What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee — Anthony Trollope. English novelist (1815-1882)
A cup of coffee shared with a friend is happiness tasted and time well spent — anonymous
There’s nothing like a sip of coffee early in the morning, as well as another as the sun sinks in the west. My family was raised as coffee drinkers. Even as a child I was given a pretty little demitasse cup of coffee like a tea party.
The origin of coffee drinking came from my grandmother. Every Sunday afternoon just after four o’clock the bell rang and those living nearby better show up. Grandma raised ten children and one extra. No one could quite remember which. It depended on whether you counted the ones who moved in. Momma said back then people did things like that.
By the time they all married and had children, coffee time was growing larger. Aunts and uncles dragged kitchen chairs outside, packing more relatives onto the narrow porch. Children were allowed to play on the bluff but running around in the cane patch was a lot more fun. Inside the house, a big spread of desserts always covered the kitchen table. A yellow pound cake with sweet sauce. Every husband wanted the recipe, but Grandma confessed she had no recipe. She also had a chocolate cake with thin icing. She pressed pecan halves into the chocolate.
One Sunday my brother and I slipped into the kitchen and pulled off all the pecans. Grandma knew we were the culprits, but she never said anything. After Grandma passed a few of the aunts and uncles gathered at different homes for the four o’clock coffee time. Those like our family that lived far away no longer came.
I watched momma start the coffee around four o’clock at our home, as I got older, we shared our own four o’clock coffee, enjoying the memories. Then I moved away and found I’d get a great urge for a cup of coffee around four o’clock.
I remember some of the coffee brands back then, Folgers, Maxwell House, Eight O’clock. We had grocery stores called A & P Groceries where we bought the coffee. We made coffee with a percolator, everybody did. Percolators are still available if you like your coffee strong and robust. I rather like my coffee strong but not so much from a percolator. Some like the product for its simplicity and nostalgia. If you are okay with using it on a home stovetop, or if you’re camping and you plan to use campfires for heating it might be okay. In other situations, you can also purchase a very large percolator for office settings or large events. In later years I moved around the corner from momma in the Sessums community. Rarely did a day go by that we didn’t have our four o’clock coffee time. These days Sam makes our morning coffee as well as the four o’clock coffee; the sun still rises.
Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 46 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
