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...Contributed by Charles Thurber |
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1/2 cup shortening 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 egg 1 1/3 cups pumpkin 2 1/4 cups flour 3 teaspoons baking powder 375 degree oven |
1/4 teaspoon cloves 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 cup raisins or nuts or both |
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Cream shortening; add sugar gradually. Cream until light and fluffy. Add eggs and pumpkin; mix well. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and spices together. Stir in dry ingredients and mix until blended. Add raisins and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls on greased cookie sheets. Bake in 350 degree oven for approximately 15 minutes. Makes 4 dozen cookies. May be frozen if desired. Pumpkin Raisin Cookies (aka Boiled Raisin Cookies)
Dedicated to the Memory of Lu Thurber ...by Charles Thurber It was in my early childhood when I came to realize that there are two kinds of mothers... hard-cookie mothers, and soft-cookie mothers. It is not to compare nor demean the hard-cookie mothers that I mention this point of fact, but merely to make note of this apparently fundamental distinction.My mother certainly made other kinds of cookies, and around Christmas she made special and exceptionally complicated ones, some hard, some decorated, some ball-shaped and covered with powdered sugar that I learned to not inhale...but throughout the year, her most reliably good, "utility" cookies were these soft moist rich pumpkin cookies, sometimes with nuts, but always with raisins. When I moved away from home it was not too long before I had recurrent longings for these cookies, and it became an almost annual Christmas treat for her to make and box up a charge of these Pumpkin Raisin Cookies, grousing a little that they were heavy and expensive to mail, yet sending them anyway to me. I would savor and hoard them, and selectively share them with friends, but guardedly: if they did not respond enthusiastically to the texture and taste of these delectables, I would not waste more than one on them! Eventually I felt settled enough in my adult life that I thought that I could duplicate these cookies in my own kitchen, so I asked my mother for her "secret" Pumpkin Raisin Cookie Recipe. She said it was all in her head, she'd have to make some, just to remember and write down the steps and ingredients... and also that it was just a recipe off a can of pumpkin. I was shocked and confused that such a fine cookie had no more mystery behind it than a promotional recipe on a can of pumpkin! Why didn't all these poor hard-cookie mothers see it then, and make them too? Surely they made pies with canned pumpkin, it was always there on the label, before their eyes... My best hypothesis now is that it is a matter of temperament, and I had it backwards as a child; there really ARE NOT hard- and soft-cookie mothers, yet mothers of different temperaments. My mother was not only inclined to experiment with new recipes, she was also sensitive to the feedback from her family, and when she hit on something popular, she would make it a special item and link it to our preferences. I always liked these cookies, probably more than anyone else in my family, and whenever I returned "home" for a visit with my parents, my mother would take the effort to make me these cookies, as well as some other favorite dishes. I am humbled at the thought of her love for me and her genuine desire to please me in such a seemingly simple and modest way. My mother is gone now, and cannot make me cookies again; yet the memories are fresh, from my first childhood awareness of her, to our wonderful friendship as adults. She was not with high pretenses; she was direct, and with a lot of spunk; may these cookies reflect in a small way what it meant to me to have a soft-cookie mother! Post Script: My grandmother, Delilah Ward, my mother's mother, would call these "Boiled Raisin Cookies", for the technique of plumping the raisins. |
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