An easy way to step back in history is to cook. I spent the morning today cutting up fresh peaches recently purchased in the Grand Valley, on the West Slope of Colorado. Lucky for us, our son and his wife live in Grand Junction. It is a double delight to drive over The Great Divide for a visit during harvest season. I now have baggies full of sliced peaches in the freezer, peach cobbler cooking in the oven, and an obscene amount of spots on my shirt from the juice that ran down my chin while I was testing the crop. The house smells deliciously of cinnamon.
Cooking gives us a link to the past, especially when we dig out old recipes, from family members, or from old cookbooks. One of my favorites is an 1896 Fannie Farmer Cookbook, which I keep handy as a resource and a reference. For a booksigning event at the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, I made cookies from one of the recipes, or Molasses Cakes as they were called, to lure young readers to my table. This was an education for them about early cookies, and entertainment for me as I observed the confused look on their faces when they took a bite. They expected something sweet, and instead, discovered a gingerbread taste. Life is full of surprises.
I wonder if early pioneers in the Grand Valley grew and harvested peaches. John Otto, early founder and caretaker of the local natural attraction, Colorado National Monument, was an odd fellow who preferred living among rocks to farming, or being among people. They say he was married once, for a couple of weeks. Life in his tent and campground among the rocky cliffs must not have provided much in the way of marital bliss. How often in life do we find we have settled in at the wrong campsite. Hopefully, his betrothed found happiness elsewhere in the valley, perhaps where the peaches were sweeter.
Joyce Lohse, 9/5/2008
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Joyce Lohse speaks about blogging for Women Out West Magazine
recorded by Deborah Kunzie
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