Traditions & Memories

Each December, I spend a weekend making German Springerles, a soft shortbread type cookie which require eggs, sugar, flour by (what seems to be) the metric sh*t-ton, a special imprinted rolling pin, a flexible schedule and lots of patience. The recipe was brought over from Germany by my Gramma's family when they immigrated to the U.S. My mother remembers her grandmother making the stiff, unyielding dough each Christmas, using only an enormous and heavy clay mixing bowl and the hearty strength of her German arms. I recall my Gramma and Gampy making batch after batch of it to give as small, meaningful gifts to friends and family throughout the holidays. Their process was likely only marginally simpler and less time-consuming than my great-grandmothers, what with the advent of electric hand mixers and all. Even still, the Springerle dough refused to be entirely tamed by their advances, and my industrious Gampy rigged a power drill to be a hand held mixer for the final stages of flour addition.

When I was in my early to mid-twenties, the two-day mixing and baking process was becoming arduous for my grandparents, so I began to go over to their house for a weekend or two each December to play baker's assistant, KitchenAid stand mixer in hand (no more power tools necessary). My Gampy began imparting his knowledge about these cookies, and, as it turns out, life in general, while we sifted, mixed, blended, peaked, chilled, rolled, cut and baked. You see, baking was his job while he was deployed in the Phillipines during WWII, as well as in his "real life"; working in a bread bakery, owning a donut shop and working in the grocery industry for nearly his whole adult life. We talked about his experiences as he instructed how to accommodate the dough for humidity, how to scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure all the sugar was incorporated, how to peak egg whites, and how to salvage every last bit of dough from the mixer attachments. He was a child of the Depression, and wasting food was frivolous, disrespectful, and irresponsible (unforgivable sins for anyone who has climbed out of poverty). As he scraped the attachments and wooden spoon clean, he'd always always drop those dregs of dough back into the bowl and say, "Don't wash it down the drain. That's your profit."

Since The Count and I moved away four and a half years ago, my Gramma and Gampy's health has ailed dramatically and they no longer participate in making Springerles. Instead, it's my quiet homage to tradition and family every December. For those hours and days, I think about my grandparents, their dedication to their friends and family, and the living legacy they provided to me in the form of baked goods, irreplaceable memories, and life lessons. That's my profit.