The Scent of Gingerbread Takes Me Back Over Fifty Years
It provides a connection to a mother I barely remember.
This past week, I made Gingerbread from Momma’s recipe. It is a delicious, moist, and tender cake infused with a distinctive gingerbread flavor.
But what moves me about this particular recipe is not just the result, but the memories associated with it.
This recipe is a connection between me and my Momma.
After losing my dad when he was 61, I realized that I was also losing the people who knew my mother. My mother (or Momma, as I refer to her now) died when she was only 24 years old. So very young, but she held a special place in the family.
Momma was the youngest of her sibling group of three. By all accounts, she was warm, engaging, and a natural-born cook. I have evidence she was honored for her cooking. I still have her “Crisco Award” trophy, earned in high school as an outstanding Home Economics student.
Her legacy is frozen as of July 1968. I can only surmise what she wanted to do with her life by clues I piece together. She wanted to be a writer and a great cook. I share these desires.
So one cold November day twenty years ago, I made the trek to my maternal aunt’s house to learn more about my family…
