Seven Cakes – Though Dirt Poor, They Had Cake For Christmas

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Life during the depression in rural Alabama wasn’t too different from any other time of year for my people. You see, they were sharecroppers – dirt farmers who didn’t even own their own dirt. They wouldn’t have known if the world had been prosperous, their lives had always been a struggle of hard work and all too often relying on hope for the next meal.

This time of year, there wasn’t a whole lot to be thankful for, other than the fact that there wasn’t any cotton to pick. For them, winter was as bleak as the Alabama landscape. In Alabama, we are not often afforded the sight of glistening snow resting atop hills and trees in a winter wonderland. Here, the sky just gets gray and the landscape browns – bare trees, brown grass, and muddy earth where fields lay in wait for spring as far as the eye can see.

My great grandmother had four children and they all lived in a small shack house. Wood was a precious thing and that meant only heating one room. My grandmamma says “it got so cold at night. Mama would heat rocks and wrap ‘em up in old towels and things to put in bed with us but we still got so cold. You didn’t dare get out of that bed unless you just had to”.

Families would work all year for the farmer in exchange for monthly rations of staples such as dried beans, flour, and the occasional bit of meat. At harvest’s end they’d get a percentage of profits on the cotton, but all of the staples which had been provided for them were then deducted from the final cost, leaving families in a continued state of dependence upon the farm owner for enough food to survive the winter.

But with winter came Christmas, and my great grandmother always did manage to make it special despite their hardships. Lela’s life had always been a hard one. Growing up one of nine children in Jackson County, she had spent her childhood traveling from farm to farm with her parents and siblings, picking cotton and tending to whatever crops the farm owner decided to plant. Now she had four kids to provide a Christmas for and keeping them fed and clothed took about all she had and then some.

But she never failed them. She always came through, especially at Christmastime.

Lela squirreled away ingredients all year long. A little sugar here, some dried apples there, maybe some raisins and a bit of cinnamon. After the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve, she’d set to work. Using only what she had on hand and no recipes to speak of, Lela would stay awake all night baking cakes in her little wood stove. She’d make an apple stack cake, a raisin cake, yellow cake with chocolate icing, peanut butter cake, and so on. There was never a plan beyond that of needing to make seven of them – one for each day from Christmas until the New Year.

The next morning, four sets of eyes would open wide and four sets of feet would hurry out of their cold beds into the only heated room in the house where their faces would light up at seeing the bounty of seven cakes sitting on the worn kitchen table. I know how their faces looked because my grandmother’s still lights up the same way now, some seventy years later, when she talks about those cakes. The kids took turns being the one to choose the cake they ate that day and between the six of them and any company who happened by, they made short work of it and were ready to start with a new one the next morning.

Most kids today would consider having cakes baked for you as your only Christmas gift to be a disappointment. But amid all of the wrappings and bows, gift sets and feasts, I hope your Christmas somehow manages to be as magical as it was in that little sharecroppers house in Alabama during the depression, when four kids woke up with stars in their eyes at finding seven cakes.

Gratefully,
Christy

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430 Comments

  1. Christy,

    Thanks so much for sharing your family history with us. My father grew up in Walker County poor as poor could be, in a shack that you could see the dirt through. His father died, and it was him and his sis and brother and mother, many a day he spent in the fields working from sunrise to sundown just for some cornbread and beans if they were lucky. He used to tell me all about how hard they had it growing up, but the love that his mother gave them in what she had to make due with, will forever fill my heart. Dad grew up fast, leaving home at 13 and making his way up north to make money, just to send home, then when he grew to be an adult, he never forgot his younger years. He definately made up for it with us. We had all we needed, and plenty more of what we wanted. But, he never forgot how to spread the love to everyone of us.

    I wish you and your family a very special Christmas, and New Year. I have enjoyed your blog/site for a while now, and it brings a smile to my face when I read it. So many things I can relate to when you share with us. Keep up the great work, and Bless you!

  2. This has reminded me of another food-related Christmas custom from another era- getting fruit in your stocking! When my mother was a child, Christmas was about the only time of year that you got fruit, especially oranges! Even though now we can get fruit year ’round, she still puts apples and oranges in my husband’s and my stocking. It was sort of a throw away item to me as a kid, but now that I’m older and more health conscious, I don’t mind it! One year, my husband asked why she did it and I just laughed and said, “To her, that’s just what you do at Christmas!” Last year, I was talking to her. She sounded frazzled and said that she hadn’t had a chance to get to the grocery store to get the fruit for the stockings and would I mind? I assured her it would be fine!

  3. Thank you for sharing you famiy history with us. It also reminded me of my Great-Grandmother. She rests in God’ arms now, but I do remember her Fresh Apple Cake. I have never tasted anything like since she pasted. My Mamaw could save more from nothing. I mess her so much. Have a blessed Christmas.

  4. I love this story. It touched me so much. Thank you for sharing and reminding us all that it’s not all about what you get, but about loving each other and being with family.

  5. Steph Oh Steph, thank you all so much for making me feel like I am doing something useful. Every day I am working on Southern Plate is a good day because of all of you. I get the sweetest emails and comments and I cannot tell you how much your kindness means to me!

    Laura Thank you so much!!!! I truly love you all.

    Stephanie Thank you!! I hope y’all are settled in from your move and ready for Christmas. I’m looking forward to seeing that gorgeous baby in Christmas morning pics on your blog!

    Sonya You know, that was the thing, no one really felt all THAT poor because it seemed everyone was poor. I think they were happy all in all, but certainly wouldn’t have minded an easier life!!

    The food…boy do Southerners do food at Christmas or what? I think that is especially true now, we’ve come from these generations of people who had to do without and they’ve always felt the big feast was such a special event for that very reason. Its what we have been taught. I hope folks will always remember why it is so special though, and that there were those of us, just a generation or two back, who actually went hungry.

    Bill Empty butter tubs!!!! Sour cream containers!! Glass pickle jars!! That’s the FANCY food keepers!! I had to smile at that. Even now, go to my grandmother’s fridge and that’s what you’ll find. Open her cabinets and there will be a little stack of them, sitting neatly atop a little stack of lids. I know exactly what you are saying.

    Grandmama used to save coins she got from selling scrap iron. She’d keep it hidden. One day, her brother Albert, found her stash and went to the store and bought a sack of candy. He then came back and shared it generously with all of the kids. They were thrilled, especially my Grandmother – until she found out where he had gotten the money. She said “I just a cried and cried after that!”

    Mary LOL What a GREAT story!! I have to call mama and tell her that one!! I’ve been very fortunate to have had a lot of grandparents in my time and a few still with me, so I’ve always been eager to listen in when one of them starts talking about the good old days. Its knowing where you’ve been that helps you appreciate how far you’ve come.
    Thank you!!!!

    Mike Thank you so very much. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Mike!

    Gratefully,
    Christy

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