Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

A Child’s Teacakes and Rights

Here is a bit of free, simple -- though a trifle old -- advice on what a mother can do to make her children happy:

“Do not raise a family without making tea or ginger cakes for the children once a week. Otherwise, you rob childhood of one of its rights, also one of its chief joys. These cakes are easily made, and if thoroughly cooked and put away in well-covered stone jars, will keep fresh and moist for more than a week.”

This teacake wisdom was first offered in 1898. It was written in a cookbook by the lovely Southern lady Emma Rylander Lane of Georgia and Alabama, who was known far and wide for her charm and wit and her considerable expertise as a homemaker and cook.

Emma Lane, the wife of Dave T. Lane, a Central of Georgia Railroad Company agent in Clayton, Alabama, Barbour County, had won first prize for the best cake at the state fair held in Columbus, Georgia. Later, at the insistence of her family and friends, Mrs. Lane published the directions for the prize-winning cake, along with seven of her teacake recipes, and many of her other favorite dishes, in a book she called “Some Good Things To Eat.”

Of course the original Lane cookbook is out of print. Even reproductions of it are hard to come by. Recently, through a friend of a friend who has a friend living in Clayton, I obtained one of the last copies of the 1976 revised edition of THE ORIGINAL MRS. LANE’S “Some Good Things to Eat” COOKBOOK.

Now, what about Emma Lane’s suggestion that a mother should bake tea or ginger cakes for her children once a week?

It is a good suggestion -- even in this day of junk foods, fast foods, and hurry-up, rush-rush, microwave cooking and living -- not to mention high stacks of all sorts of packaged cookies on every grocer’s shelves.

What is important about Mrs. Lane’s words is the idea that a parent can “rob childhood of one of its rights, also one of its chief joys.”

What are the rights of a child?

What are the joys?

Can a mother be a robber, without knowing it?

A child has the same rights as an adult. And besides that, he is entitled to a safe, secure, and happy home. Nourishing food. He is entitled to order and discipline and training, long carefree days full of play, and love.

It is not the teacakes, as such, that will bring him the joy -- though he will grin and gobble them down. It is the devotion of the parents who provide the teacakes which insure him long-lasting joy.

Emma Lane, in the preface of her original cookbook, had something more to say about a homemaker’s goals:

“The first thought of every woman when she assumes the duties of a home should be her kitchen, as the health, happiness, and prosperity of a family depend largely upon the character of the food eaten and upon the wisdom and economy of the housewife.”

Because of copyright laws, I cannot reproduce the famous Southern Lane Cake recipe nor any of Mrs. Lane’s seven teacake recipes for you to try out on your youngsters. Instead I offer you these directions for making the Arkansas Tea Cakes which were part of my own childhood rights and joys -- a good seventy years ago:

One cup sugar, one egg, one scant teaspoon soda, one-third cup buttermilk, one cup shortening, enough plain flour to make dough stiff enough to roll and cut (about 3¼ cups). Pinch of salt. Vanilla, to taste. Cream together sugar and shortening. Add egg and beat well. Sift together flour, salt, and soda. Mix vanilla and buttermilk with egg mixture, and then add flour. Chill dough and roll very thin and cut in any shape. Bake in lightly greased biscuit pan at 350 degrees F. until very lightly browned. Cool on rack. Store in tightly covered stone jar. That is, if the children leave any to store!

Published February 1989. Click your browser’s “Back” button to return.