Family Traditions - Pa's Plum Sauce

Family traditions are mysterious chains that bind us tightly – sometimes only to our living family and sometimes to our ancestors going back hundreds of years.  They are our lasting reminders of the people who went before us, the symbols of who we are and the love we’ve been given.  Humble as they often are, they become a badge of familial pride and honour. 

It was still very early days in my relationship with Charles when I met his Pa.  We were still joking about how quickly things had moved between us and rolling our eyes when we talked of a long future together.  Even we weren’t really taking ourselves seriously.  We had met each other’s immediate families but had not really got into the aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.  In fact, the only reason I met Charles’ Pa at all was because we had taken a trip down the coast, on a whim, and decided to come back through Cooma.

If we were going to Cooma, Charles told me, then he was going to see his Pa.  As we drove he sketched out the details of Nanny and Pa – telling me about childhood memories of them and their influence.  As someone who was never especially close to her grandparents I didn’t really understand how close he was to these people or what they meant to him. 

Sadly his Nanny had recently died and he hadn’t been to see Pa since the funeral.  This made the trip to see him all the more important. 

Pa himself was tall, though slightly bent with age, and I could see what an impressive man he would have been in his prime.  He was still impressive even then, but most of it had been channelled into a quiet dignity and gentleness.  He welcomed us, unexpected as we were, and there was something in the way he oriented himself around Charles, touching him lightly as he passed, holding him a little longer than you usually do, that told me that the light-hearted descriptions I’d been given of this relationship were simply the tip of a very vast iceberg of love.

Pa and his babies

The second person in that house was Nanny.  I don’t know whether it was her spirit or simply that her husband was keeping the expectation of her presence alive because he’d lived longer with it than without it and was still moving as though she were there with him.  Either way, I felt that she was still there and it gave me the impression that she was only in another room and that at any moment she might step in and greet me. 

I don’t really remember how long we visited for.  Looking back now it seems like ages.  Pa talked at length, telling me the personal stories attached to the trinkets on his shelves, telling me who he wanted to have them when he was gone.  It all felt slightly surreal because I felt that these stories were deeply intimate and that Pa was quite familiar with me for someone who had only just met me.  But Charles had slipped into that same, easy closeness with me when we had first met and so I just went with it.  If Pa wanted to share those stories with me, I told myself, I was not going to stop or question him, I was going to smile and appreciate the privilege I was being afforded.

When we finally left we rode the wave of love from both of the dear souls I felt were living there out the door.  I could see the impact the energy of the place had had on Charles, who was much quieter and smiling faintly.  He told me as we left that Pa had clearly liked me and that he was sharing his stories because he didn’t have much time left.  I was sad because I knew it was true but I’d also become convinced that Charles’ Nanny was still in that house and that she wouldn’t be leaving until she had Pa with her.  I felt strongly that when the time came her passing would make Pa’s easier.

Sadly, Charles was right.  It was only a little while later that we were back in Cooma at Pa’s house to say our final goodbyes and lay him to rest beside his beloved.  If I had missed the lesson about how central these people had been to their descendants, it was brought sharply home as I sat amongst them, watching them cling to each other, cry, laugh and remember.  Each of them had precious moments with precious items attached and I watched as each person chose the things that reminded them of Nanny and Pa, taking them away with them as a reminder and a talisman – evidence of love.

I didn’t take anything away from there other than my memory of the day I met Pa but, a few years later, I took up a legacy of his that has now become an integral part of myself – Pa’s Plum Sauce.  Every year Pa would make plum sauce and everyone in the family had bottles of this stuff stashed away in their pantry.  A heady mix of plums, vinegar and spices it had a powerful flavour that was sweet and savoury all at once.  Potent as a witch’s brew you could crack a bottle open and leave it in the pantry for months without it ever going bad or growing a layer of mould.  The stuff was amazing.

About three years after he died my mother-in-law started the last bottle of Pa’s Plum Sauce.  Charles was devastated and urged me to deduce what was in it and how it might be made*.  I explained to his mum how important the sauce had been to him and told her that I was going to try and find a recipe close to it so I could make it. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “I think I’ve already got it!”

When I told Charles that Mum had the recipe and was going to share it with me so I could make it he got very still, his eyes went huge and he gripped my arms so hard that it hurt.

“Sweetie,” he said in a low voice, “Do you have any idea how important that is?  Do you know how awesome it would be if you could make Pa’s Plum Sauce?”

So with the recipe in hand and no instructions other than “I think he just used to boil it all up and then run it through a colander to get the seeds out,” I made my first batch of the plum sauce.

It was not what I was hoping it would be.  I was reliably informed that it was too runny and the spices were wrong.  Mum also reassured me that Pa had fiddled with the recipe and she read out some of his hand-made annotations (and Nanny’s rebuttal annotations when Pa got a little too frisky with the cayenne pepper) to try and help me improve it.  The family were very tactful but still, the words “unmitigated disaster” crossed my mind more than once over that first batch.  I had some idea of where I’d gone wrong so I decided to persevere.

I remember reading an article once about how the big whiskey brands don’t have one special recipe that, if they follow to the letter, produces their distinctive flavour of whiskey.  Instead what they have to do is make many batches each year and then it’s up to their master blender to mix them until they create that particular brand’s “unique” flavour.

I have had to become something of a master plum sauce blender.  The first thing to go was the colander.  Now I just scoop the seeds directly from the pot as they rise to the surface, catching any renegades in the funnel when I bottle it.  This makes the sauce chunkier and closer to the true “Pa” texture.  I’ve also made my own annotations and changes to the recipe and every year it has to be slightly tweaked to account for differences in the fruit so that it always tastes like “Pa’s Plum Sauce”.  Charles is the final authority on whether a genuine “Pa” flavour has been achieved.

 

Plums, spices, vinegar and onions all ready to go!

I feel quite strongly that this messing with the recipe is in the spirit of the man himself and the batches of tasty he churned out year after year.  I think of Nanny and Pa while I’m making it and when I’m done the sauce gets distributed throughout the family.

Last year Charlotte asked me who Pa was and why I was calling it “Pa’s Plum Sauce” and not “Mama’s Plum Sauce” since I’m the one that makes it.  So I told her about Nanny and Pa, how special they’d been and how Pa’s Plum Sauce is simply one of many gifts they’ve left behind them.  “Oh,” she said, “So we always remember where it came from?”

Exactly.

Charlotte posing with the latest batch of Pa's Plum Sauce

* Something of a talent of mine – taste the dish, identify the components and replicate.