When my son, Ela, was little, I home-schooled him. When he was nine, I got a job teaching in a one-room school in a nearby community, which was something like an extension of home-schooling. I had seven or eight children between the ages of eight and fifteen.
We made some marvelous journeys through the humanities. (With no guilt, I slighted the sciences, figuring the students could catch up later.) I read King Lear to those children, built paper maché medieval cathedrals with them, and wrote plays for them and directed their performances. The year of this recipe I thrust us into holistic studies of Japan and Africa. For Japan, we made kimonos, wrote haiku on rice-paper scrolls, and prepared a Japanese dinner for parents and friends. For the study of Africa, we dyed sheets and decorated them with potatro-block prints. For our African dinner, we wore our cloths like sarongs and served African foods. The sweet potato pudding was such a hit with our guests that I kept the recipe, evoking through it now not only the pungent smell of sharp African spices but also the shining faces of all those children dressed in their hand-printed "African" cloths, eating the African food they had made, and explaining to their parents that sweet potatoes were a staple food of central Africa.
We made some marvelous journeys through the humanities. (With no guilt, I slighted the sciences, figuring the students could catch up later.) I read King Lear to those children, built paper maché medieval cathedrals with them, and wrote plays for them and directed their performances. The year of this recipe I thrust us into holistic studies of Japan and Africa. For Japan, we made kimonos, wrote haiku on rice-paper scrolls, and prepared a Japanese dinner for parents and friends. For the study of Africa, we dyed sheets and decorated them with potatro-block prints. For our African dinner, we wore our cloths like sarongs and served African foods. The sweet potato pudding was such a hit with our guests that I kept the recipe, evoking through it now not only the pungent smell of sharp African spices but also the shining faces of all those children dressed in their hand-printed "African" cloths, eating the African food they had made, and explaining to their parents that sweet potatoes were a staple food of central Africa.
Recipe from this post: African sweet potato pudding
Next week: "Box of Stories (6): Grandma Viola's Peanut Butter Kisses"
AFRICAN SWEET POTATO PUDDING
serves 6-8
Ingredients
6 medium sweet potatoes (about 2 pounds)
3 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon ground saffron
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
Preparation
Cut sweet potatoes into chunks.
Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a heavy 2-3-quart saucepan. Cook the sweet potatoes briefly, uncovered, 25-30 minutes or until tender. Drain the potatoes and return them to the pan. Stir in the milk, cream, honey, saffron, and cardamom. Bring the mixture to a boil over moderate heat, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the pot uncovered about 1 hour or until the potatoes yield a purée and the mixture holds its shape almost solidly in a spoon. Stir occasionally. Put the pudding through a Foley mill into a serving bowl. Sprinkle it with additional cardamom before serving.
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