This I know from Billy who actually drank the stuff: Indian coffee, amongst the people living on the reservation, was a complex and involved ritual, and amidst the Lightfoots, it was a family tradition. Billy told me how his mother told him about her memories of her grandmother. It would seem that this venerable lady (Billy's great grandmother), who still lived on the reservation when Billy's mom was a little girl, would get up at the crack of dawn to prepare the coffee.
It went like this: she would fetch the huge red enameled coffee pot, dump in a pack coffee beans, dump in a pack of sugar, and cover the whole thing with water and set it on the stove to simmer down all day only occasionally stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, she would plant the wooden spoon into the coffeepot and if it stayed put she would cackle and announce that the coffee was ready.
According to Billy's mom, her grandmother's coffee was always thicker and better than her own. I, of course, had never seen this legendary coffee but I had witnessed Mrs. Lightfoot's coffee as she served my mother. I remember it as being as thick as sorghum and as black as molasses; I couldn't imagine what the elder Mrs. Lightfoot's coffee was like. Maybe instead of needing a spoon, as was the case with Mrs. Lightfoot's coffee, you would need a knife and fork -or maybe even a saw- to eat the elder Mrs. Lightfoot's coffee. I do say eat and not drink because you could chew on this coffee. Seriously, they boiled the stuff down to a thick dark sweet syrup and served it in cups by pouring boiling water over it.
Billy loved the stuff and though I couldn't stand the taste of any coffee (still can't), strangely enough, it still smelled appallingly good to me. A mere whiff of it was enough make your mouth water and probably got you hyper for at least 24 hours.
Ooh, a series, wonderful. Good voice.
ReplyDeleteWhy, thank you! It must be the lemon honey drink, I hear it does wonders for your voice.
ReplyDeleteI'm a coffee addict and I love this story! I'd try that recipe any day :)
ReplyDeleteSounds just like my kind of thing. I love strong Turkish coffee too
ReplyDeleteAloha Aubrie thanks for your invariably kind words.
ReplyDeleteI suspect making coffee this way is fairly inefficient and hard work too. You would have to use controlled semi low heat and keep stirring continuously to keep the coffee beans and caramelizing sugar at the bottom of the bottom from burning. In retrospect, I realize the process is same as for making "dulce de leche", except with coffee instead of milk... I guess we could call this "dulce de café".
I think if I were to make this recipe I would used brewed coffee to begin with... That way the cooking time would only be at 2 or 3 hours. But then what would I do with coffee syrup? It could be used as a spread... Or a topping on some barely sweetened homemade vanilla ice cream! In between layers of a double decked decadent chocolate cake maybe... Hmm.
Heya Lulu...
ReplyDeleteAnd the added advantage of turkish coffee is that if you're on the road with a coffee addict and you don't have coffee making paraphernalia with you, then you can make them a fix using a campfire and a pot. I remember the look of wonder and surprise I got when I made it for the first time. I suspect it's not as good as with proper powdered coffee but using regularly ground coffee makes (judging from the reaction) a decent cup for a coffee fiend in need.
What an unusual way of making coffee! Boiling the whole beans? I have never heard of that, I would have never thought that was possible. But of course, I guess after a day of simmering, it probably is.;) And what a caffeine shock that must have been.;))
ReplyDeleteThis was a great story and an interesting one for a coffee lover such as me.;)
Have a lovely Friday,
xo
Appallingly good, indeed, as are these rich bits of invited intrusion into Billy's life.
ReplyDelete@Zuzana: Heya Zuzana, thanks for your unflaggingly positive comments.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the custom of boiling whole beans was an atavism from a previous era. Maybe it started because of ignorance? Maybe it was an issue of what tools were at tools at hand... Just wild guesses there.
As I understand how the coffee making process works, it doesn't make any sense to use the beans whole, but that's what they did.
After the flavorful oils have been extracted from coffee, you get a bitter taste (hence the principle of espresso, blast pressurized water through finely ground coffee so that it picks up all the flavour from each coffee particle and none of the bitterness), I suppose that's where the large amount of sugar comes in... Shrug.
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@Kass: Heheh, thanks for your lovely alliterative comment.
I'm a HUGE fan of coffee. In fact, I've had three cups today. I'd love to taste this brew. One cup probably does the job.
ReplyDeleteHello there Theresa! I'm guessing you wouldn't want what this stuff would do to your nerves. : j
ReplyDeleteBut then, if you've already built up an immunity to iocane powder... Erm I mean to caffeine, maybe you'd be fine with it.