My Grandmother: Queen of Puddings
When my maternal grandmother was four, her father made her a stool so she could stand at the kitchen counter and learn how to make bread. In her large family — 10 children, parents and grandparents — everyone had a job and not long after that first lesson, my grandmother’s mother covered her four-year-old’s hair with a kerchief, put an apron on her that reached down to her ankles and left her to mix the ingredients. Following instructions in kneading, allowing the dough to rise and forming the loaves, my grandmother took over making her family’s daily bread. Soon after, her job expanded to making something sweet to finish Sunday dinners.
I was not much older than she had been standing on her stool when I stood on a kitchen chair next to her, amazed as her hands, tempered by decades of practice, mixed this and that into pastry, batter and dough that was transformed by heat into the pies, cakes and bread I loved. Although I did not have to take over any of her duties, I learned to mix and measure, stir and shape, while my hair, too, was covered with a kerchief and an apron shrouded the rest of me.
“One day you will have your own kitchen and make these things,” she said, no doubt remembering similar words said to her long ago.
Until my own kitchen materialized, I contented myself with hers and every Sunday, until my family moved away from the Newfoundland island where I spent the early years of my life, we had dinner with Mom and Pop Skanes (the names my sister and I gave our grandparents.) As soon as I got to their green clapboard house, I headed straight for the kitchen to see what Mom Skanes had planned for dessert. Never mind the turkey, roast beef or ham in the oven of the gigantic cast iron stove that gave off a fierce heat, warming the whole house, the bowls of mashed potatoes glistening with butter or the carrots caramelized by sugar. What was for dessert?
Ironically, if there were slices of stale bread laid out on the counter, I knew dessert would be extra special.
My grandmother was generous, especially with food, sharing it with everyone who came into her house, as well as with neighbours, fallen on hard times, but too proud to ask for help. Somehow, she knew they were struggling and baskets of vegetables, meat and bread appeared on their back steps, always with something sweet tucked in, as well. She and her family had struggled too, but her kindness and generosity never waivered; food was meant to be shared, but also never wasted. Things that people now might throw in the garbage, she turned into something delicious. This was especially true with desserts.
Two of these, lost bread and the queen of puddings often finished Sunday dinners.
Lost bread was found on her table more often in the spring and fall, when she was busy getting her garden in shape for planting, or tidying it away for winter and did not have a lot of time to make dessert. Not only was it quick, but also satisfying and a great way to use up stale bread.
It is an old dessert and has had many names: in France, New Orleans and some French communities in Newfoundland, it is pain perdu (which, in English, means lost bread); in other parts of Canada, it is pain doré or golden bread, because of the syrup sometimes poured over it; and in Nordic countries, it is poor knights. England knows it as poor knights of Windsor (named for the military order created in the 14th century by King Edward III.)
Whatever name it has gone by, this was not a dish just for the poor. In Medieval times, some recipes called for ingredients, such as white bread and spices, that the poor could never afford, and accompaniments, such as game meats and exotic birds, they could only dream of.
Today, we forgo such accompaniments, often serving lost bread as French toast at breakfast, but Mom Skanes kept her lost bread for dessert, soaking the stale slices in a rich custard of egg yolks (the whites set aside for another use), milk and cream, sugar, vanilla and sometimes orange zest, when there were oranges in the cold cellar.
After the bread was fried a golden brown, she garnished it with things that changed according to what was in her pantry, or the season: strawberry or raspberry jam with powdered sugar in spring, fresh gooseberries, or blueberries from her garden with whipped heavy cream in summer, and golden syrup and apples from the 50-pound barrel delivered by a St. John’s grocer in the autumn.
She never made lost bread in the winter. That season, with its snow banks that buried the fence posts and skies as dark as slate by late afternoon, demanded something more to shake off the winter doldrums. The queen of puddings, a traditional British dessert, was just the thing. Served hot, it took the chill off the soul and put a smile on the face.
Family lore has it that her recipe had been handed down orally, from mother to daughter for generations, but she tweaked it by using slices of bread instead of the called-for breadcrumbs, as a time saver so she did not have to grate the bread.
My mother and aunts joked that she had made the pudding so often she had become the queen baker of the queen of puddings. In addition to appearing at Sunday dinners, it also arrived at sick beds, where its soft, nursery food texture and delicious flavour could, if not cure ills, make people feel a little better as they regained some strength.
The queen of puddings is an elegant dessert, with its soft peaks of golden meringue and layer of jewel-toned jam that glows when the pudding is served. Different variations date back to 17th century England. A cookbook printed in 1699, known as The Closet Opened, has recipes for puddings similar to what became known as the queen of puddings, including Monmouth pudding (layers of meringue, jam and bread soaked in milk) and Manchester pudding (similar to Monmouth, but containing egg yolks.) British food writers such as Jane Grigson and Delia Smith have their recipes for the pudding, as does Nigella Lawson, who calls hers “the Marie Antoinette version” because she uses brioche instead of breadcrumbs. (Mom Skanes would have approved as long as the brioche was left to go stale.)
Even years after her death, I still judge my lost bread and queen of puddings against my grandmother’s and whenever I set out to make one or the other, imagine that the dessert will fall short. She was a superb cook and baker. In another time and place, she might have written food articles or cookbooks and been acknowledged for her culinary skills, but hers was a time and place where it was taken for granted that a woman could “turn her hand in the kitchen,” as she would say, and that such skills did not need to be lauded. In fact, they did need just that and, in my small way, I laud those skills and the woman who taught them to me, so they would not be lost.
Queen of puddings (Mom Skanes’ recipe)
Serves 4 to 6
4 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk
1 cup coffee cream (18 per cent)
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 slices of white bread, crusts removed
Butter (room temperature, for spreading on bread)
1 cup raspberry jam
Meringue
4 egg whites, room temperature
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
½ cup granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar together until light and creamy. Slowly add the milk, cream and vanilla, combining well.
Spread softened butter on both sides of the bread and arrange the slices in a greased 1-quart baking dish. Pour the custard mixture over the bread. Use a fork to submerge the slices so that the liquid soaks into them.
Place the baking dish into a larger, high-sided pan and pour enough hot water into the larger pan to reach halfway up the sides of the baking dish.
Carefully place in the oven and bake until the pudding is set (the bread will be fi rm when pressed with a fork), about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven.
Increase the oven temperature to 375 F. Spread the raspberry jam evenly over the bread pudding.
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites using an electric mixer, until soft peaks form. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and beat until the meringue is thick and glossy.
Spread the meringue evenly over the jam layer, making peaks with the back of a spatula. Bake until the meringue is golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Serve hot or cold.
