At Christmas time when we were children, my Mum used to serve snow pudding. In that long-ago time we felt very modern and had left behind the old ways, so much so that snow pudding wasn't made out of snow anymore. By the 1960's Canada had become a prosperous Dominion and contemporary mothers used whipped egg whites to give snow pudding its ethereal frothiness, not snow. Still, with eyes a-twinkle Canadian fathers would sagely tell solemn youngsters that snow pudding was made "with clean snow from out in the back yard over by the fence where no one has walked, cooked extra slowly in your mother's double-boiler, you see, so that the snow won't melt as the pudding sets. Your mother has to make snow pudding while you children are at school, because running and jumping in the kitchen can make the snow-fle fall." Good grief, that's a bad pun, but it's pretty funny when delivered without a smile to children who don't know they are being had.
Snow pudding sounded and tasted wonderful. When the poet wrote "as pure as the driven snow", he was probably reaching for "as pure as snow pudding made with real snow from over by the fence where nobody has walked."
However, served alongside snow pudding came (insert terrifying chord) hard sauce.
Hard sauce?!?!?!?
HARD sauce?!??
hard SAUCE!?!?!
"Hard sauce" sounds as unappetizing as runny sauce.
Or scratchy sauce.
Heavy sauce.
Woolen sauce.
10w30 sauce.
Iron sauce.
Big sauce.
Coal sauce.
Dry sauce.
Birch Bark sauce.
Waxy Sauce.
Lye sauce.
Black sauce.
Bug sauce.
Black bug sauce.
Kitten sauce.
Low sauce.
Ralph sauce.
Carcinogenic sauce.
Box Sauce.
Hard sauce.
"Black bug sauce" reminds me of another freakish concoction Grandma served in the summers, called "shoo fly pudding". But that's another story (about merry-eyed fathers spinning yarns at the table to nauseous children) for another time. It's becoming apparent to me that I was raised by wolves.
But back to our current story....
On Christmas Eve (or Boxing Day) silent youngsters would receive a brief stern lecture about the "very lucky children in this room" and then out would come the snow pudding. And the hard sauce. At the kitchen table we would receive a small portion of snow pudding, sans hard sauce thank Goodness.
We each had at some time surreptitiously tasted the hard sauce. I remember once, when I was alone in the kitchen, taking a small spoonful of the solid, burnt-orange substance. It didn't look promising, but if it was forbidden and an accompaniment to heavenly snow pudding, it must be a subtle wonder, too. Into the mouth went the spoon. Ewwwww! Out came the spoon, just as quickly. The taste was lingering and sour, like something burnt. Once on the tongue, the sour paste melted and the fumes immediately went up the nose, working as an aide to over-congestion.
Most things that adults forbid are actually pretty great! Second helpings of pie. Staying up until midnight to see in the New Year. Throwing around tennis balls in the back-back of the station wagon. All forbidden, all wanted.
However, hard sauce was one of those rare things that was forbidden, like coffee and whiskey, but that didn't need forbidding. "Children, you may NOT have a cup of coffee." Hello!?!?! Did you see us trying to sneak some coffee when you weren't looking? Du-uh!! It's so gross!!
So... we children would have our pure, sweet snow pudding in the kitchen.
The rest of the snow pudding, all of the hard sauce, and all of the adults would sail off into the living room. We didn't have dining rooms then. There was only one table in the house for eating at. The adults were in the semi-darkened living room using (wow!) TV tables or (gasp!) no tables at all.
Being left unattended by adults was a rarity. In those uncomplicated times, we children were not suspicious of what our parents were up to in the living room. We noisily enjoyed our good fortune and flicked spoonfuls of snow pudding at each other.
In the living room, our parents served snow pudding to their friends. As well, they politely and magnanimously allowed themselves and each other to partake in the hard sauce. Was this simply a Christmas tea party, or do I remember increasingly raucous laughter?
Looking back now (A La Recherchee du Temps Perdu) as I casually flick tapioca pudding at the kittens, I have a grown-up's sharp and cynical mind. NOW I wonder what the heck was going on.
Were the grown-ups getting into the sherry? Or does hard sauce have hard liquor in it, as the name suggests? Or maybe they were simply flicking snow pudding at each other and didn't want to encourage the children.
In recent years, whenever Grandma gets to acting silly, I ask archly if she's gotten into the hard sauce again. I never found out and still don't know what hard sauce actually is. I know I could Google it, but I really don't want to know.
The name "hard sauce" conjures up something better than the reality ever could be. I'll leave it at that.
