Cookie jars seem to have gone by the way of my mother’s generation. You don’t see many on kitchen counters beside instapots and airfryers.
My Grandma Kaseman had two cookies jars in the mud porch at the back of her house in Wishek. One shaped like an apple, a funny yellow color for an apple lightly colored with a red blush over the shoulders. The lid had a small stem and leaves. The perfect opening for small hands to reach inside — but you didn’t; for sure you didn’t with out an explicit invitation from Grandma, most likely in German. The second jar was taller, curved with yellow glass and handpainted color flowers or fruit. I learned later in life it was made by Barlett Collins, as I found one at a thrift store and made it my own.
My Grandma Meidinger had one cookie jar. I coveted that cookie jar from the time I first saw it. It was a hen with a baby chick on her back serving as the lid. I do not have my Grandma Kaseman’s jars, but I do have the chicken. On the bottom are two pieces of masking tape. One reads Lorraine in my grandmother’s handwriting; the other reads, “this belongs to Sue.” My mother gifted that jar to my grandmother. When she died, the cookie jar returned to my mother. Shortly before my mother’s passing, the cookie jar became mine. What a treasure.
I don’t remember ever reaching into any of those cookie jars, but I do remember my grandmother’s cookies.
Many of my recipes were handed down from my mom. I’m sure she collected them from her mom. While I remember cookies mostly from Christmas gatherings, I do know that my dad’s dad loved ginger snaps year round. I’m almost positive one of Grandma Kaseman’s cookie jars was always filled with ginger snaps from the store. But, there was also a recipe for homemade ones as well.
Homemade ginger cookies were a Christmas treat. Spicy with ginger and cloves, old-timers would call this cookie a dunker. These semi-hard cookies held up to a dunking in a steaming hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of milk. Children might prefer the soft chewy honey cookies or a sugar cookie before a spicy hard ginger cookie any day — but as an adult these are one of my favorite Christmas treats. But, why wait til Christmas to bake cookies?
My mother’s recipe is called “cracked top ginger cookies.” The ingredients are simple, but you must get that signature crack in the top of the cookie to know you achieved success with the recipe. The rich dark color of this cookie comes from molasses. I would venture to guess not too many young households today have a bottle of Brer Rabbit Molasses in the cupboard, but it was a staple in my mother’s cabinet. Of course, it didn’t cost $10 a bottle. I had to do a little bit of research into this brand of molasses.
Started in New Orleans in 1907 and named for the Brer Rabbit character in Joel Chandler Harris stories, the label is still around and marketed by B&G Foods based in New Jersey. The cookbook came out January 1, 1950. There were many free recipe books offered by companies to encourage you to use their brands and contain some of the best recipes out there. Not so much anymore.
In fact, many of my mom’s favorite recipes came from those little booklets — we will revisit that later. In the meantime, I had a half gallon of molasses from Azure Standard, a truly wonderful and flavorful molasses, so I mixed up a couple batches for my next farmers market.
Between the cookies and the cookie jars, I remember my parents and my grandparents and a simpler way of life. You know when cookies were a special treat and always made by loving hands.
PS: The Pillsbury Dough Boy cookie jar was free with a number of proofs of purchases, or something like that. It’s very old. From the 80s.
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