I've never been able to recreate my great-grandmother’s raisin-filled cookies, at least not the expert way that she made them, nor to my knowledge has anyone else in the family. Further, everyone in my family each has a slightly different recipe, which each of us has selfishly protected from each other. We only knew of the differences from a conversation at her wake. And to top it off, in all my travels, adventures and acquaintances I have never heard of anyone else who heard of this cookie, let alone made it.
The raisin-filled was a sandwich cookie comprised of a light and thick pastry with a dense raisin filling. She would roll out half the dough, pour the filling over it and then cover with the other half of the dough, also rolled. Then bake. In the baking process, the dough would absorb some of the sweet tang of the raisin mixture. At least, that’s what we thought, since she never let anyone watch her make them. And she made them entirely from memory.
I know from the time I was in junior high and took up baking that I wanted that recipe. My mother didn’t have it; no one I knew had it. And every time I asked my great-grandmother to share, she actually made the cookies! I learned later from my mother, who for some reason was never interested in the recipe herself, that the recipe was the only one Leta received from her mother, and she only made them as a special treat for Christmas. When I learned this, I was grateful that Leta had elected not to follow that tradition.
One Sunday evening, we were sitting in her kitchen, having just finished an afternoon of card-playing, gabbing, and a terrific dinner of city chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and milk cabbage (which she liked, but I only pretended to in order to keep her from trying to convince me I was wrong), she asked me if I was ready for dessert.
“Sure,” I said, expecting ice cream or perhaps a few pieces of the ribbon candy she always had around. (I had no idea where she got that stuff; I never saw it for sale anywhere. Was there some secret old lady store where she shopped? My sister and I called it “old lady candy.”) Earlier in the afternoon I rummaged through the cupboards for a snack, which she hated, but I did anyway when she was out of the room. All I found was a container of that lousy ribbon candy.
She went into the cupboard where she kept baking supplies and brought out her metal sheet cake pan with the sliding metal top, set it on the table and slid open the lid.
“Raisin cookies!” I exclaimed. “I had no idea you even made any.”
“And you weren’t expecting them either, were you?” she inquired with a sly smile in her blue eyes.
“You never mentioned them,” I said nonchalantly, my mouth salivating at the prospect of devouring five or six with my tea.
“Uh huh, but when you snooped you didn’t see them,” she prodded.
“Well, I…,” I stammered.
“I know you snoop through the cupboards when I’m not in the room,” she informed me with a raise of her eyebrows.
“Yes, for a snack—but… but not in that cupboard!”
“I know. That’s why I put them there.”
I suddenly felt like I was five years old and looked up at her in astonishment. Was I that obvious? And then I was concerned. She hated for anyone to go searching through her anything in her house—cupboards, drawers, closets—and I had been snooping for two years, secretly, and she knew all the time. Was she going to slam me for it? Then again, she still gave me the cookies. What was she up to?
“You better start before your tea gets cold,” she said finally.
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