Growing up in the fifties, life was pretty simple in my home town of Mitchell, in southern Indiana. It was a lovely small farm town with a wide Main Street and the Monon and B & O railroads intersecting on the east end. Mitchell was rapidly converting from small farms and fruit orchards to new age industrial….Lehigh Cement about a mile out on the east end of Main and Carpenter Body Works school bus plant a couple of miles out on the west end by state road 37 going north to Bedford, an even bigger industrial ‘city’ with a GM plant, and south to the tiny town of 300 true blue small farmers and their families. This was where my mom, a prizewinning cook and restauranteur for many years, grew up, helping tend the fields of wheat and corn, driving the tractor for her dad at age 12 or so. The cooking part came from my grandmother, Grace Estelle Pickens Fry, a fabulous hostess who always was glad to see anyone who came by their home about three and a half miles out of town. She gave us her Pickens family recipes which now go back 150 years…and her wonderful homemade bread was unforgettable. I can remember her making it every Sunday we went to dinner with her and Grandpa Fry, which was almost every Sunday. Dad and Mom, Jenny, my older sister and I, and later Donna, my younger one, would go to church at the Jacob Finger Methodist Church, a lovely late 19th century small town church that still looks like it came out of a fairy tale book, stained glass windows and all. Afterward we headed to Grammy’s. I suppose that Mom surely must have taken a dish or something with her, but it always seemed that Grammy prepared the entire meal herself. The yeast bread was not unusually hard to accomplish for her on a Sunday morning, as my grandfather had given up on going to the Methodist church in Orleans many moons before, altho he personally donated the chimes installed in the tower when I was a little girl…sending out beautiful music over the town in the evening hour. Luckily he would go to weddings and funerals at church, but not regular services, leaving Grammy free to cook dinner for twelve to twenty of us, depending on whether Aunt Jessie and Uncle Billy were home for summer vacation and which of Grammy’s family might come. The bread recipe was handed down to her from her mother and Grammy was so used to making it she never measured…just threw the ingredients together, and sometimes pronounced a batch ‘unfit to eat’…which none of us ever noticed or could figure out. I was very content with the fried chicken leg and a slice of that delicious pillow soft bread, hot from the oven. And, made in a different way than any other recipe I have found…the dough is pinched off in golf ball sized pieces, and carefully rolled and worked between greased hands till the shape of a short cigar, about three or four inches. Each piece is then placed side by side, about 12 or so, in a row on one long side of a pyrex baking pan 9 x 12″. A matching row of cigar shaped dough is placed on the other side of the pan, leaving a bit of room in the middle. After it rises up from the shaping, it is baked till light brown on top and must be greased on top with a butter wrapper, which Grammy always seem to have on hand in her fridge. So, here is a treasured family recipe for bread…

We are uncertain but this recipe is at least 150 years old, possibly 200. We can thank my older sister, Jeannette Hardman, for saving the recipe by inviting my grandmother to her home to make the bread so Jenny could add measurements to the ingredients and see Grammy’s technique for making it. Only a short few weeks later she left to make it in heaven.

Ingredients:
3 C. water, warm
1 T. melted shortening
1 pkg dry yeast
1 t. salt
1/2 C. sugar
6 Cups flour

Melt shortening and cool slightly. Dissolve yeast in warm water, adding sugar, shortening and salt while stirring well. Add half the flour, and stir well. Add remaining flour, with dough still slightly soft. Turn onto floured board and knead five minutes, adding more flour if necessary. Grease well a large bowl and place dough ball in it,flipping it over so the greased side is on top, keeping it from crusting over. When double in size, pinch off a ball of dough , and with shortening coated hands, shape carefully into a roll in the palm of one hand, turning it with the other. Place two rows of dough ‘cigars’ in a 9 x 12″ pyrex baking dish which has been greased. Allow to rise again before baking about 20 to 30 minutes in a 350o oven. It is done when light brown on top and coating the top with butter from the wrapper makes a shiny finish. I have found the recipe adaptable to doughmaking in my breadmaker.