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| Coconut cake is a popular dessert in the South. This version relies on six layers of white cake with coconut milk in the batter and traditional seven-minute frosting. | New Jersey Food Journal |
By Judith Alfano
Mom was in the distance, taking pictures of gravestones, many dating back to before the Civil War. Every few minutes she’d call out, “Come look! I think this person might have been a cousin.” She’s a student of history and ancestry, and has always had a fascination with names and dates. Guests and friends were beginning to arrive and I, worried about what they might think, was growing embarrassed. But my sister stood a few feet behind Mom, knees knocked together and arms spread wide, motioning to the gravestones with her hands, “Everyone get together, now … Say cheeeeese.” We all laughed, bowled over in the middle of a 300-year-old cemetery, forgetting for a moment why we were there.
In the years before her death, my great-grandmother began forgetting us. We would visit her in New Orleans, a tired orderly rolling her to the meeting room, where we’d gather around, half-pretending we were at her home in Alexandria. We’d sing her favorite songs, hymns mostly, tell old Carson jokes and recall her Louisiana breakfasts.
Great-grandma – we always called her grandma with the “great” – lived in the same house that my dad visited when he was a child. Decades later, my family – all seven of us – would travel every summer from Oklahoma to visit my great-grandparents. We’d pile in creaky beds or make cots on the floor, poke around the closets and peek in her bathroom, where decades-old perfume bottles and powders lined her dressing table. An air conditioner, the only one in the house, hummed in the sun room, doing little to combat the summer heat.
“I wonder if, as I do, she took pleasure in
watching the bubbles in the boiling sugar rise to the surface and pop, or whether
she delighted in perfect rounds of cake cooling on the counter.”
My sisters and I played under magnolias, their long branches
and glossy leaves creating magical forts, and picked figs straight from the
tree, carrying armfuls to the kitchen as the screen door slapped shut.
Great-grandma’s house smelled like fresh tobacco, hot coffee and biscuits. I’d
sit on the counter alongside her as she cut rounds out of the rolled dough
using the open-end of a jelly jar. Her biscuits accompanied every meal, which
we ate crowded around the wobbly table in the dining room. Breakfast was always
biscuits with Aunt Leeny’s mayhaw jelly, preserved figs and sausage gravy.
Great-grandma served more sausage – linked, pattied or both – bacon, and
scrambled eggs. At 80 she was quick-witted, sharp and agile, pulling biscuits
from the oven when perfectly browned and serving her family with the same
confidence as always.Ten years later, the light in her eyes was still there even though the remembering wasn’t. She died in her sleep not long after our last visit, and on a mild January afternoon we remembered her and filled a small chapel with miles of stories and knee-slapping laughter. Cousins and friends served fried chicken, salads, sandwiches and cake, the best of which was a tall, layered, butter cake covered with marshmallowy seven-minute frosting and shredded coconut. At first bite, we all knew that it was a cake to be remembered and Mom asked for the recipe on the spot, writing on the back of a napkin as Cousin Moese recited it.
In the years since her passing, when I recall those winter days in Louisiana – the last time I would visit – I remember the coconut cake, its layers and swirls offering both comfort and celebration. I don't recall my great-grandma making this cake, but I like to imagine her in the kitchen baking it for a church pot-luck or family picnic. I wonder if, as I do, she took pleasure in watching the bubbles in the boiling sugar rise to the surface and pop, or whether she delighted in perfect rounds of cake cooling on the counter. Did she whisper swoop and swoosh as she smoothed the frosting?
In the end, unanswered questions and memories of great-grandma are what remain and I carry them, like those armfuls of figs, with me into the kitchen. When I pull biscuits from the oven or whip sugar and egg whites to a glossy meringue, I remember the joy of those Louisiana summers – screened porches and skinned knees, fresh-cut grass and tall pines. I remember gravel driveways, warm dirt and cracked linoleum. Mostly, though, I remember feeling at home. And in remembering, I am filled with, as John Steinbeck wrote, a curious warm pleasure.
Judith Alfano is a student at Rutgers University majoring in journalism and media studies.
