Today is play day; boiling sweet potatoes this morning as I prepare dishes for Thanksgiving. During the last few years, before Mom became incapacitated, I'd sit at her kitchen table and watch as she made her sweet potato "bread."  Brother Lacy and I grew up eating this sweet little snack, and when Mom would bake a big vat on weekends, we'd look forward to hurrying home from school for our little piece of heaven.

It's another one of those remembrance "strings" which tied us together as a family. Weird. I did not make this recipe for my own children; I guess because Mom would have it available at her home. Cooking and family history were not priorities as a teenager, and when I began raising my own family, learning Mom's recipes were not exactly in the forefront of daily activities. Like many of our moms, she never measured anything...a pinch of this...a dash of that. *sigh* So, during that first session,  I asked questions. Mom, in an exasperated tone - "Baby, just watch."  I'd go home, buy the ingredients, and start my "labor of love" - to no avail; it just did not turn out like hers. On the second, and final time that Momma made sweet potato bread (she did not consider this a special dish), I arrived with notecards and pencil in hand; writing down every ingredient, approximated, to the best of my ability, the order in which they added, the amount of certain items (she'd shake a little of this, then later on, after tasting, add more spices, etc.) until I felt every little tidbit was written on solid paper.

During these sessions Mom would tell me that it had to be eye-balled for a certain consistency before putting it in the oven. ???!!! I've kept those old cards and tried many times since to bake her sweet potato bread. I don't know how or where Mom learned to make this recipe; I can only guess. My grandmothers did not make it. This was Mom's thing. I did try to research the origin and found out that the recipe is really not sweet potato bread, but rather a version of sweet potato pone. PONE! She never called it that - an adaptation of an Indian recipe, it is native to the American tropics that spread to the West Indies, the Caribbean, and Jamaica has some good recipes. I've tried so many similar recipes in attempts to perfect mom's!

I do know that Mom was raised during the Great Depression by a childless farm couple in Society Hill, S.C. For me, they were another set of grandparents; now, I can only wonder if that is where Mom learned the recipe. Getting back to today, as I make preparations for Thanksgiving in the weeks ahead and knowing that my brother will be able to join us, I want to surprise him with Mom's recipe for Sweet Potato Bread. So, as I slide the batter into the oven one more time, fingers are crossed, hoping that today is the day I'll be able to write it down, one more time, and pass it on to the grandchildren before it gets lost. If ever there was a recipe legacy, Sweet Potato Bread would be Momma's.