It's the season to grace one's home and hearth with an heirloom dessert. Having secured a place in old Americana, the heirloom dessert returns as a very novel, stylish thing to do for the holidays. With their new cookbook (Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert), the fabulous Beekman Boys have made it de rigeur for self-proclaimed epicureans.
Three words come to mind: Tradition. Patina. Family-lore.
Does it mean the same thing to others, I'd wondered. I ask a random stranger seated next to me on the Metro-North. His name is Dale. His interests include firearms, carburetors, and watching explosions on the internet. He could have had an heirloom per se, if his mother hadn't sold her Chevy Nova in the 70's.
"Dale, what comes to mind when you hear the term, heirloom dessert?"
"A fruitcake my mother-in-law made that's been sitting in the attic for 4 years now." He seems to say this with more disgust at the thought of his late mother-in-law than the fruitcake taking permanent residence in his attic.
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| Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell signing cookbooks at Williams-Sonoma, E.59th |
I'm thinking of Katie's Hickory Nut Cake from Vincent Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis.
Setting is 1904 World's Fair. Papa Lonnie (Alonzo) tells the clan they
will leave the center of the universe to move to New York City. The Smith family protests. And then wise old Katie brings out her legendary
Hickory Nut Cake.
Lonnie says it's as light as a feather as only Katie could make it.
And Katie credits the stove that could not be had in New York tenements. So the family's heirloom cake made in a heritage stove kept the family from leaving St. Louis, as a geriatric Tootie would tell her grandchildren someday.
It's
amazing. For years I'd watch Judy Garland trolley, twirl, and pout in
this MGM wonder and only one thing would leave a lasting impression. This elusive, feathery cake made in antique coal
stoves. I could have easily made it an obsession.
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| Margaret O'Brien as Tootie and Judy Garland as Esther doing the Cake Walk in Meet Me in St. Louis |
Because it seemed complex. As I saw it, one needed to grow up in that home, inherit the coal stove, and live by
hickory nut trees. And this didn't cover the
part of making that cake through the years to acquire an heirloom
sheen. Yes, yes, I will meet you at the goddamn fair if you would just bring
me a sliver of Katie's cake.
I had an heirloom complex. I felt I was raised by wolves. My grandmother was a nomad. The only worldly thing she passed onto her daughter was a couple of hundred-dollar bills. As she stood by her deathbed, my grandmother rasped, "Look into my left coat pocket. There's some money." And then she was gone.
My mother, who never had a moment of nostalgia in her life (which I suspect made for an extraordinary happy-go-lucky nature), spent it all in a matter of days. My father tends to be very nostalgic - almost maudlin at times. He was the one who had to plant every fruit and vegetable he had grown up with as a boy.
Myself - I fear romanticizing the past beyond reasonable perspective. So I treat sentimentality as if it were a criterion in the DSM manual. What's more, our family did not do desserts, except for the occasional fruit from one of the trees tended by my sentimental father.
In the winter, it was cut-up persimmons from our yard. I used to tease my parents that persimmons were old people's fruit.
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| these were picked earlier in the month and are ripening in a warm, sunny room |
Persimmons didn't seem to have an edge to their personality -- they were just soft and sweet. As a child, I loved tart, sour, juicy, and crisp: berries, apples, kiwis, and oranges.
Then one cold day, the Fuyu Fairy must have whispered into my ear. I cut one of our persimmons at its cross-section into ½ - inch slices. How pretty. Then I added a little cinnamon on top. Well, I took a bite and never tasted a more luxurious fruit. My palate had changed. Our family had an heirloom dessert all this time, and I didn't know it. Who knows, I might just be inspired to create a persimmon dessert recipe of my own.
Today, I present one of our persimmons as if it were a rare diamond. "Listen, this fruit tastes like velvet and bears heirloom seeds. If you don't want to plant a persimmon tree, then save these seeds to pass onto your children."
This is the gift of heirloom desserts, even if it's just fruit. They tell stories, define families, and provide some sense of continuity in a place that is vicarious and fleeting as this touch-and-go world.
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I think my autographed copy will become an heirloom in itself.
Happy Thanksgiving! ~ e
