GRANDMA'S COFFEE, BAR SOAP, TOO MANY THINGS

Grandma:s Coffee, Octagon Soap and Too Many things?


My grandma, Kalin raised five boys, and a girl, kept a big house in old Brooklyn and lived into her nineties. She was only five feet tall but as strong willed and tough as her husband,  my granddad. He was a strong, sinewy, black-pipe plumber, who could carry a cast iron bath tub inverted on his back up five flights of stairs.

Grandma made her own bread each day as well as cooking three meals a day for a big crowd. She had to be efficient, she had no maid servant or other help.  Her only daughter, was the last child to come along much later in her life. The boys all had chores, some in the kitchen too. Clean up 

As a young boy in the 1940s, I recall being in her big kitchen as she prepared breakfast for "the boys"...my uncles. Everything was much simpler in those days...no big machines for brewing coffee, coffee pods, not even a percolator did she have. Coffee was made in a big white glazed ceramic server. It must have held at least eight cups. Grandma boiled tap water in a big,  gray-glazed metal coffee pot--the kind you see used today over camp fires in western movies. Her’s boiled on the gas stove. She used no measuring cups or spoons...counting out eight handfuls of coffee, dumped each into the server sitting in the center of the table on the patterned oil cloth tablecloth, then poured in the hot water almost to the top. That was it. Coffee made. She came by a short time later with her wooden spoon (more on that later) to give the pot a little swirl. Then went about her other chores.

She used no measuring cups or specials spoons for measures. Her hand with fingers tight together and curled upward was a "half-cup" measure, while her palm served as a both a "tea spoon" and "table spoon measure" depending on how she tightly she curled her palm.

In a matter of a few minutes the coffee grains had settled and the big white pot with the chipped glaze on the bottom and a faint brown-stained crack along the side was ready to pour out the rich, dark, steaming brew. A "cream cow" along side of the coffee pitcher filled with heavy cream made the drink a special treat.

I often think of those days in grandma's kitchen when I examine our over abundance of gadgets and machinery all designed to produce a simple cup of coffee...Everything is so complex today and yet it could be so simple.

Perhaps, in these days when no one stays home to keep the hearth well tended and the home fires going...we might be well served with a lot simpler ways of doing things.

Oh yes the wood spoon. Unlike modern moms and dads. Grandma was not afraid to administer corporal punishment to her grandchildren, and even her full gown sons, and her long handled wood spoon was her weapon of first choice. Grandpa's shaving strap in the bathroom was her next choice if someone needed further encouragement.

Now regarding all those bottles of bath soaps, shampoos, conditioners, skin smoothers and emoluments that clutter up the shower stall in the bath room, we had none of that. The washroom had a toilet, a sink, and a white enameled cast-iron bathtub which was raised above the black and white tile floor on short legs. The shower head above the tap end was enclosed by a shower curtain. There were no bathroom shelves. No need for them.  There were no jumble of bottles, jars, plastic dispenser that we have today. The only cleanser was a bar of Octagon soap which came in a paper wrapper. The brownish soap bar, was self recycling. It was used up slowly and the bubbles and dirt went right down the drain. Grandma had no plastics or glass to recycle.  Much simpler in those days.

With all the folks in a family working out of the house these days, and little time for clean up...perhaps a simpler life with fewer things might be in order.



Another complaint I have