Will There Be Enough: American Fruit Desserts

Last updated on: June 19, 2014 at 7:02 am by Anne Kennedy

Will There Be Enough: American Fruit Desserts 2014-06-19T07:02:49-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I humbled bragged yesterday on Facebook that I have a special charism for baked American summer fruit desserts and there were some who asked for the actual dessert, and some who asked for the recipe. Personally, I’d rather have everyone just turn up and eat some of whatever it is I’m baking, because I don’t really know how to say what it is that makes all the difference. It’s like the people who can make perfect deviled eggs. They hand you a recipe card, or explain it to you, and then you go home and do it, and you feel very sad. Or when Matt tries to tell me how to make gravy for pork. Whatever it is that he does, and no amount of explaining really helps me to understand, raises the heart and soul into the heavenly realm. Except I suppose we won’t be eating pork in heaven, big sigh.

Where was I? Oh yes. My earliest American Fruit Dessert experiences were in Africa where my father would transform the mundane and ubiquitous mango into cobbler–fruit on the bottom, golden puffy mounds of sugary biscuit on the top. All that’s needed when it comes out of your little gas oven, in the dank dark nights of Africa, is a little cream, but I’m pretty sure we had to settle for milk, probably reconstituted from powder. I expect my mother can remember. So central to my culinary understandings of reality has mango cobbler been, that I still regularly pass over the better, more local options of peaches, nectarines, and plums and buy less good mango and turn them into cobbler for my children, who do get cream, lots and lots of cream, and sometimes for breakfast.

Out of this fertile formative soil was born for me that moment of defining and life changing clarity, The Plum Cobbler. Having survived not one, but two horrific snowbound, shattering Cornell winters, in the late spring of 1999, when it was possible to wander around the Ithaca Farmer’s Market in short sleeves and sandals, I came upon a certain person selling plums, and I bought a large amount, along with a big bundle of flowers. Except, really, as the day went on, it became more than clear that I hadn’t bought enough plumbs. I took them home and made a cobbler, not for one moment imagining that anything supernatural was happening. It baked quietly, the aroma filling my dingy college apartment, and then, by the mercy of God, one of my roomates and I looked into each other’s eyes and knew that we had to take that cobbler and get out of there and go as far away as we could, or all would be lost. We rustled up someone with a car (I’m probably miresmembering the order of things) and drove out to the plantations, and in the dusk, the three of us ate that entire cobbler as if our lives were in peril. The plums, the biscuit–though that is too boring a word to describe what happens between flour, butter, cream transformed into glory when joined together with a perfect moment of fruit–perfectly sweet, just enough tang, the texture and flavor light and perfect. As you can see, words, over the years, have failed me as I have thought of and rememberd that cobbler.

Since then I have learned about crumble, which is always easier, and which can be, in the right spiritual space, just as uplifting as cobbler. You melt a stick of butter and pour it, still hot, over a bowl filled with old fashioned uncooked oats mixed with brown sugar (how much? I don’t know at all. Enough.) and mush it around and watch the sugar and butter blend themselves together. Then you mound it up high on whatever it is that you have. In the winter it is bags of mixed frozen Aldi berries, or grocery store apples. On Tuesday it was my own rhubarb, cut up and layered in the bottom of a heavy glass square baking dish, sprinkled over with brown sugar, and then topped with a sort of custard–two eggs whipped with maybe a quarter cup of brown sugar and then milk drizzled in slowly as you bind it together into a thin almost french toast batter consistency. Then you pour that over the rhubarb and let it mellow while you decapitate and wash a goodly amount of tiny sweet strawberries that your husband has been daily gathering as he walks back and forth to the work, putting them quietly and reverantly in a bowl at the back of the fridge. Those are layered gently over the mellowing rhubarb. This is what it looks like before the crumble.

I didn’t entirely submerge them in the custard (what should it be called? Its not custard, that would be too hot and complicated to work at all afternoon). Then the crumble, mounded high.

Then into the oven at 350 for a while, until it bubbled round the edges and was golden brown. Then it sat on the stove for the night, cooling, and we ate it the next day for supper…you heard that right, that’s what we had for supper. I didn’t bother about anything else. What would be the point?

Previous Post

June 18, 2014

2014 Little League Champions

Next Post

June 19, 2014 SDfAoWOP: the Commander

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book comes immediately before Psalms in the Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Song of Songs Ecclesiastes Proverbs Job

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »