Some of my earliest memories of my mom were baking with her and my Dad in Johnstown. When I was small they made homemade potato bread once a week. Each week they made enough to supply our family of four for the upcoming week. They always made sure that I felt a part of the task, so much so that I had my very own mini bread loaf pan and mini dinner roll pan that got included each week in one of the batches that went into the oven for baking. I also had my own childsize apron. It was made lovingly by my Grandma McCray, my maternal grandmother. It was one that tied around your waist and had thick, vibrant red and white vertical stripes and was finished off with a little pocket. My dad had a full size apron made out of the same material.
There were two main reasons we used homemade bread instead of store bought. The first was that it was an economical way to meet the needs of a family of four trying to live on a minster’s salary. It was one way Mom could cut a corner in the grocery list. The other main reason is that my Dad had many diet restrictions due to having Crohn’s Disease. There are many “hidden” ingredients in processed food and this was one way that my mom knew for sure what he was eating, so she could insure that he would not have an adverse reaction.
To this day I remember how good that bread smelled as it was baking and tasted when we were eating it with our meals. We would always have a slice after it had cooled some, but was still warm. The bread knife my mom used was my great grandmother Solida’s, my paternal great grandmother. The butter would melt over the bread and that first taste of the fresh bread was just incredible. Later on in my childhood, life got too busy to continue making it weekly and my mom became more acquatined with which ingredients bothered my father. But those early memories with my mom and dad are etched forever in my memory.
That is not to say that baking stopped in our family. Baking would continue to be a memory I shared with my mom for many years. It became our tradition later on to make homemade dinner rolls at various times of the year, especially around the holidays. I can still remember the well known rule in our kitchen that, when my mother would start counting measurements for the ingredients, talking would cease so she would not lose count and ruin the batch.
As I grew older, she let me take on more responsiblities with the rolls, whether it was measuring, mixing, and kneading the dough or keeping track of the timer on the oven and removing the rolls from the pans. After we removed them from the oven , we would use the papers from the margarine sticks to butter the top of the rolls which gave them the finishing touch. One special skill that she had that I never really mastered was knowing exactly when the butter and water mixture was warm enough to make the yeast active in the recipe but not so hot that it would kill the yeast, causing the bread not to rise. She would stick her pinky finger in the water and could tell if it needed slightly more heating, needed to cool some, or if it was just right. I never remember a batch of our bread not rising.
The rolls were always a special and delicious addition to our holiday meals as well as occasional meals during the year. It’s been a long time since I have had mom’s rolls or bread, but whenver I get the opportunity to have homemade bread it takes me back to a much simpler time in life, and that warm kitchen in Johnstown where it all started.
Share your experience in medical health