In my dream life, the place where my richest food fantasies are created, I imagine myself attending a potluck church social on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon. I am wearing a cotton sundress, fitted through the waist, with a full skirt and a lace petticoat beneath. Pink plastic beads lie knotted around my neck, a sun hat adorned with a silk millinery flower sits upon my head.
It is really quite romantic, the way I have directed this gastronomic tale in my imagination. It’s high noon and services have just let out. Children spill from the doors of the church, screeching and running off the bottled up energy they were forced to contain for the past few hours as the pastor’s prophetic voice commanded their attention and the watchful glare of their parents warned of stiff consequences if any shenanigans were to occur. The elderly are ushered to comfy lawn chairs, while blankets and heirloom quilts are strewn about as communal resting places for all others.
Stretching for yards, a mixture of rustic wood and metal card tables line up end to end like cars of a train. Such tables are covered with a variety of crisply pressed cotton floral table clothes, as my dream scenario takes place back during a time when women themselves still starched and ironed their own linens. One by one, covered dishes are pulled from baskets woven from straw and metal carriers filled with ice. Casseroles abound, however, platters of fried chicken take center stage in the buffet. And there are several platters. The chicken that disappears first is considered the ‘apple of discord’, a mute nod signifying who is the better cook. There is food as far as the eye can see. Among the many and varied dishes there is corn, green beans, watermelon, slaw, potato salad, deviled eggs, jars of recently canned pickles, and casseroles containing noodles cloaked in cheeses of various sorts. Biscuits and yeast rolls saddle up alongside a stick of butter and at least three versions of the requisite jello mold are in attendance. And what would a summer banquet be without a platter of sliced homegrown tomatoes. There are plenty of pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade to quell our thirst and temper the heat of the afternoon sun.
Off to the side, the branches of a tree shade the dessert table. Reason enough for the gathering. Bees and children alike swarm about, the latter awaiting the official announcement that “dessert is served”. In creating the sweets table of my dreams, I simply return to a time when I was a young girl attending a family reunion in West Virginia. My great-grandmother’s farm sits atop a mountain in the state of cardinals and sugar maples. We spent summers in the “country”, sleeping in the attic atop feather beds, in a house that did not acquire indoor plumbing until many years later. The best food I have ever tasted, simply yet exquisitely prepared, was eaten at my great-grandmother’s table. Meals consisted of chickens that were beheaded and plucked of their feathers only hours prior to eating, potatoes whipped rich with fresh cream and butter, piping hot yeast rolls from her coal burning oven, and corn fresh from the stalk, plunged into boiling water minutes before dinner commenced. I am both salivating and tearing up as I reminisce about that time so long ago.
So, I call on memories of a family reunion I attended one summer on my great-grandmother’s farm in scripting the dessert table for my fantasy potluck social. It would be a beginning to end reproduction of the spread of heavenly sweets I remember from that reunion. I come by my pie baking skills honestly, as it was great-grandma Gratzy and my great-aunts’ pies that embedded deep and lasting memories in my mind. So on this table there are pies – blackberry, peach, apple, lemon meringue and butterscotch. Cake! No dessert table would be complete without cake. My great-aunt Opal made the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted. Be there a single dessert I could eat again from my past, it would be that cake. So, it is there at my potluck gathering, among others – carrot cake heavily iced with cream cheese frosting, coconut cake stacked four layers tall, and spice cake. I have always had an affinity for spice cake with buttercream frosting. Pudding laced with bananas and vanilla wafers is a must, enticing the children as well as the adults looking to re-live their own moment of nostalgia. Pies do not preclude cobblers from being among the dessert offerings. Although pies and cobblers crowding the same table may seem redundant to some, they are completely different animals with loyal fans in both categories. There are cookies for on-the-go little hands who haven’t the time to break from play and still themselves long enough to consume a slice of anything more.
If I were so lucky as to find myself in the midst of such a gastronomic fairytale, I would not feel compelled to exercise self-control. I would graze and return to the buffet for seconds, most likely even third helpings. Who can stop at just one deviled egg? Choose between yeast rolls and biscuits? Impossible! Fairly judging the fried chicken would require consuming more than just a piece or two. And dessert, don’t even get me started.
As the curtain descends on the closing scene of this culinary fantasy, the hunger pangs that ignited urgency as the doors of the church flew open earlier in the day have been sated. Straw hats cover the faces of those who have chosen to digest while napping, others lie about the blanket strewn grass sharing recipes along with the occasional bit of local gossip. Even the children have slowed their pace, taking to less active forms of play. As the sun glides slowly towards the western horizon, my desire to be part of a larger community, gathering with the dual purpose of eating great food while enjoying one another’s company, has been met.
This recipe is adapted from an article that was sent to me by a friend living in North Carolina. She clipped it from The Art and Soul of Greensboro. Originally titled ‘Grandma’s Banana Cake’, it has been handed down through the generations by way of a church cookbook, as so many great recipes are. This cake would be a fitting addition to any dessert table.
Cake
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed, VERY ripe bananas
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 325˚F. Butter and flour two 8-inch cake pans.
Cream the sugar and butter in the bowl of a mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and yolk and mix until thoroughly combined.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to the butter mixture, beating until combined. Add the bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Blend with the mixer until the batter is smooth. Fold in the chopped walnuts.
Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove to a rack and cool cakes in pans for 15 minutes. Remove the cakes from pans and cool completely.
Frosting
1/2 cup strong coffee, or 3 tablespoons espresso powder dissolved in 1/2 cup hot water
4 tablespoons butter
4 squares unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
Combine coffee, butter and chocolate in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until melted. Remove from heat and gradually add the confectioners sugar, approximately a cup at a time, beating vigorously with a wooden spoon. Continue to beat until the frosting thickens to spreading consistency, adding additional sugar if necessary.
Place one cake layer on a cake plate. Using an offset spatula, frost the top. Top with remaining layer and frost top then sides. Sprinkle walnuts on top of cake.
Yield: 8 to 12 servings
Source: Adapted from Grandma’s Banana Cake | The Bread of Life
