham: It is fresh ham that has been salted for a couple weeks. Usually the butcher (yes, a little corner butcher) did this for Mom, but I do recall a time or so she had to do it herself when she couldn't get the one from the butcher. With the 2 hams, Mom made her famous potato salad, fresh collard greens (for those in the North, these are only good if grown in someone's back yard and not on a big farm , they are cooked and seasoned just right and yummy), green beans, rice/gravy, homemade rolls, homemade cranberry sauce (Mom even branched out and started making one with ground up oranges - can't find her recipe for it, though), candied sweet potatoes (made with fresh sweet potatoes that are peeled and sliced length wise, placed in a baking dish with sugar, cinnamon, butter, touch of water and vanilla).
Of course, we were too full of candy to really enjoy the meal to it's fullest (pun intended), but we did a lot of damage. Anyway, we were definitely too full for dessert so that waited a little while. When dessert came, we had Mom's cakes and they were so good. Mom actually made and sold these cakes to a select few in town. I don't know if she made any money on them, but people wanted them so Mom made them. I do know that for the family, she had very large tins (she could stack about 4 cakes atop each other in them) in which she would put her cakes and keep stored in a cold bedroom (no heat in them). She would carefully wrap the cakes and place them in the tins. They would mellow and were so good.
Oh the memories are so good!
Sounds like good memories. When I was a boy my Grandma always made a big Christmas dinner and now that I have my own family this is one of the holiday meals I prepare every year. Mine is a lot less traditional for the most part. I've made Lasagna and also PIZZA! I know...Pizza, but everyone enjoys my pies. I make the dough from scratch a few days ahead of time and make a mountain of different varieties, something for everyone. Some are all meat, some are all veggies and well some, you guessed it, a mixture. I guess its not traditional but it is my tradition! As long as everyone leaves happy and STUFFED!
ReplyDelete