Food Memory

We're participating in a gift exchange tomorrow with folks from the national church. We drew names a week or so ago and the price limit was the equivalent of 5 US dollars. We both had a hard time coming up with good ideas for the people we drew, until Tim had the brilliant idea of (me) making Christmas cookies to give as gifts.

So, I've been on a baking spree the past couple days, which feels just right for me. A big part of what I remember fondly about Christmases past was all the baking my mom did, most of which was boxed up for gifts to the neighbors. This meant she could bake all kinds of wonderful things, and only have the family overeat moderately. :)

I am sorry to report that in Nicaragua, as far as we can tell, there is no molasses. It seems odd, because they grow sugar cane here and LOVE white sugar (and molasses is a byproduct of making white sugar out of sugar cane). My theory is that they're making it all into rum instead (also quite popular here), but I don't know if rum is made from molasses or not. Whatever the cause, the lack of molasses puts a serious damper on the making of gingerbread cookies (often people-shaped, this year, star-shaped). I attempted a substitution of dark brown sugar and melted chocolate; it was sort of successful. The taste is about right; the structural integrity leaves something to be desired. Nothing is as sticky as molasses!

I also made chocolate chip cookie bars which "were not fancy enough for gift cookies." Or possibly, too delicious -- I am pretty sure they will be all gone by the time of the gift exchange tomorrow at lunch.

Today, I made two of my favorite "special for Christmas" goodies: fudge and sugar cookies. I remembered again this year that I don't actually know how to make fudge (since I make it at most once a year), so I searched the internet for a recipe that "looked right." I sort of thought it was supposed to be just butter, marshmallows, and chocolate chips, but once I started thinking about it, I seem to recall being disabused of that notion the last couple times I tried to make fudge... so I settled for the Campfire marshmallow "creamy fudge" recipe. For the sugar cookies, I searched for "Fannie Farmer sugar cookie" (that was my mom's go-to cookbook), and decided that this recipe sounded right.

The fudge is cooling overnight, but it seemed about right (although I may have overcooked it a little). The sugar cookies taste right, but don't behave the same way as the ones my mother made -- hers were thicker, mine spread out really thin and therefore are also wanting in the structural integrity category. I think I am going to blame the oven, which has numbers 1-5 rather than labeling the temperature in degrees.

Anywsy, when I bit into a sugar cookie, I thought, "Yes, this is what sugar cookies are supposed to taste like." Even though I have no idea about the recipes, I remember eating lots of these treats very well. It's nice to be taken back in that way. It also makes me feel a wee bit of pressure to find (and preserve from year to year) the *right* recipes. Otherwise, I'll never taste (fill-in-the-blank) the way my mother made it again! It makes me very grateful for a) my mom's three sisters and b) Fannie Farmer.