Cookies are Culture

So we’re doing our annual thing. Christmas cookies, in Mom’s basement, of course. Our larger-than-usual but small-enough-to-manage COVID bubble, mixing, blending, rolling and icing dozen after dozen of Sicilian egg cookies, pepper balls and pizzelles, plus Aunt Gertie’s fruitcake.

We showed Kristina how to make these treats a few years ago. Kristina is Mom’s home health aide and, until this year, the newest addition to our family. She’s so completely kind, conscientious, funny and adorable that both my sisters call her “sister.”

This year, we have an even newer addition: Kenny’s bride, Tatiana, as of June. She loves, loves, loves cooking. Well, Tatiana loves, loves, loves everything. She’s one of those people who grabs each day and squeezes it for everything’s it’s worth. Every day, an inspiration. And probably the best thing that’s happened to my brother since I was born, LOL.

Suddenly, Mom’s basement has become quite the melting pot. When I was a kid, 99 percent of the people rolling cookies at Christmas time were Sicilian. Not so much, these days. My beautiful bride’s heritage is officially whatever. She says she’s Scottish but in reality, she’s 57 varieties, British Isles. But, I’m willing to concede, Italian by virtue of the fact that Rome once owned England. She’s an amazing baker, in her own right. And with an unflappable sense of humor, she has fit in to our crowd of Mediterranean Misfits since day one.

When we recruited Kristina for cookie rolling, our recipes were brand new to her; Kristina grew up in Georgia. (The country, not the southern state.) When she was little, Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, so all the kids learned Russian in school. Before she moved here, she lived in Greece. So she continually blows our minds with the fact that she not only speaks four languages, she knows four alphabets, all different: Georgian, Russian, Greek and English. Crazy talk!

Tatiana is from Brazil. Her first language is Portuguese. She’s been here less than a year, but she’s learning English like a champ. And we all love the fact that she says everything in Portuguese first, before translating it in English. She’s as cute as a button. New recipes for her, too.

Traditions, passing down and across.

It’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of day. Mixing batter, rolling, shaping, baking, icing—a real Sigi cookie assembly line, with sister Michele conducting the orchestra. Roll those smaller! Roll these bigger! Get the trays out of the oven! We gotta start the fruitcakes! Melt the butter! Ouch, my back!

We learned these recipes from our grandmas, Cologera “Caroline” Morganti Moscarello and Margaret Terrano Emma. They were both born in 1908. And in the middle of the wonderful chaos, it dawned on me; neither Caroline nor Margaret created these recipes. They learned them from their moms and grandmas, who learned them from theirs.

There’s no way to accurately date them, all evidence is circumstantial. But, for the sake of argument, my grandmothers were born in 1908 and their parents were born in the 1880s. Their parents were probably born in the 1850s. And so on and so on, back to Noah’s Ark. These recipes could easily be 200 years old. Maybe even older.

A day after the mass production session, Mom, Beth and I made another batch of egg cookies. Because, let’s face it, you can never have too many. As in any baking session, we debated how big to roll them, what shape, how long to bake them, how thick to make the icing, and so on. The same points my grandmothers argued with their mothers and grandmothers, who argued with theirs. I grabbed a lump of dough and rolled. It’s a sumptuous kind of sensation, soft, warm and oily, from the 63 pounds of melted butter. And I realized all my predecessors had precisely the same experience. It’s profound and a little mind blowing. A simple blend of flour, eggs, sugar and butter—a bridge to another time, a time machine connecting us to those long departed. (I’m freaking myself out, right now.)

But you know what’s even better than mixing, rolling and baking them? Eating them.

Gimme another six. I’m communing with my ancestors. Ah, what the hell? Make it a dozen. I got a lot of communing to do. I’m gonna need the energy.

=S

TO BE CONTINUED

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2020 move