Ambrosia

Childhood memories, even of important events like Christmas are remarkably selective. Sometimes the clearest memories are of the smallest events.

We always visited my grandparents in rural Holmes County, Mississippi. They lived in a rambling house made of rough-sawn, unpainted cypress. I thought of it as the house that jack built, because of the add-ons it had accumulated over the years.

The house was nestled among enormous native trees, in the alluvial plain of the Yazoo River. Just a few miles east was the beginning of the hill country. We would take a truck to the hills, where my grandfather picked out a suitable cedar tree (they grew like weeds on the hillsides) and had it cut down. Back at the house, we would saw the bottom of the trunk square, nail on a couple of supporting boards, stand it up and start decorating.

We made varicolored chains out of construction paper, strung popcorn and cranberries together with needle and thread, and hung Christmas tree lights, foil icicles and a few antique glass ball ornaments.

The real work of Christmas took place in the kitchen. On Christmas day, my grandmother and a servant cooked turkey, ham (slaughtered and smoked in October), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, cornbread dressing (for the turkey), and a passel of other vegetables on an enormous wood-fired cook stove.

The piece de resistance was prepared by my great aunts, who had come up from Yazoo City. Late in the morning, they disappeared into a room and closed the door. When I asked what they were doing, Aunt Mary informed me they were making Ambrosia.

My grandmother and my great aunts grew up on a plantation along the Yazoo River. It had a suitably grandiose name, which I don't remember. But the young ladies of the family were sent off to finishing school. Aunt Mary and Aunt 'Stelle, in particular, had an elegant, soft pronunciation that has largely disappeared from the South, along with the graceful cursive writing they used.

When Aunt Mary said "ambrosia," the syllables flowed like honey. It sounded like the most delicious, heavenly food that one could imagine. It was easy to understand why, when making such a marvelous food, it was necessary to do so in secret, with the doors closed. Otherwise the magical recipe might escape.

After the rest of the food was on the table, a weight sufficient that the table's legs creaked and groaned, my great aunts emerged from their secret workshop and placed a dish of ambrosia at each place.

Imagine my surprise that such an elegant name referred to fruit salad sprinkled with coconut.