Our Lord of Lard Icing
A child's story
All year long, your second grade teacher has prepared you for your first holy communion. You’ve memorized what the sacrament means and the ceremony’s prayers have been drilled into you. You’ve practiced how to make your first confession of sins: your teacher has even suggested three possibilities appropriate for eight year olds—lying to and/or disobeying your parents; not doing your chores or homework; talking in class. Every Friday, the principal comes to help your class practice what to do when the priest gives the holy host. She uses disks of flattened bread instead of wafers and places one on each of your classmates’ tongues. The host is the symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and you must never bite or swallow it whole. Instead, let it melt inside you because it is the body of Christ seeping into your soul.
If you are truthful—and you must be from now on—the most exciting part of the ceremony will be wearing the white dress your mom has bought you and made you swear to never tell Dad how much it cost. It is made of the softest cotton fabric your skin has ever felt, with a lacy collar tight around your neck and a big satin sash to cinch your waist. Underneath the skirt is a crinoline slip that makes it stick out just like a ballerina princess.
The other day a long box was brought into the classroom filled with gossamer veils sewn into a crown of fabric roses for the girls. A smaller box contained light blue ties for the boys. You ran home and up the stairs to your bedroom, locked the door and threw off your woolen blue uniform. Then you took your dress down from its hanger on the back of the closet and stepped carefully into it. The buttons in the back are too far away for your fingers to close so you pulled the sash tight. Then you drew the veil from the tissue paper it was folded in and gently placed it on your head. The long mirror on the closet door reflected the image of Jesus’s most beautiful bride.
The ceremony is next Sunday after mass. All your aunts, uncles, and cousins will come to watch you parade up the church aisle and then come to your house carrying presents. The refrigerator and freezer are already jammed with dishes to fill the table: a whole ham, scalloped potatoes, string bean casserole, three color pineapple Jell-O salad. There will even be a cake from Eiselen’s Pastry Shop—a huge white rectangle edged in loops of thick white lard icing swag with fat pink icing roses strewn all about.
You have never been treated so special by your family and you can’t help acting what your dad calls high and mighty. So high and mighty that you’ve decided that you don’t have to play in the mandatory baseball game organized by the neighborhood kids every weekend. You chose, instead, to sit with your best friend on the steps of your yard and press Silly Putty on top of the pages in her brother’s extensive collection of Mad magazines. You are so exceptional that the boy next door who has never paid any attention to the younger kids, leaves the game and comes over to you. He is an eagle scout, good in school, cute (according to the older girls but not your sister), and kind. He is that rarity, admired by parents and kids alike.
He says he has something for you. For your first Holy Communion. You follow him into his house, say hi to his mom who is helping your mom out by preparing a tray of deviled eggs, and then down the narrow basement steps. He takes your hand and pulls you to the back where he presses you up against the washing machine. “Please,” you say. “It’s my first holy communion.” But it doesn’t make him let you go.
On Friday your class is led into the church for your first confession. You’ve accepted that whatever happened in the basement dooms you for the rest of your life but you keep it to yourself. You say to the shadow behind the screen that you have lied three times and disobeyed your mother twice. The shadow raises his hand in the sign of the cross, tells you to say three Hail Marys, and sends you on your way.
Sunday arrives. Your mom carefully dresses you, flattens the lace collar around your throat, ties the satin ribbon tight around your waist, and fluffs the skirt out over the crinoline slip. She makes sure your veil will stay put by jamming three bobby pins through the crown and into your skull. Your brother sits in the front seat between your parents and your sister is instructed to slide close to the door so she won’t wrinkle your dress. They let you off alone at the school yard and drive off to find a parking spot. Your teacher forms your classmates into a straight line and you follow the girl ahead of you into the church and down the long aisle to the pew where everything blurs. You don’t even know when the Mass has ended. Your classmates stand up and push you along to the altar where you kneel, fold your hands in prayer, take in the Holy Host, and whisper Amen. At the end of the service, you walk out of the church to the sound of clapping. Your family finds you on the steps and your dad puts his arm around your shoulders and squeezes you to his side. We’re so proud of you, he says as he guides you to the car.
The house is filled with laughter and jostling to get into the dining room to load their paper plates with everything on the table, including the neighbor’s deviled eggs. For you it’s hugs and hugs and hugs and kisses for how pretty you are, how fantastic you must feel. Let’s take pictures out in the yard under the apple tree, near the neighbor’s fence, someone says. Eternity is shorter than the time it takes to stand still beside your godmother and parents, all the cousins, your sister and brother. Smile, they keep saying. When the last photograph is taken everyone turns and goes inside. It is time for cake. Your name appears below the chalice in pink icing: Congratulations Patty. A large corner piece with a huge icing rose on top is presented to you. Everyone shouts, “hoorah!”
No one notices you carry the plate upstairs to your room. You fold down onto the floor with the plate sinking on your lap between your legs. The crinoline tears your skin, the ribbon squeezes your waist, the lace chokes your neck. The veil rips out strands of your hair when you pull it from your head. You run a finger across the icing. It tastes of nothing and yet you can’t stop yourself from filling your mouth with big gobs of it. It quiets your cries.
When there is only cake left you throw the plate against the closet wall smashing it into sharp shards. God answers your prayer for no one comes looking for you.
[Reaction to this story was swift and I discuss it in a later story.]
A disagreement with the landlord closed Eiselen’s Pastry Shop in 2012 after half a century of providing countless number of cakes for neighborhood celebrations and brightening an equal number of mornings with the best cinnamon buns anyone in the world has ever eaten.
No matter where I am, lard icing continues to provide succor.
Lard Icing
You’re not going to use plain old lard for this recipe—that would give it an off-putting animal taste. Instead, search for leaf lard. It has a creamy texture but very little taste. It remains solid longer than any other icing. In fact, if you leave it out until the next morning, you will find that the cake’s embellishments, such as roses on a First Holy Communion cake, retain their shape, makin it easy to gobble up for breakfast.
The following videos are from the YouTube channel, bakersgreenacres. Besides learning everything you need to know about running a small family farm, you will sometimes discover unusual recipes. They’re a very hardworking feisty family with deep knowledge and many opinions about farm life.
Lard Icing
1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup leaf lard 1 cup raw cane sugar 1 egg yolk 1/2 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla dash of salt A flavoring you are addicted to or that would go well with your cake. The video calls for at most 4 tablespoons of maple syrup. It's purely optional but fun to experiment with. Beat together for 15 minutes. Can freeze. Editorial note: Double this recipe and freeze it to always have it on hand.
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Pat, this is the best example of second-person POV that I have ever seen. Truly excellent, compelling crafting (speaking technically) and (as Jolene says) profoundly powerful. (And I do remember lard icing, which was the norm in the 40s, before lard was demonized.) Thank you, thank you for this piece.
Very moving, Pat. So sorry that this happened to you.