In 1976, Johnny Money launched a track referred to as “Strawberry Cake.” It was a little bit of an outsider tune, not altogether widespread. However to me, it falls nicely inside the canon of easy but nice Americana storytelling.
In an interview, Money talks about strolling previous a person sleeping on a New York avenue whereas on his solution to his lodge. He goes on to say that, after seeing a powerful strawberry cake on a dessert desk within the foyer restaurant, he puzzled how you can assist the person spirit away the entire cake, absolutely frosted, to have for himself.
Recipe: Strawberry Layer Cake
He thinks higher of the thought and, as an alternative, writes “Strawberry Cake.” Within the track, a person from the road sneaks into the Plaza Lodge, yearns for the cake and, remembering his days choosing strawberries in California and his life resulting in that second, grabs the cake and flies out the aspect door. He outruns the chef and headwaiter and ultimately lands within the bushes the place nobody can discover him. He devours the whole cake in rapture, alone, sated and alive. It doesn’t shock me that Money, a fellow Southerner and Nashvillian, selected strawberry cake as an antihero’s coveted prize, or that the cake itself is on the heart of a private reckoning about class.
We Southerners love storytelling, and amid the songs, outsider artwork and poetry that inhabit Americana are recipes, holding narratives that always don’t appear to matter a lot within the second however that truly outline a lot of what it means to be alive.
Amid the songs, outsider artwork and poetry that inhabit Americana are recipes.
As my very own recipes are launched into the wild, changing into freed from me, I develop extra conscious of the tales they inform. Each marks a time and a spot (the place I used to be, whom I used to be cooking for, whom I used to be cooking with) and a historical past (my very own and others’). Once I comb by way of my archives, I discover numerous pleasure, some strife and, largely, a easy love for the recipes’ humanity.
Some are quieter than others. Some are as vibrant as novels. However the richest tales are in my layer muffins. I consider that to be the case for lots of different Southerners too. Layer muffins usually are not informal bystanders. Usually referred to as church muffins, they nod to each the next expertise and the concept they, toted in cardboard bins with no high or Tupperware cake holders, are sacred centerpieces for gathering in our a part of the world.
This explicit cake recipe additionally tells a story. As a chef with sturdy opinions, I consider you may’t discover finer strawberries than those in Louisiana come early spring. By April, we Southerners are struck practically dumb with the abundance of this crop, and we stay that approach till early summer season, when our berries get a bit waterlogged and overheated. I wished to see the place they got here from. I wished to satisfy who was rising them. I wished a 10-hour drive with 13 flats of Camarosas to huff alone in ecstasy to consider how you can finest serve them. An excellent variety of years in the past, I drove down from Nashville to select up a number of flats for my pastry kitchen. That drive grew to become a part of this recipe.
When the farmer requested what I’d do with them, I replied with solely two phrases: “strawberry cake.” He nodded as a result of, nicely, after all that was what they had been meant for. Strawberry cake evokes one thing large and essential to Southerners.
My unique was constructed round these unimaginable Louisiana strawberries, roasted at excessive warmth and sugared frivolously to guard their taste. It tasted like Smucker’s jam within the summertime.
For me, it is a type of redemption cake. It calls summer season ahead, brings us out (and generally up) from the cragginess of winter, reminds us that there’s life available and cake to be eaten. Additionally it is a cake to supply tribute: to a bumper crop from a Louisiana farmer, who offers you a beneficiant “driving stash” for the lengthy experience residence; to these you’re keen on and look after probably the most. One which, all hued up like a flower, in some wondrous shade of pink, can each cease individuals of their tracks and declare a sure type of tenderness in grief or in love and care. Layer muffins transfer round this fashion, from life to life. And so the recipes take the form of the individuals who discover them, defining small moments and altering with time and place. Right here’s a very good one so that you can take, fill with tales and make your personal.
