I have been motivated to make pancakes every Sunday morning, just like Almanzo's mother. Addie loves them and makes a huge mess trying to mix the flour and taste the batter. She sometimes cries out for pancakes the next day at breakfast... but once a week is enough for me.
"When Almanzo trudged into the kitchen next morning with two brimming milk-pails, Mother was making stacked pancakes because this was Sunday.
The big blue platter on the stove's hearth was full of plump sausage cakes; Eliza Jane was cutting apple pies and Alice was dishing up the oatmeal, as usual. But the little blue platter stood hot on the back of the stove, and ten stacks of pancakes rose in tall towers on it.
Ten pancakes cooked on the smoking griddle, and as fast as they were done Mother added another cake to each stack and buttered it lavishly and covered it with maple sugar. Butter and sugar melted together and soaked the fluffy pancakes and dripped all down their crisp edges.
That was stacked pancakes. Almanzo liked them better than any other kind of pancakes. Mother kept on frying them till the others had eaten their oatmeal. She could never make too many stacked pancakes. They all ate pile after pile of them, and Almanzo was still eating when Mother pushed back her chair and said:
'Mercy on us! Eight o'clock! I must fly!'"
- From the "Sunday" chapter in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy
Oh, I can't believe it! Farmer Boy is one of our favourite books ever. Niall is reading out loud, night after night, the Little House collection to our younger children, just like he read it out loud to our older children years ago, and just like he read it out loud to me in the first year of our life as a married couple. Little House on the Prairie shaped our family life since the beginning and it originated many of our family traditions, including the pancake morning every Sunday. you can find Niall's recipe for pancakes here: http://umafamiliacatolica.blogs.sapo.pt/a-receita-126747 Hope you enjoy it! Love, Teresa
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool! Laura's books were my favorite growing up and they still are. I am rereading them as Auntie Leila from the blog likemotherlikedaughter.org suggests they are the best parenting books to read because they tap into the "collective memory" and aren't just modern ideas of parenting.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that if you separate the egg whites from the yolks in any pancake recipe and beat the egg whites with an electric mixer before adding them in it will make the pancakes much fluffier? It's a little more work but I think it's worth it.
I'll tell that to Niall, since he's the pancake man here :) I'm sure he will appreciate the extra work, especially with the great helpers he has!!! Anyway, I think Aunt Leila is perfectly right, judging from my own experience. I could go on writing here forever about how the Little House Books have really deeply influenced us, bringing up obedient children, reading the Bible, reading out loud every day to the kids, singing and playing music with them, telling stories, telling Bible stories, enjoying nature, enjoying cooking, not being afraid of teaching children to help at home... Well, I'm thrilled someone else feels the same way, because here in Portugal I have never met anybody who knew the books! Teresa
DeleteYes, that's really great! One of my favorite posts ever gives the great tip of if you are ever in a parenting struggle, ask yourself, "what would Ma do?" http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2010/09/six-to-eleven-year-olds-need-less/
ReplyDeleteMy husband Daniel also likes reading about Pa and says that's the kind of man he had dreamed of being!