To Marshmallow, or Not To Marshmallow?
That is the question.
There are family recipes, and there are award-winning family recipes. You are in luck today because I have a recipe of the award-winning variety for you. Last week, I shared the recipe for Grandmother Mason’s Cornbread Dressing, and this week I have another Maude Mason original, Sweet Potato Pudding, just in time for Thanksgiving.
The big question for cooks in the South when it comes to sweet potato casserole or soufflé or pudding or whatever your family calls it is: to marshmallow or not to marshmallow? It’s a long standing question as well since the marshmallow topped sweet potato casserole turned 100 years old in 2017.
The original recipe was the brainchild of Janet McKenzie Hill, founder of Boston Cooking School Magazine. Hill was hired by Angelus Marshmallows, the original makers of Cracker Jacks, in 1917 to create recipes that would inspire home cooks to use Angelus Marshmallows in their dishes. The resulting cookbook included marshmallow topped mashed sweet potatoes as well as a hot cocoa recipe with floating marshmallows.
Sweet potatoes are believed to have originated in Central and South America, and Columbus brought the root vegetables back to Spain where they spread throughout European gardens and onto tables across the continent. Published recipes for sweet potato dishes date back to as early as the late-1700s in the United States.
Grandmother Mason’s Sweet Potato Pudding is of the non-marshmallow variety. You could probably add them if you wanted to, but with all the Karo syrup in the dish already, it would be a sweet-bomb overkill. Several years ago, Stephen’s mom, Carolyn, entered the recipe in a Thanksgiving recipe contest at Lake Lanier Islands, and it won. The chef featured it at the restaurant’s Thanksgiving luncheon. It is very good—sweet with a nice, smooth-ish pudding texture. It was definitely worth marrying into the family to get my hands on the recipe.
Sweet potatoes seem to have a place on just about everyone’s Thanksgiving table, and like dressing, every family has their own take on the dish. To marshmallow, or not to marshmallow? That is the question. I’d love to hear how your family does it.
Maude Mason’s Sweet Potato Pudding
4 cups heaped and packed grated sweet potatoes
1 cup dark Karo syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
½ cup butter (use real butter, not margarine)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon (heaping) nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, well beaten
Melt butter in black skillet. Mix together other ingredients EXCEPT EGGS. Place into melted butter in skillet and bring ingredients to boil on medium heat, stirring constantly.
Place into 350 degree oven.
Watch for mixture to crust around edge, and this is the sign to begin stirring. Return to oven. Do this several times.
After cooking about 40 minutes, take out of oven and let set about 10 minutes or until nearly cool.
At this point, take a small portion of the pudding mixture from the skillet and mix with the beaten eggs. Keep adding rest of pudding to egg mixture, and then return all back to the skillet and place back in oven for 5-10 minutes until mixture becomes hot, stirring once.
Notes on the recipe from Aunt Becky Page: This has been a family favorite and a tradition on the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas in our family. It always must be baked in a black (cast iron) skillet and the potatoes must be hand grated. Using the black skillet makes the mixture take a dark cast, but this is expected and is part of the charm of Mama’s Potato Pudding.
Notes on the recipe from me: I break both of Aunt Becky’s rules. I grate the sweet potatoes with a food processor, and I cook it in a stainless steel oven proof chef’s pan and then transfer it to a casserole dish after I add the eggs. My big cast iron skillet needs to be re-seasoned, and I just haven’t gotten around to it. Cooking it in a cast iron skillet would give it a nicer texture with a little bit of crust that I don’t get with mine, but my version still tastes delicious.
Interesting Stuff From the Interwebs
Here is a graphic of the most popular Thanksgiving side dishes by state that is probably very wrong.
The image of six-year-old Ruby Bridges walking down the steps of her elementary school, dressed in her Sunday best with a bow in her hair, surrounded by U.S. Marshalls is an iconic image of the Civil Rights Movement and school integration. I’ve always been fascinated by her mother. What was it like to get little Ruby ready for school that first morning? What was it like to face down the hate-filled mob of protestors to leave her daughter at the school each day? What did she do with herself while Ruby was at school? Was she worried sick? It took an amazing amount of courage to do what she did knowing what she knew about the people opposed to them. Ruby’s mother, Lucille Bridges, died last week at the age of 86, and the New York Times wrote a really nice article about her and her earlier recollections about that time in history.
Chameleons are cool and more than a little spooky.
Chris Nikic recently became the first competitor with Downs Syndrome to finish an Ironman race in the required 17 hours. You can read his story here.
How does one get rid of a giant dead grey whale that washed up on the beach? Fifty years ago, the Oregon Highway Division decided using a half ton of dynamite was the right answer. It, um, didn’t go as planned. Kids, don’t try this at home. Here is the remastered news footage of the Exploding Whale.
The holiday season is upon us, ready or not, and in true 2020 fashion, it’s not going to be the holidays we are used to. That’s OK. We’ll muddle through the same way we’ve been muddling through this pandemic since March. If your family is not meeting together in person for Thanksgiving this year, I encourage you to get in the kitchen anyway and make those family dishes that bring back happy memories of Thanksgivings past as you look forward to gathering together again next year. Set up a family Zoom call, and open a nice bottle of wine. We can make it work.
Please stay healthy and safe.
Until next time,
Karla