The Pipes Come A Callin’

What a pleasure it is to have some of John’s favorite cousins visit.  How these kin met is quite a story.  A number of years ago our daughters wanted to join DAR, started the search and then had to have documentation.  In the genealogy search, Donna found a man in Florida with the name Crumly, contacted him and they had more than one interesting conversation discovering there was a connection.

Later, a number of Crumlys met in Atlanta to clarify some Crumly records and Donna and Cuz were in the group.  She called here that night saying, “Mother, you and Daddy have to meet this man — he and Daddy look so much alike from the back.”  Well, meet we did.  As it happens John’s great-great grandfather married his second cousin (I’ve always said this was what was wrong with the Crumly family) and she was a sister to this man’s great- great grandfather.  They’ve had DNA tests done and these two men are identical except for one glitch.  Now they are best friends, as well as relatives.  They have so many similarities — they both enjoy working with their hands, they enjoy gardening and both have airplane experience — Cuz the pilot — John the mechanic.  They both  like banana pudding, but without meringue.  Needless to say when we learned they were to visit, we made banana pudding.

The banana pudding recipe was the one my mother used and she used the same recipe for chocolate pie by adding two tablespoons of cocoa and allowing the pudding to get thicker before pouring it up.

We have used this recipe our entire married lives.  John does the pudding and I do the slicing and crumbling of wafers and for sixty years we cooked this in an iron skillet — it was the way Mother did it.  Of course, the heat had to be low and even then it would stick and sometimes scorch — cleanup was a job.  We’ve now learned to cook the pudding part in the microwave and it’s so much easier and quicker.  We microwave for two minutes, stir, then microwave for two more minutes, stir and microwave for one minute, add the vanilla and pour it over the bananas and wafers. Microwaves are different and you need to experiment the first time you do it. If you substitute another wafer for Nilla®, then you forfeit flavor.  There is no substitute.

The Banana Pudding Recipe

1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups sweet milk
a scant 1/2 cup flour
A cut of butter
1 tsp. vanilla

First I put whole Nilla® wafers in the bottom of the bowl and slice a layer of bananas and a layer of broken wafer pieces.  You can fill a normal size bowl as full as you want, but if you like more pudding than bananas, then use fewer layers.

I put the ingredients in a four-cup measuring cup — beat the eggs well first — except the vanilla — add it last.  I use all the egg in this; however, if you want meringue you need to separate the eggs and save the whites for the meringue.  Be careful that the pudding does not get too thick — it needs to be thin enough to pour easily and as its being poured onto the banana mixture, I use a case knife opening up a space for the pudding to run all the way

down through the banana/wafer mix. When this process is finished I always put a lid on the bowl as the heat and steam will soften the wafers.  Don’t leave it out of the fridge more than 2 hours.

This is one of the ways we enjoy country living.