All About Food | June 1st, 2016
My great-grandma Marion was kind of a badass.
She lived all her life in Traill County, N.D., the daughter of H.H. McNair, a Portland, N.D., mayor, and his stoic wife Gabriella, who lost her first husband and two children to tuberculosis. Marion was the youngest of her siblings, and her parents were significantly older than average (he was 50, she was 45).
Nevertheless, Marion had a bright childhood. Fishing on the Goose River. Taking up photography as a hobby with her brownie camera. She hunted as a young woman and married a general practitioner who delivered over 2,000 babies in his 50-year career without ever losing a mother. Marion played chess, bird watched and taught first grade for two years.
She graduated from Mayville Normal School in 1922. She, like her daughter, was a baker, and while at normal school picked up a recipe her descendants still use to this day.
Credited to “Mary S.” (likely a classmate), Great-Grandma Marion’s recipe for banana bread is a winner. Just don’t forget the salt like my dad did.
In my years of using this recipe, I find it best to double the recipe since four loaves are better than two. Also, four loaves are better for crowds of more than one person.
Some notes for this bread: Brownish black bananas are best. The older, the better. But not too old.
Also, another mistake of my dad’s you don’t want to replicate: Do not dump all the ingredients in at once. This isn’t that kind of recipe.
Finally, be sure to spray your pans. Marion’s recipe leaves that out. #mess
Here is Great-Grandma Marion’s “Banana Bread” in her own instructions.
Banana Bread (doubled)
2c sugar1 cup margarine4 eggs6 mashed bananas 6 tbls sour milk 2 tsp. soda4 cups flour
Cream sugar and shortening together. Add eggs, mashed bananas. Mix soda and flour together. Add sour milk and flour alternately. Bake in slow oven (I use 350 degree) until done. 50 min.? Makes 4 loaves 7 3/8 by 3 ¼ for a double recipe. Usually make double recipe.
[Writer’s note: Marion Little died in 2004 in Mayville, N.D., at the age of 99.]
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