Raisin Bread (Of Sorts) by Goob

There is this recipe that my maternal grandmother made that I just can't figure out. I last ate the most perfect cookies ever when I was younger than Alexis is now, so it exists only in a tiny corner of my mind. There's a chance that some others in the family have the key words written somewhere safe, but for reasons beyond my own comprehension, I've made up my mind to keep trying to figure it out.

It has been years since I first began the adventure. This week I tried again before concluding that I'm no closer than I was when I started.

And yet.

I continue. There is a point at which I will find the right blend of sugar and flour and milk and the right technique for combining them. In the meantime, I've considered writing about the quest, but then I peered through some emails and came across words that do it better than I ever could. They were the bread in a sandwich filled with two recipes that I'm excited to try because my quest to try all sorts of recipes passed down from immigrants really has been my favorite thing ever.

(If you've sent one of those recipes, thank you. I'm working my way through them. Each one is a delightful little gift and will show up here when the time comes. If you haven't sent one, please do.)

Here are Goob's words. They most perfectly explain why the trying is more important than the succeeding.

*********************************************

# Raisin Bread, One

If you look on a map somewhat between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, you'll find a small town named Pittston there, hedged up against the left bank of the Susquehanna in the rolling coal hills in that corner of our Commonwealth. Zoom in, a little, and look for Church St. If you have a moment, switch to satellite view and zoom in further, so you can count the churches. This is where my Grandmother lived, and where she made her raisin bread.

We simply could not eat enough of that stuff. She made it with a rich dough, golden from the eggs and butter she worked into it, letting it rise twice and then to bake up fluffy but rich. Her raisin bread was best when it came out of the toaster, quickly spread with warmed butter from the cut glass dish on the counter, and crammed into one's mouth faster than could be considered safe. It toasted up a warm brown, crispy and delicious, hot and tender inside and swirled with fat juicy raisins. She would make three loaves, one for her and two for everyone else, and the house would always be down to one loaf in very short order.

*********************************************

# Raisin Bread, II

I called my parents the other evening; they picked up the phone and put me on speaker, so they could both speak to me while they were going over papers they had spread out over their dining room table. They were looking for my Grandmother's raisin bread recipe, amongst the artifacts and ephemera she left behind for us, hoping to get some assistance in recreating that bread that all of that side of my family can remember with fondness.

"Have you got a copy of Joy," I asked them. "Joy of Cooking, maybe late sixties? There's a recipe in there for White Bread Plus, and that's as close as I ever got."

"Oh, that one," Dad said. "Does that one have an egg in it?"

"I think it's optional," I told him, "but I always put one in. I never get the raisins right, though."

"Ah, the raisins," he said. "I don't know exactly what my mom did to the raisins." There was a shuffling of paper. "We're looking for the recipe."

They haven't found the recipe yet. We talked a bit that night about raisins in bread, and what to do about them: soak them first in something: milk, maybe, or the proofing water with the yeast and the sugar. He's tried rolling them in flour, but that didn't work at all; maybe coating them in melted butter? We have a lot of things to try. We might figure it out. And even if we don't figure it out, we'll be practicing, and any time I've ever practiced something I've gotten better at it. So we'll practice, and we'll make better bread, and we will think warmly of Grandma as we smear it with warm butter from the dish on the table.

I think she'd be pleased with that.

Comments

[Mary]

What a heart warming story. Yes to always trying. Then remembering what you did to make it that way.