Thicker Than Molasses

This week's "Black Recipes" is brought to you by the village, because it takes a village. Nikki blessed us with a family recipe that it got me to thinking, and I got to writing too.

We’ve been losing recipes in the Black community, and this newsletter series is an attempt to start preserving them. One specific recipe I want to discuss was inspired by

Nikki J. Harris

’s recipe submission. The mention of molasses got me thinking about the phrase, “Blood is thicker than water,” and that thought sent me down a rabbit hole.

Molasses is the sticky glue of Black American history, but often forgotten. Today, we question and criticize the elders, asking, “Where is the village?” Growing up, a lot of us have core memories of the village raising us, but I need you to brace yourself for where I’m headed with this.

There’s no village, because a lot of us in our 30s and 40s are trying to preserve our youth rather than help raise the youth. We aren’t all showing up as the aunties and uncles; it’s our turn.

Nikki is going to share a storytime of Big Mother’s Molasses Cookies recipe, and I’m going to close out this read with my reflections on how the village is thicker than molasses in Black culture.

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Big Mother’s Molasses

Nikki J. Harris

“To my grandchildren. Listen to hear and understand before giving an answer, and tell the truth.” -advice from a mother and grandmother to 20+ grandchildren 

To no one’s fault, but divine intervention, I didn’t get to know my grandmother, Birdie Mae. I barely knew her mother, my Big Mother, also named Birdie from Mississippi (we enunciated the Mother). At five years old, the story was that Grandma Birdie had a hole in her heart, and at 25 years old, Big Mother passed away of old age (102 years old).

When my mom took a quick lap around memory lane, I was unfamiliar with her route so I sat and allowed my mind to paint its own memory clip, with as much detail as a 5 year old me could remember; My grandma’s house on Vine Street, the steps that broke down the hill before the sidewalk, and her Dalmatians, she had two of them; Star and Pepper. Slender, tall, and very obedient.

While I reminisced in silence, my mom told me the story of my grandmother and her passed-down recipe of Molasses cookies. My great-grandmother, Big Mother, had a recipe book that held hundreds of recipes, and of those hundreds, Molasses cookies stuck with our bloodline. Big Mother would bake these Molasses cookies for her seven children. When it got down to where my Grandmother Birdie could reach, she took hold of the recipe and made it her own. The beauty in my Grandma’s Molasses Cookie recipe was that they were big, soft, and fluffy. From the original recipe that my great-grandmother perfected, my grandmother tweaked it, adding more flavor and doubling the recipe in quantity (from 40 cookies to over 100 cookies).

“I would take y’all over to her house on Vine, Vine Street. You remember her house on Vine? We’d go over there and she’d smell strong like cigarettes, but she’d have a cleaned out popcorn tin, the ones that have the three sections of flavors, one of those full of Molasses Cookies.” 

Growing up, Molasses Cookies were baked during the holiday season and later by special requests. They were good, but it was definitely an acquired taste and not acquired by everyone. My dad is not a fan of these cookies unless he has a piece of cheese, and even still, it may be out of the question. The first time my husband met my mom, she had baked Molasses Cookies.

“Those were the only things I remember from meeting your family. Those cookies and playing Godzilla with your nephews.”

This is that recipe, passed down through generations. My mom still makes them for my sister, her family, neighbors, and church friends in Texas. From my great grandmother Birdie, to her daughter Birdie Mae (who happened to be her only child to continue making them out of seven living children), to my mom Norma Jean (who happened to be her only child to continue making them out of six living children), down to my sisters and I, (three of five living children). From Mississippi to Colorado, to Texas, and everywhere in between, I hope these cookies can be tried and enjoyed!

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Molasses Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of Brer Rabbit Molasses    

• 1/2 cup of Crisco     

• 1/4 cup of Milk    

• 2 Egg    

• 1/2 tbsp of Vanilla extract    

• 1 cup  plus 2 1/2 tbsp of Dark Brown sugar    

• 2 1/4 cups Flour

• 1 tbsp of Cinnamon 

• 1 tbsp of Nutmeg

• 1 tbsp of Ginger

• 1 tsp of Baking powder 

• Pinch of salt 

Process:

• Mix molasses, Crisco, and brown sugar in a bowl.

  • Then add the eggs.

• In a separate bowl,  mix sifted flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and baking powder. 

• Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, paying special attention to lumps, add in the vanilla extract, then milk.

• Refrigerate dough for at least an hour before baking.

• Heat oven to 350. On an ungreased cookie tray, place the teaspoon-sized dough 1 inch apart.

• Bake for 13 minutes.

*You can freeze unused dough or baked cookies for another day.

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The Village is Thicker Than Molasses

When I first read Nikki’s submission, what got me thinking wasn’t about the cookies; it was the molasses. It’s sticky, thick, dark, sweet, and bitter all at once, just like us when life keeps boiling us down. Molasses has a slow process to make and a slow rhythm in the way it moves. Thinking about this family recipe, it’s the hands that passed down the recipe that made it stick; that’s the village in action.

Out of Big Mother’s seven children, only one kept baking. Out of Grandma Birdie’s six, only one continued. Now, Nikki and her sister hold the recipe, proving the presence of the village gets thinner unless someone steps in to keep it thick.

If we want to rebuild the village, it starts in the kitchen with these lost recipes. Taking the old ones and making them our own, adding to them so those same recipes will feed more than just our children, but also the ones who come over to our home to visit. Becoming the aunties and the uncles of our village means being the safe space for these kids to express themselves, think about how much you shared with your favorite aunties and uncles that you couldn’t tell your parents. Think about how safe they were? Even Grandma and Grandpa?

Before you start talking about that one uncle or cousin, let me add this. We know the village wasn’t perfect, but we had safe spaces. We had aunties and uncles who let us laugh loudly, cry on their shoulders, or just sat quietly with us until we found the words to express ourselves. That’s what made the village thick.

My question to you is, are you a safe space for the kids coming up now, or are you scolding them for losing the recipes? What’s thicker than molasses is our bond as a community; we stick together when times get heated. Our sweetness and bitterness give our village the balance necessary to understand how we play into society. Molasses is not just a sweetener to substitute for an ingredient. It has great health benefits when it’s given time to process under the right environments.

The cookies are the reward that the village gets to enjoy, and the molasses is the secret ingredient that holds us together.

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Sharing Cookies

This little section includes a few ways to support Blackstack by pledging to the importance of a standalone Black literacy publishing house. Think of it as your turn to make this Molasses Cookie recipe, and share some in the popcorn tin on the kitchen table for the nieces and nephews.

• Engaging with the words helps other Black writers find their way home in these Substack streets.

• Consider becoming a Paid Subscriber or Zine Club member to help continue the print publishing work of Blackstack.

• Help keep the print press operating through our Collectors’ Memberships: www.theblackstack.org

• Support our annual print magazine fundraiser: https://www.theblackstack.org/product/blackstack-magazine-issue-one/16?cs=true&cst=custom

• Keep Black Recipes newsletter series alive, submit your unpublished work: https://forms.gle/SNUcwbaVmkxqpnXJ7

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See y’all on Wednesday for a new Black Reads newsletter!

xoxo,

Jacquie