A Crust Of Warm Home Made Bread And Jam

My Mother’s Home Made Bread

            For a growing boy there is nothing on this earth like the aroma of freshly baked home made bread.   If I close my eyes and let my thoughts go back to that old farm kitchen, I can see my mother taking her double pan of huge loaves from the oven.   I wanted to eat a crust there and then, but she would say that I must wait for the bread to cool down or I would get stomach ache.

            I can remember her using two different yeasts.   The one where you would keep a ball of the bread dough buried in the dry bread flour until you needed it.   When you wanted to bake bread again you would place that ball in a container with some sugar, flour and warm water and within a few hours your yeast would be bubbling and ready for use.   The other was known as potato yeast where you kept a little in a big canned fruit bottle.   You would add more grated potato, some sugar, flour and warm water and keep the bottle in a warm place and within a few hours this would also start coming alive and bubbling.

            She knew just how much bread flour she needed for a big loaf of bread and, depending on how many loaves she wanted, she would measure out the flour into her kneading basin, adding the bubbling yeast and whatever else she wanted to like salt, sugar and warm water before she would start kneading.   The bread dough had to be soft and pliable before being covered with a white cloth and a blanket and kept in a warm place.   Soon you could smell the dough rising with the yeast.

            When the dough had risen and filled the basin to the top, it would be kneaded down again and divided into the number of loaves that you wanted, placed in greased bread pans and covered with the cloth and blanket again and kept in a warm place.   The fire in the black stove would be stoked and how wonderful it was that without a temperature gauge my dear mother would know when her oven was ready by just testing it with her hand.   The bread pans, which by now were filled to the brim with the risen dough, would be placed inside and the oven door closed and not to be opened again until the bread was done.   There was no glass door to take a peak, but she knew and never burnt a loaf.   Having a big family, she would have to repeat this procedure about every second day.

            Her loaves of bread would be a golden colour and the slices were as big as a dinner plate and, when spread with butter and home made jam, would fill a growing boys tummy, and his heart, and give him enough energy to get up to mischief all day long!!   I loved my mom and I loved life.   She has been gone a long time now but I would like to say “Thank you Mommy”.

Home Made Jam

I like to make Jam.   Yes I still make jam and it gives me great pleasure to give bottles of it away to my relatives and friends.   When I am preparing the fruit it always reminds me of my mother when she did the same.   She had a big family and cooked much bigger quantities than what I do.   The fruit that she had on the farm which she could use were peaches, apricots, plums, figs and grapes.   She would fill big canned-fruit bottles with it and I never heard her say to anyone not to waste.   I was her jam eater in the family and would spread a lot on those big home-made bread slices until it dripped down the sides.

            I am so pleased that my daughter, Janine, also likes making jam and that the tradition will long remain in the family after I have gone.   I have made all types of Jam and marmalade, but the strangest and most interesting of all were elderberry, cucumber (you must use green food colouring), pineapple guava (aka feijoa fruit), tree tomato, nastergal, kiwi fruit and Marula jelly.   A favourite of mine is still apricot jam and Yvonne likes marmalade which she spreads very thinly.

          

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                    Tamarilo Fruit or Tree Tomatoes grown in Stutterheim by Keith Whittal.