Christmas. My early childhood memories of food around Christmastime will likely bring back memories for many of my readers … and will remind the young ones of the importance of remembering how things used to be … compared to how they are now. Admittedly, 2020 has been a year that has taken many of us back to some of those old ways.
Some of you probably remember the days when you could
go to the grocery store and ‘sign’ for your groceries, running a tab and paying
at the end of the month. My mother never
did that. In fact, she never bought
anything on credit and tried to teach her kids to be that thrifty. (That was a lesson lost on this child!)
What we did have at our little neighborhood grocery
store was just the opposite of that.
Daddy would sell garden produce to the grocer in exchange for credit
which could be used later. Our ‘due
bill’ was an amount due to us that we could spend against. When I mention garden produce, I’m not
talking about a few tomatoes! Daddy
exchanged bushels of sweet corn and a truck load of sweet potatoes one
year.
At another little store on the other side of my
hometown, Daddy kept a different kind of running tab! This store was attached to the Deal Brothers
Blacksmith Shop. The Deal Brothers were
friends of Daddy’s, and they often swapped labor. My dad was a carpenter and could build and/or
fix anything. Seriously. By the time December rolled around each year,
Daddy had some credit built up to use in the little tiny grocery store. The Deal Brothers had relatives that lived in
Georgia, so they always had plenty of pecans to sell during the holidays. We loved our hickory nuts that we’d pick up
in the woods and then work diligently to crack and pick out, but we more than
loved those beautiful pecans. The nut
meats just fell out of the easily broken shell! The Deal Brothers also had access to
beautiful big oranges from Florida.
That’s where my post is going:
Oranges at Christmastime.
When I was a child, a Christmas treat at school and at
church was a paper bag with an apple and an orange in it. Sometimes there would be a few pieces of
candy, too. Twenty years later, when my
daughter was a child, the school and church treat was the same. Why oranges?
Apples were grown in big orchards in our region, but oranges came from
‘afar’!
I always thought the tradition of giving an orange as
a Christmas gift was related to the Great Depression. Oranges were expensive, and to get one would
have been an incredible treat. While
there is some truth to this notion, the tradition is actually based upon
something done by the original Santa.
Saint Nicholas of Myra lived during the 4th century in what we know as Turkey today. Many celebrate his feast day on December 6th and in many countries, children receive special gifts on that day. The orange tradition is linked to a story of Saint Nicholas rescuing three poverty stricken maidens who would have been forced into prostitution because they didn’t have a dowry. Each of three nights, St. Nicholas tossed a gold ball (maybe a bag of coins) into the window of their home, saving their virtue. Those balls are represented by our oranges, today.
Putting an orange in the toe of a stocking hanging to be filled the night before Christmas emerged in the 19th century and was probably due to the 1823 publishing of “T’was the Night Before Christmas”! Remember, he filled the stockings! An orange was certainly less expensive than gold coins! Oranges at Christmas fell out of vogue, but in 1908, the California Fruit Growers Exchange published many things encouraging people to put an orange in the toe of each Christmas stocking. In 1931, colorful advertisements showed up like this one! Santa could deliver cases of those pretty seedless navel oranges.
He was still
getting those oranges long after I was grown.
In fact, one year he had me fill stockings for all his grandkids with
oranges and apples and tucked in the toe was a twenty dollar bill! I remember their puzzled teenager looks at
the notion that Grandma and Grandpa had given them fruit for Christmas! Then they found the money and those
expressions turned to laughter!
I found a wonderful recipe in one of my 1950s
cookbooks published by the Culinary Institute of Chicago. I’m baking this cake for the first time and
sharing the recipe today. I’m using
orange marmalade that I made this summer.
Marmalade dates to the ancient Romans and Greeks. Citrus was plentiful and cooking the flesh
and some of the peel was easily thickened naturally by the pectin it
contained. We know that King Henry VIII
received many gifts of marmalade from
Portugal and history tells us that it was a favorite of Anne Boleyn.
The same Fruit Growers Exchange and marketing men who
pushed the return of oranges to Christmas stockings, encouraged making or
buying marmalade!
Orange Marmalade Upside Down Cake
Line an 8 inch cake pan or pie dish with parchment
paper. I cut my paper in a circle the
same size as the bottom of my pie dish.
Spray the bottom of the pan first, then spray the sides and parchment
with cooking spray to prevent sticking. While
the original recipe called for 8 Tablespoons of marmalade, I actually used a 14
ounce jar. I think it needs more than 8
Tablespoons. Simply spoon that all over
the bottom of the dish … on top of the parchment paper.
Prepare the cake batter using these ingredients:
2 sticks of room temperature butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ cups of flour
¾ cup of milk
Whip the butter and the sugar until glossy. Add the eggs and continue beating until
thick. Alternately add the flour and the
milk to the batter, continuing to beat.
The batter will be glossy. Gently
spoon the batter over the marmalade.
Place the cake dish in a larger pan of water to bake
it. The water should come up to about a
third of the side of the dish. Cover the
whole thing with foil.
Bake this cake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. It essentially steams.
This cake is scrumptious. The cake is light but rich and the marmalade
is an incredible sweet topping. If you
bake a square, serve 9 pieces. If you
bake a round, cut it into 8 pieces.
This recipe is part of my 2020 Vintage Vegetables
Project. I’ll be sharing the post with a
couple parties, so check the list on my sidebar. If you are interested in similar posts, just
click my menu button. Enjoy!
