Damon Lee Fowler

Dec 24, 2017 4:22 AM EST

What a beautiful account!
I want to comment on "the steady click of the fork" and "the steady scraping of the wooden spoon" and "the pan." I remember the uncomplicated kitchens of my youth, with none of the complications and elaborations we feel like are necessary. In my youth the fork was steel, with a wooden handle, and no bigger than a table fork. There were two wooden spoons. And the pan was aluminum. There were no whisks or copper bowls or copper pots, but there was the wonderful expertise that produced the superb cooking we remember.

- Richard Parsons

Dec 24, 2017 7:07 AM EST

I used to say in interviews while promoting my first cookbook: "If I have a well-seasoned cast iron skillet and a sharp knife, I can cook just about anything." The people always looked at me as if I had two heads. But I do feel blessed by my handy whisk and good pots.

- Damon Fowler

Dec 19, 2017 3:55 PM EST

Lovely to have a new recipe for Christmas morning, when my children and four grandchildren descend upon 503 E. President!

- Pam

Dec 19, 2017 6:58 PM EST

Thank you!

- Damon Fowler

Oct 23, 2019 11:34 AM EDT

Thank you for this post! In recent years I'd forgotten how I used to make wine jelly with soft custard. I'd gotten the recipe from my mother-in-law, who gave me her folded Chalmer's Gelatine insert with 5 recipes. I still have it. ([tch] -Sure wish I knew WHERE I have it, though. It's been buried for 30-something years and hasn't yet resurfaced.) -A wonderful curiosity for me was reading that after preparing the gelatin, that the brochure instructions said to put in on ice. "Hummm... curious." The 1970s me couldn't see why I needed to do that ...so I just put it in the refrigerator. It was another couple of years before I thought of it again, and realized just how old this Chalmer's Gelatine package insert was, that it was before the standard use of electric refrigerators rather than iceboxes.
Of note, one of the other recipes in that Chalmer's Gelatine insert was one for Tomato Aspic.

- Betsy Harris

Oct 23, 2019 11:58 AM EDT

Thank you so much for sharing this and for reading! It warms my heart and reassures me when I know that I've touched someone else with a story. Blessings!

- Damon Lee Fowler

Dec 08, 2017 8:11 AM EST

My mother made the same cake in York. Kept the double boiler just for the 7 minute icing.

- SAW

Dec 08, 2017 8:16 AM EST

I think at one point it was actually pretty common across upstate South Carolina and North-west Georgia. Both my grandmothers made it and I've since run into folks from North Georgia and Upstate Carolina who had memories of the same cake in their families. Thank you so much for reading and sharing!

- Damon Fowler

Dec 08, 2017 2:28 PM EST

My mother and both grandmothers made fresh coconut cake for Christmas in Middle Tennessee. My mother's cake was a white cake and she used the yolks for boiled custard. My mother's boiled custard was thin and we drank it with whipped cream on the top. My father's family made a cake with more whites than yolks, and their boiled custard was thick enough to eat with a spoon. I can remember seeing my mother's knuckles bleeding where she grated the coconut by hand. My mother poured the the coconut milk over the top of the cake and it all soaked into the cake making it very moist. I so wish I had a piece of her cake, with a glass of boiled custard. No egg nog for us!

- Virginia Clifford

Dec 08, 2017 3:21 PM EST

Virginia, that warms my heart! My family did drinking custard, too. When they were in Kentucky while Dad was in seminary, the folks knew my older brother, then a toddler, was especially fond of it, and some of the ladies would leave a quart jar of warm custard between the back screen and door on Sunday mornings. Later, my mother would make it as a surprise evening snack for us. We'd spoon and drink it from cups while it was still almost too hot to eat. It was a wonder!

My grandmother grated the coconut by putting it through a meat grinder, so she never had bleeding knuckles. I'd love to have just one more piece of her cake.

- Damon Fowler