This weekly column, “Adventures in Good Eating,” by Back Door Café chef/owner Fran Ginn usually appears each Thursday in the Marion County Informer.

……I relish the opportunity of finding something new and different to eat wherever I go. I love to explore why people eat what they do and how food has shaped their lives. Adventures in Good Eating is my way of sharing the pleasure of culinary discovery and also the anticipation of tables and tastes yet to be found.

How often lately have you heard the expression “in the day”.  Recently I was reminded of “the day” when I found a box of yearbooks from the Pleiades Club at a garage sale.  Going through that dusty box of long forgetton booklets was a trip back in time.  I read names which I hadn’t heard in decades.  When I got to the book noting the 50^th anniversary of the club, I saw in the front of the booklet, “dedicated to our charter members. My grandmothers, Marie Barnes and Ruby Watts, were charter members of that club. These ladies were so special, each in their own way.  However, they failed to see eye to eye on most things.  The two things they did agree on were the superior quality of their mutual grandchildren and that The Pleiades Club was the best club.  Suddenly, holding that shoebox of old booklets, I found myself missing each of them so much.

Finding these booklets, along with two club generated cookbooks I already had – a Pleiades cookbook and an “As You Like It Club” cookbook, set me on the path of learning more about the Southern version of “ladies who lunch”.  Unlike the stereotypical New York version, which I envision as lots of martinis and gossip by ladies who fritter their privileged lives away,  the Deep South version, at least in Columbia, involved gallons of mint tea and deep desire to make the place they lived better.  Many of these ladies didn’t have the opportunity to attend college, so they had a longing to know more, to educate themselves.  Their programs were often challenging, provoking deep thought and social conscience.  Attendance at club meetings was a solemn responsibility, not taken at all lightly.  The world stopped, at least for two hours, once a month for “the club”. 

From another point of view – that of the family and extended family of the hostess in whose home the meeting would be – “the club” affected life for the entire month before the assigned meeting date.  I can remember my maternal grandfather fussing about my grandmother taking down all the organdy curtains, rewashing them and restarching and ironing them.  (Note – to those of you who have never dealt with organdy curtains, starching doesn’t mean spray starch.  It means mixing powdered starch in a pot on the stove, dipping the curtains and ironing them….being absolutely careful not to get a scorch mark on the curtain panel.  My grandmother would not let my mother help her because Mama tried to go too fast and would, perhaps, be careless.)  Curtains were not the only things which were starched – tablecloths, tea napkins, dinner napkins – all went under the iron.   There is the smell of starch, linen and steam which is deeply imprinted on my brain.  Silver was polished, every piece of furniture was polished, every Venetian blind dusted, every piece of crystal dry-polished until it sparkled.  My very long-suffering grandfather, who loved peace and quiet and regular meals, was disturbed mightily.  Mama and I would spend days with Grandma cleaning and re-cleaning.  Now, mind you, this cleaning and re-cleaning was not directed at the club members, per se, but at the other hostesses who would invade before the meeting.  I have a vivid memory of dusting jars of preserves, pickles and other “put up” foods, just in case some very good friend of Grandma’s happened to go out on the back porch.  Grandpa would mutter under his breath for days “thank goodness this doesn’t come round often”.  In my later life, when my mother began to have club meetings at our house, Mama and I were carrying a large painting from over my Grandma’s mantle to our house (since at that time we had a big blank space over our mantle), I heard my Grandpa say under his breath, “Good-bye, painting.  I know I’ll never see you again.”  That painting, by the way, lives at my house now.

After the house was deemed perfect, then came the agony of deciding on a menu for the luncheon.  At this meeting, the hostesses would come over for coffee one afternoon.  What could have been accomplished in a half-hour could stretch into two hours.  Inevitably feathers would get ruffled.  It was, of course, imperative that no menu item be repeated from other meetings.  One’s entire reputation could ride on the lightness of the rolls or the sumptuousness of the dessert.  Remember, this was in the day of the well-girdled lady, so avoidance of desserts was not as prevalent as today.  The week of the club, when everything was ready and the cooking began, we lived on the equivalent of prison rations.  My grandmother cooked three meals a day, and we ate lots of them with her.  We were left to cold suppers and ham sandwiches.  The men in my family developed a dark mood, and muttered a lot.  I can remember being taken to Tay’s Restaurant to eat supper because “your mother and your grandmother have gone crazy with this club meeting”.

However, at 5 pm on the day of the luncheon, when all the dishes were washed and put away and peace returned,  Grandma would always promise – and deliver – wonderful meals the next day.

The recipe I’m giving you this week is from the 1954-1955  “As You Like It Club” cookbook.  The cookbook was done on a mimeograph machine in that purple ink so familiar to those of a certain age.  This recipe was given by my Great-aunt Pearl, identified in the cookbook as  Mrs. Toxey  Hall.  I have not made it and cannot assure you that it will turn out as promised.  Another quirk of the club ladies was a fierce protection of “their” recipes.  In those days before The Food Network and Internet recipe sites, ladies had special signature dishes.  They quite often would give the recipe and change  – or omit – a key ingredient so that the dish wouldn’t turn out as well.  Aunt Pearl’s recipe reads well to me, so I believe she was truthful in submitting the correct ingredients.  I am giving it to you just as she wrote it.

Aunt Pearl’s Lemon Cake-top Pudding

3 Tblsp. butter

4 egg yolks

¼ tsp. salt

3 Tblsp. flour

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 Tblsp. grated lemon rind

4 egg whites

1/3 cup toasted almonds

Cream butter and sugar well.  Add egg yolks and beat well.  Add flour, lemon juice, rind, salt and mix well.  Stir in milk.  Blend in ¼ cup almonds.  Beat egg whites stiff and fold in mixture.  Pour into loaf baking dish (or individual baking dishes).  Set in pan of hot water and bake in slow oven (325) 40 minutes or until firm.  Sprinkle with remaining almonds and serve either warm or chilled.