Okay, so I have this cupboard full of old cookbooks and
recipes. Most are mine but some of the really old ones were my mothers. And
there’s a recipe box full of handwritten recipes from before that.
My grandmother’s scone recipe is there but the method
involves a handful of this, a pinch of that, a dollop and a slab of other
ingredients and then folding it all together with your hands until a soft dough
forms. I tried this once and got to the folding together part, assuming that
the dough “forming” was a kind of magical phenomenon. It wasn’t and I doubt
that I translated dollops and pinches correctly because it was all a big mess. All
I know is my mom made these scones and, with strawberry jam, they were out of
this world delicious.
There are several old recipes in that box, all with really
vague measuring instructions. Maybe in the early 1900s there was a collective baking
sense that came to women the way computer sense now seems to be almost inherent
in our children. Born half way through that century, I missed out on both
counts.
But the reason I was recently snooping through those old
recipe files was because I was in search of THE vegetable marrow honey recipe.
This delicious, lemony preserve, when spread on toast of fresh bread was
wonderful, one of the special tastes of my childhood – something I remember
fondly but don’t know how to make. I could let it go, but as fate would have
it, my mother fed it to my son when he was a little guy and he remembers. A few
years ago he asked me if I would make some. I thought I had it figured out but,
like the scones, it was a disaster. I haven’t thought about it since.
Fast forward to the market last weekend. The lady in front
of me asked the market lady if the squash she was holding was a spaghetti squash. No, she was told. It
was a vegetable marrow. The market lady said she hasn’t been able to get them for several years.
Maybe the grocery stores haven’t had them either because I haven’t seen one in
a long time.
“I don’t want it then,” said the spaghetti squash lady.
“I do,” burst out of my mouth, the memory of marrow honey
teasing my taste buds, the memory of not having the recipe, gone. So I brought
it home. It isn’t as big as the ones my dad grew but it is a firm, light yellow
vegetable marrow, none the less. And it’s waiting for me to do something with
it.
So I am in search of the recipe. I’ve found a couple that
might work on vintage recipe sites and I’m hoping I can come close to the
smooth, buttery texture and fine taste of the marrow honey I remember. If not,
I’m done, but if it works, there will be a couple of us who are really happy.
Anyone else have memories of marrow honey?
