First: that girl could fry some fish. When we would go fishing at Moose Lake or Bond Fall Flowage, we'd come home with a tub of fish. Mostly Blue Gill, perch and sunfish. The men/boys would take them out to the picnic table in the backyard and clean them. Some of them were still moving. And we skin fish in this family. We do not take the lazy way out and scale them. Perfect white pieces of fish from very cold lakes.
Illda would stand at the stove with two big cast iron pans and a little oil and cook fish as fast as we could eat them. I never paid much attention to what she was doing or how she did it, but I think she battered them. Light, perfectly golden triangles of blistering hot fish. Usually there was a plate of bread in case some one choked, but I don't remember anything else for a meal.
After all the fish was devoured, and the plates stacked in the sink, and the bowls of fish bones out to the trash, Illda would bring out the pan of Rhubarb Bars. My dad would groan and loosen his belt.
The Rhubarb bars were the other item Illda owned. I thought maybe it was just my dad, but the first time my boyfriend tried them he went crazy as well and nobody else hardly got a bite.
I recently found my copy of the recipe that Illda gave me when I got married. I married that boy who had gone crazy over her Rhubarb Bars. Illda and Cleo never threw anything away as evident that the recipe is written on a page of a calender from 1975.
Translation:
Rhubarb Bars
- 3 cups cut rhurbarb
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix cornstarch and sugar and add to rest of ingredients and cook until thick.
Bars:
- 1 1/2 cup fine oatmeal
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup shortening, 1/2 butter
- 1/2 cup walnuts finely cut
- 1 teaspoon soda (I am presuming baking soda)
Mix together until crumbly. Pat 3/4 mix into a 1 x 13 pan. Pour on cooked rhubarb and cover with remaining mixture.
Bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes.
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