Thursday, May 28, 2015

ANNIE SAGAN'S PIE CRUST...

This battered Boston Cooking School Cook Book, published in 1942, was the only cookbook I remember seeing in my grandmother’s kitchen; it was the only cookbook that Annie Sagan ever used.
          My mother used to talk about other cooks my grandparents hired in their Eliot Street house:
There was Mary, who cooked and cleaned during the 1920s with such fervor that she exhausted everybody in the house! Mary won my grandparents’ devotion when she rescued my mother, who had gone down the street to attend a wake (she was about seven years old) because she heard there was a “boddy” there and she’d never seen one…
“At least she left a note,” Mary said to my grandmother!

And there was Kathleen, who was there through the 1930s and whistled all the time; drove my grandfather nuts, my mother said, but he let it slide because she made the best pudding he ever had, and a good pudding was worth a few tunes.

And then there was Annie Sagan, who arrived when my mother was away at college and stayed until the late 1950s, when my grandmother died and the house was closed up and, eventually, sold, marking the end of an era, the end of a way of life.

I remember Annie Sagan.
I remember visiting my grandparents – the long drive down from Maine, the crunch of gravel under the tires in their driveway, the hugs from my grandparents on the front porch. And I remember tearing down the hallway, past the sitting room, then the dining room and around the corner into the kitchen to hug Mrs. Sagan, who smelled like flour and hot bread!

And, best of all, she had a wen, a big one, right on her face near her nose! I was absolutely fascinated by it—it had a hair growing out of it, for goodness sake!—and she tolerated my examination of it with great patience. She wore flowered dresses, an apron (always an apron!), and sturdy, sensible shoes. She cooked and cleaned for my grandparents, did the laundry, helped my grandmother in the gardens.

She used to run the carpet sweeper (remember those?) every day; would let me sit on the top of it, wrap my legs around the pile and hang on for dear life as she worked over the rugs -- boy, what I ride that was!

I sat on the steps down to the laundry room and listened to her tell stories of her childhood -- she used big bars of yellow soap and a scrub board for stubborn dirt and stains, then ran it all through the electric washing machine.

I was allowed to turn the crank for the wringer…

Those days are long gone, but I still have Mrs. Sagan’s cookbook, her rolling pin and her pie crust recipe, written in her own hand and glued to a larger piece of paper my mother kept for years.
“Mrs. Sagan made the best pie crust on the planet,” everybody said; it’s still the truth today, but my brother finishes a very close Second Place!



28 comments:

  1. What a delightful post Deb! Thanks for sharing these sweet memories of your visits to your grandparents' home with us.

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    1. Thank you, Jana -- and double thanks for the Fab Finds listing!

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  2. What memories the cookbook stimulates. We had a series of cooks during my childhood too, and I remember each one almost as vividly.

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    1. Funny thing about kids and cooks, isn't it? We all adored Annie...

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  3. The only cookbook I remember my mother having was The Joy of Cooking. I have always had a lot of cookbooks, but I don't actually use them. Now, it is so much easier to look up a recipe on the internet, but it seems like there are more cookbooks published than ever.

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    1. I've got my mother's old Joy of Cooking! I like the old cookbooks better than the internet, but have to admit it comes in handy sometimes!

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  4. A wonderful story told with perfect humor! Thanks for sharing. When I moved out of the house & into my own apartment my mother gave me a cookbook I still have today & consult often: "I Hate To Cook" by Peg Bracken with recipes like "Lamb Shanks Tra La", "Stay-a-Bed Stew", "Aunt Bebe's Bean Bowl" to name a few. I do okay in the kitchen, but if anything has more than 6 or 7 ingredients or takes longer than a half hour to make, I don't make it.

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    1. Peg Bracken's books was a hit in my mother's library -- we used to read it out loud just for the humor -- wasn't there one called "Stay-Up-All-Night Cookies?"

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  5. Utterly delightful trip back into the memories of childhood and grandparents. Annie seemed like a part of the family -- yours and your grandparents. Really enjoyed the telling. Well done.

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    1. Thank you, Joan...I even remember the linoleum pattern in Mrs. Sagan's kitchen (the kitchen was "hers" -- not my grandmother's!).

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  6. Wonderful memories,well told. I wish I could read that pie crust recipe but it's too small....1 heaping cup of what? Shortening?

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    1. 3 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 3 tblsp sugar -- sift.
      1 heaping cup shortening (she used Crisco), 1/2 cup water
      Work with knife or pastry cutter. Add cold water till it holds
      to-gether not sticky. Keep in refrid. in wax paper will keep a month makes 2 large or 3 small pies.
      There is is! Annie Sagan's pie crust!

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  7. Deb,

    I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today's Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2015/05/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-may-29-2015.html

    Have a great weekend!

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  8. How nice to have had a cook to do the work for you! My mother's 'bible' was Aunt Betty's, a classic NZ cookbook, containing recipes and handy hints on how to do or make anything and everything, and I still have her tattered old copy, but must admit that these days I'm more likely to check a recipe online than 'ask' Aunty Betty.

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    1. Boy, those days are gone, eh? It was an earlier time, indeed! But it would be hard to find somebody with Annie Sagan's personality, for sure!

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    2. Just realised that the cookbook wasn't Aunt Betty's, it was Aunt Daisy's :-)

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  9. I just bet she was! I can almost taste it now just by reading this! Lovely post.

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    1. Oh, light and flaky; melted in your mouth!

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  10. What a wonderful post. I love cook books particularly the older ones and the discussion of staff and how to hire them and keep them. When I was a baby we had a Mrs Cooper what did in the flat in Edinburgh and I think I drove the poor woman a bit mad following her around. I like the sound of that Bracken book and will definitely keep an eye out for it.

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    1. Mrs. Cooper probably adored you, Alex -- just as Mrs. Sagan adored all of us! And, yes, keep your eyes peeled for Bracken's book -- if I find one here, I'll get it and mail it along.

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  11. What fun hearing about your early years. I'm on my second Boston Cooking School cookbook, the first one (a paperback) not only fell apart, but had so much food absorbed by the paper the roaches of FL ate the book! I'm now living where there are no roaches, thank goodness. And I was told by my mother-in-law that Crisco makes the best pie crusts. (I cheat and just buy them these days.)

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    1. Crisco DOES make the best pie crusts; but I buy them, too...Annie Sagan is probably rolling in her grave to know that, but I think she'd forgive me...

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  12. What great descriptions - I feel as though I know the lady and her cookbook so well.

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    1. It's a good one -- if you ever find one in a flea market, grab it!

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  13. I love Mrs. Sagan! Anybody who'd allow that extra weight on a carpet sweeper gets my vote.

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    1. And, oboy, Wendy, what a ride that was! She pushed and pulled me through that house until I was about five...then it got to be too much weight! But it was such fun! No wonder we adored her!

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  14. I have an old black Bissel carpet sweeper. I can't bear to part with it.

    And I've got my grandmother's Fannie Farmer book from the early part of the century. The recipes are for cooking on wood burning stoves. When I moved away from home my mother gave me a paperback version of Fannie Farmer dated 1968 which is still my go-to cookbook. Good old Fannie has been good to a lot of us.

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    1. That old Fannie Farmer would interest me! I've got a Mrs. Roger's NEW Cook Book (1903)...recipes and household hints...and will be doing a blog on it soon. Use it a LOT for fiction writing...

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