Ode to Anna Ingeborg Kransell

Anna's cottage painted in 1942 by Alex Johansson

The year is 1967. My little rear is firmly planted on the heavy, white slatted chairs on the back porch of my maternal grandmother Anna’s summer cottage. 

We’ve spent the morning shimmying up and down apple trees, careened along the sidewalks in an old baby carriage, and played in that secret spot deep under the old pine tree where chartreuse wild sorrel grows. My sister and I pull off clover-shaped leaves, sucking on them until the tartness covers our teeth to squeekiness. We’ve played hide-n-seek among the soft fronds of waist-high chervil that grows atop her compost, stopping only to chew the sweet licorice flavored seedpods.

Hunger tugs at my stomach and I can hear the crackle of dry birch logs burning in her cast iron Husqvarna stove and the sizzle as another pat of butter slides across the hot pan. She pours a thin stream of batter, deftly tilting a heavy pan coated with the patina of decades of lovingly cooked meals. Her delicately wrinkled hands remind me of crepe paper. 
In one fluid motion she’s flipped the pancake over. Edges bubble and pop, as lacy craters of crispness form around the rim.

My grandfather built this tiny house in the 1920s, and rather than steal wall space for a door opening, the back porch was reached by going around the house and up 3 or 4 steps. 

So, Mormor Anna keeps her kitchen window open while frying and every few minutes out through the window comes a spatula draped with a paper-thin, golden pancake.

“Who’s turn is it?”, she asks in Swedish.

“Mine!!!! “, I yell. Of course.

Devoured in 2 seconds flat, sprinkled with sparkly sugar crystals and more butter. Sometimes rolled into a log, doubled over and shoved into my eager mouth in one yummy buttery bite. Waiting for what seems like an eternity, then finally my turn again.  This time I slather it with raspberry jam from berries she picked in her patch that morning, or should I take the tarter woodsy-tasting lingonberries? 


And always the pancakes came with the admonishment: "Chew them before you swallow or you will get a stomach ache!!!!" Did we heed? Never.

I still think of her every single time I make these. 

Recipe for Anna’s Swedish Pancakes

Serves 2 

(with some leftovers, maybe)

1 egg

2/3 cup flour

1 1/4 cups milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

pinch of salt
butter for frying

Melt butter in a mixing bowl, add milk, salt and egg, whisk in flour. Let batter sit for 15 minutes or so to swell and meld.

Fry in butter using your favorite cast iron pan. And by the way, did you know that using these pans actually provides an extra dose of iron?

Addendum: A few days after posting this an email arrives from my sister with the above picture. She has the very pan of Anna's. It has traveled far from where it began its use and now meets more multi-cultural ingredients. But it is still loved,  still used and still cherished. Sometimes life is so very special.