In days of past, people put up all kinds of fruits and vegetables and remedies for one reason: to fill a need not yet foreseen but which, in due time, will exist.
Apples can be stored in the cellar, and must be separated from the onions or they will start to taste the same. Tomatoes are juiced, canned, cooked down into sauce, reduced further into paste, and perhaps frozen. Onions and garlic are kept out of the sun, yet handy for all the warmness they bring to winter's fury. Fruit is frozen or put up in cans, juiced or covered with sugar alcohol and intended as a cordial.
I knew yesterday morning that I was going to wake up sick when the night before I felt a little discomfort in the back of my throat. When I woke up, the one thing I wanted to complement my sister's strawberry waffles was my mother's blackberry cordial.
For me, berry cordials are deliciously good at two basic things: relieving a scratchy throat and giving one the excuse to slowly sip liquor from morning to night.
My mother, although not the feisty young woman she was in college, is quite adventurous. She'll find a recipe for almost anything, and will not let an overabundance of yield damper her interest in finding a new way to prepare everything from the garden. One year, for example, we had so many onions that they fit side-to-side all around the balcony of our porch, with more in waiting. My mother is the one to call when the zucchini are coming out of your ears and you need something to do with them. She's great at finding obscure, interesting, and mostly delicious recipes to use almost anything.
And now, this same woman took the berry harvest from the farm where my sister worked, and made cordial. Lots of it; in whiskey jars, canning jars, even small lady-figurine limoncello jars I bought in Sorrento
It could be said that most parents think ahead, and stock their pantries diligently. But most of the time, those medicine cabinets are full of over-the-counter syrups and gelled capsules, medicine cups and extra tissues.
My mom was just doing what she could do, as she always does, with anything which can be saved. Ounces of leftovers do not make it past her watchful eye; surely you'll find them in the fridge, waiting. She likes sweet things, and made them, for fun, and keeps. Best of all, she made them to kick us back in gear, and able to enjoy all the rest of treats she will be found making.
