A Christmas memory with Gerry Moran

 

Two large, earthenware bowls sit patiently by the cooker. Two bowls, brimming with raisins, sultanas, cherries, chopped almonds, sugar and other lip-smacking ingredients. I lift their covers and a rich, exotic aroma fills the kitchen.

Christmas is definitely coming!

Whatever about the ‘geese getting fat’, the eight of December or turning on the lights, I know for certain that Christmas is upon us when I see the Christmas cake being made.

When the house is full of cooking smells, cookery books and cookery accoutrements like weighing scales, chopping boards and little mounds of coloured candied peel, patiently waiting their turn to join this aromatic cake mix. Above all the smell of nutmeg and spice permeates the entire house.
Smells, strangely enough, that originated in the land of the Muslim but which I always associate with Christmas and Christ.

And Christmas will always hold for me the memory of my mother making the Christmas cake. I see her clearly now, standing in the soft light of the scullery, sleeves rolled, surrounded by cake tins, greaseproof paper, a battalion of bowls and an assortment of tid-bits that smelled strange and different and very wonderful.

I see that absorbed, concentrated look on her face as she mixes butter, coarse brown sugar and chunks of candied-peel together, turning and churning them into a creamy, crunchy mix that made my mouth water.

I can smell the thick, dark treacle, can see the almonds, soaking, waiting to be peeled and chopped and the bottle of whiskey, standing silently to attention, waiting to make its feisty contribution to this festive concoction.
And later the family ritual of scraping the bowl. The shouts of: ‘First’, ‘Second’, ‘Third’ and so on as we’d attack the left-overs with teaspoons, soupspoons and the wooden spoon itself. And always it tasted better off the wooden spoon.

Perhaps it was the taste of timber mingling with the lingering licks of that creamy, treacly cake-mix.
The cake itself, I often thought, and still do, never quite looks so enticing or tastes so exotic when cooked. And finally came the icing of the cake and that wonderful lumpy brown, almond undercoat that I would eat all night if I were let.

Then the pure white sweetness of the REAL icing and the tiny bottles of lemon and raspberry essence dominating the entire kitchen with their potent smells. Then, to finish it all off, the icing ON the icing.
The writing on the top of the cake as my mother, with a cone of greaseproof paper, carefully and meticulously wrote: “Happy Christmas and A Happy New Year” in startling pink across the snow-white cake-top.

Even in this modern age of microwaves and air fryers nothing can compare to the warmth and magic of a family kitchen at Christmastime – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the scraping of bowls, the licking of lips, the picking at tidbits.

And there, in the middle of it all, the woman of the house, mixing, measuring and making ready for the Big Day, the rich, mouth-watering Christmas Cake. ÷

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