A WINTER TREAT
Savouring the instant nostalgia that comes with opening Mom’s cookbook
Two sisters relish the joy and wonder of making a delectable frozen dessert from their childhood.
It was Sunday afternoon and my sister, Chris, and I were puttering around in the kitchen and wondering what interesting dish we could add to our evening meal, or faspa, as it was called in Low German. “Let’s make ice cream!” suggested Chris excitedly. “Oh, yes, let’s!” was my exuberant response. Chris, being several years older than I, was much more experienced in the kitchen. She brought out Mom’s well-worn Watkins cookbook to get instructions on how to make freezer ice cream. I still have the book and refer to it from time to time. The tired-looking, blue cover with a metal-coiled spine has a few loose pages inside that are splattered with batter, indicating it was a very popular reference book in my mother’s kitchen. In the section called Frozen Desserts, I saw that the recipe “Ice Cream” was clearly marked and beside it, in my childish handwriting, the words “Very Good.”
We went downstairs and retrieved the hand-cranked ice cream churn from the top storage shelf. Then, in the pantry beside the cream separator, we found the fresh cream from that morning’s milking. According to the recipe, we needed a pint of whole milk and two pints of cream. From what I recall, we likely made only half the amount, as our freezer could not hold a gallon of ice cream that the recipe says to makes.
We rushed back upstairs and set to work
assembling this special dessert. We made the custard using eggs, whole milk and sugar and cooked it for several minutes, then added the cream and vanilla. Leaving it to cool on the cupboard, we bundled up in parkas, toques and mitts and headed to the cattle-watering trough beside the barn. We had brought with us a pail and a hatchet and began chopping away at the ice in the trough with gusto. What fun!
With the bucket full of ice chunks, we scurried back to the house. Filling the canister with the ice cream mixture, we closed the lid and then placed it in the freezer and began filling the outer space with ice. We found a bag of Mom’s pickling salt in the basement and added copious amounts of it to lower the temperature of the frozen pieces. Then we began to turn the handle.
At the beginning, we could hear the sloshing of the creamy mixture in the canister. After about 20 to 30 minutes of cranking, the sloshing stopped and suddenly the churning became very easy—the sign that the liquid had solidified into a solid, soft state. The ice cream canister was ready to be removed from the ice, which had now turned to slush.
No doubt the other food on the table that evening was tasty as well, but I remember only the adventure of making ice cream.
Today we associate it with hot summer days. We didn’t have access to ice in the summer, so ice cream was special to us no matter the season. Winters were so bitterly cold on the Saskatchewan Prairies but there were times when we took full advantage of the frigid temperatures and brought from it a delightful diversion that we could all enjoy. I don’t remember the cold when we were hacking at the ice in the watering trough. I only recollect the joy and wonder of making a delectable frozen dessert and have tucked the pleasurable experience into my memory bank. Each time I recall it, I can enjoy the delicious winter treat again.