Post #9 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Cardamom Memories
By Katherine DeGrow
Walking into the small coffee shop in Virrat, Finland, a village 60 miles north of Helsinki, I was at once aware of the scent of cardamom mingled with the strong aroma of brewed coffee. I was accustomed to the robust smell of coffee but I hadn’t encountered the intensely, aromatic fragrance of the spice for decades. My reaction, so visceral, so immediate, my gut began churning as emotionally I was swept back in time as if caught up by the same tornado that carried Dorothy and Toto over the rainbow. My trip was not to the magical place of Oz, however, but to the land of contradiction, confusion, and family secrets.
I had come to Finland in search of my roots, hoping to find answers to long standing questions. My husband, Doug, joined me as my loving companion and support. Now, he listened as I put words on the memories that were leaping into consciousness.
Here I am at age 5.
I felt as though I was a young girl again, around the age of five, standing in the pristine kitchen of my grandmother Emma. Summer sunlight filtering through the white starched curtains, the slapping flop, flop of Emma’s cooking slippers as she moved from pantry to Frigidaire to the red metal tabletop, laying out the needed ingredients for the metamorphosis about to take place.
Now many years later the aroma of the crushed cardamom fills my nostrils, a vivid memory signaling the onset of discovery in the land of Emma’s birth.
I was not to call Emma “Grandma” because, as Momma said: “She’s not your real grandmother.”
I had some ideas about what real was. For instance, I knew that an old woman wearing a black, pointy hat and black cape, didn’t fly around on her broom on Halloween. She wasn’t real. Neither were talking animals or hairy monsters, droolers with red eyes and sharp claws, that lived under my bed. Well, I wasn’t absolutely sure about the things that might live under my bed. It did seem best, however, to follow the directions given me by Momma, so I just called her Emma.
It was Thursday, bread baking day, and I sat quietly on a red padded kitchen chair that matched the tabletop. Emma, her long brown hair pinned securely behind her neck, her face devoid of make-up, wearing a simple housedress covered with a well-worn apron, didn’t talk much as she moved through the ritual steps she knew so well. She seemed to be in a world uninhabited by me; perhaps back in her ancestral home in the kitchen of her youth.
Soon she was combining the silky white flour with baking powder and soda, breaking the thin shelled, brown eggs on the rim of the mixing bowl, adding milk, golden butter, the pungent cardamom, and the strange gray stuff that had begun to puff up as it waited its turn, the yeast. Emma created a large, round lump that landed with a thud when she threw it on the floured tabletop, then with resolute touch massaged and worked it until it was ready for its first rising. The dough was soon braided into three well-formed loaves and placed in the oven. Before long my taste buds kicked in, sending a rush of juices beneath my tongue. I could almost taste the luxuriant texture as it baked, the feel of the lightly browned crust in my mouth, the bite of the cardamom, the sweetness of the crushed sugar cubes covering the top. The fragrance permeated the room, seeping into my clothes and my welcoming hair.
Some things were a puzzle to me. How could Emma, who seemed so distant and cold, create something so grand? Maybe it had to do with her not being real. Maybe her unrealness was the reason I was never invited to snuggle in her lap while she read me a story or felt her hand stroking my blonde hair or saw a smile that unmistakably said, “I love you, Katie.”
Momma told me my real grandmother died a long time ago. Emma was my grandmother’s little sister and had come a long way over the ocean when she was only 15 to marry Grandpa and take care of Momma after my grandmother died. Emma didn’t want to come. Maybe that was why she didn’t seem to like Grandpa much, or Momma either, or me. Some things I just didn’t understand but still I loved Emma and I wanted her to love me too.
I'm standing (2nd from left) with my cousins in front of my grandfather's bakery.
The memories and feelings that surprised me in the small coffee shop in Virrat, caused tears to commence. They showed up many times in the coming week as I met cousins, second cousins, and walked through the abandoned farmhouse, long ago the home of my ancestors.
My grandfather's bakery before he left for America, now a summer cottage, has one room downstairs where the giant oven filled about a quarter of the space.
Beautifully crafted letters, found stored in the small cottage that in years past had been Grandpa’s bakery, were now in my possession. He had written them to his love, Lempi Elizabeth, my grandmother, and the sweet words and tender poetry must have stirred a response in her as they now did in me. I had never before seen this side of Grandpa. It would remain a mystery as to how the letters came to be in Finland when the address on the envelope was Lenox Avenue with the postmark clearly showing New York City. The two had met in the city after immigrating a year before these letters were written.
My beautiful grandmother who died tragically at age 24 of an abortion.
My greatest treasure was a photograph a cousin retrieved from an old trunk, a picture taken in 1910. I finally saw Lempi gazing back at me in all her simple elegance. Her high necked, white dress, sleeves pushed up above the elbows revealing strong arms and hands, her thick hair parted in the middle and full around her face. There she was, standing next to my handsome grandfather, one hand on his shoulder. And there was Momma too, a precious, healthy looking baby girl. I wept.
Secrets that hovered like air pollution in summer on that bread baking day, were brought to light in the years that followed, but on this day it was enough to delight in my newly discovered family and enjoy my coffee along with a thick, buttery slice of Finnish bread, cardamom once again filling my nostrils and satiating my senses.
Emma’s recipe was in her head, not on paper. Below is the recipe that I use. Although the ingredients and the steps are not exactly like Emma’s, the result is quite similar. I hope you enjoy the scent of cardamom wafting through the air and that it elicits your own special memories.
RECIPE
2 packages dry yeast
2 c warm water
1 egg
6 to 7 cups flour
1/2 t ground cardamom
1/3 c sugar
2 t salt
1/3 c butter
Sugar cubes, crushed (for topping)
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add egg, 3 c flour, cardamom, sugar, and salt to the yeast mixture. Beat with electric mixer at medium speed for 2 minutes or until smooth. Add the butter and enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Use a wooden spoon, or your hands, to mix until the dough pulls away from the bowl.
On a lightly floured board knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Place in a well-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for about 60 minutes.
Punch down the dough. Turn over and let rest 10 minutes before dividing in half. Cut each half into 3 equal parts. Form a strip about 12 inches long from each piece. Braid the 3 strips and pinch the ends to seal. Place the braid in an oiled 9x5x2-inch bread pan. Crush several sugar cubes and sprinkle on top of the braid, lightly patting the sugar. Repeat this process with the second half of the dough. Cover the two braid loaves and let rise for 60 minutes.
Bake the loaves at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes. To keep a lighter color, cover pans with foil during the last 15 minutes of cooking. Cool loaves on wire rack.
Enjoy. Share your own memories of bread baking with your family and friends or start new memories by sharing your experience with this special cardamom bread.
