My grandmother was a maid.
Between growing up poor on a farm in rural Minnesota and marrying a handsome farmer at the beginning of WWII, she worked as a maid. The Depression was a decade in and my grandmother had felt every year of it, having to fill her empty stomach at school with lard sandwiches. With school behind her, her prospects in the late 1930s were marriage or the first menial job she came across. With the handsome farmer still years away from planting his feet in the ground and settling down with her, she accepted a job as a servant in the Wenner household.
The Wenner family lived in a rural town outside of St. Cloud, in a large, turn-of-the-century house with dark paint and narrow windows. Not far from where my grandmother grew up, but in a world of comfort my grandmother had never known.
I can imagine her first day, unpacking her few belongings in the servants’ room, sitting on a hard bed, taking in a deep breath of nervousness and excitement. Feelings that would be exhausted at the end of the day as she would rub her hands from the numbness of washing clothes and dishes in ice cold water, and from the soreness of gripping a flatiron for hours at a time.
While routine consumed her body and mind most of the day, the kitchen was her place of refuge. A place to cook and experience new dishes, some with fruits and spices that her family could not afford. Recipes that she never forgot – simple recipes from when food was simple – which became a part of our family as she cooked for her 14 children on a farm in Watkins, Minnesota.
Never learning to drive, and not venturing much outside of Minnesota in her lifetime, I don’t think she would have ever imagined her favorite recipes being cooked in a kitchen in Malaysia. But I do think…no, I know that she is smiling down from heaven right now because even after she passed, she still found a way to keep fattening me up.
Thanks to my mom and aunts who collected her recipes, I now feel a strong connection to my grandmother’s history. Every time I cook one of her recipes, I imagine her in that big house, living away from home for the first time, sneaking a taste of a dish she cooked, but never tried.
Apple Fritters with Lemon Sauce
Ingredients
For the apple fritters:
- 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 3 medium tart apples peeled and finely chopped (I used Granny Smith apples)
- 1 tsp ground Vietnamese Cinnamon
- Oil for frying
For the lemon sauce:
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup boiling water
- Zest and juice from one lemon
- 1 tbsp butter
Instructions
To make the apple fritters:
- In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Gradually stir in milk and well-beaten egg.
- Add finely chopped apples. Mix ingredients together into a batter.
- In a skillet or fryer, heat 2-3 inches of oil at about 375°. Drop batter from spoon (“about the size of a walnut”) into hot oil. Fry until golden brown, remove from skillet, and place on paper towel to soak up excess oil. Serve warm with lemon sauce.
To make the lemon sauce:
- In a saucepan, mix cornstarch, sugar and salt. Add boiling water. Cook over high heat, stirring constantly until the mixture boils and thickens. Turn heat to low.
- Stir in lemon rind, juice and butter. Serve hot with apple fritters.
Nutrition
