apron strings
by bam
the subject today is that little bit of cloth that comes between you and the flour. and the butter. and the splattered bits of canned tomato that would do in your crisp white chemise.
no, no. not the napkin. though we could put that on the list for consideration down the line.
and speaking of the line, that is not the wash flapping up above, but a bit of a timeline of the aprons i have loved and tied around my middle.
indeed, today we ponder the apron–pockets, strings and all the bits of lore tucked there beneath your hankie and your spoon.
and, yes, i admit it. since i was just a wee little sprout, handed my first hand-pieced patchwork of little squares, stitched together by my great-grandmama, tied on i’m certain with some crumb of ceremony making me feel like a big girl, a true citizen of the kitchen where my grandma was the queen, and i had at least been granted the status of a scullery maid, i have, when in the groove, gone for the apron strings.
now i recognize this is a cloth with a charge. a rag, a shmatte (if you’re inclined toward yiddish), that might make you wince.
there are those who do, and those who don’t. tie on one. i mean, of course, the apron.
so let us dispense with the don’ts.
but let us first consider the history. for this is a kitchen cloth–unlike, say, the dishtowel–that really does carry with it the story of a nation of women finding their place in and outside of the kitchen.
except for the brassiere, it is hard to think of a stitched-together piece of cotton that so represented liberation. although the cotton boll itself certainly makes me shudder.
i haven’t a clue when the first apron was donned, when someone grabbed a towel and tucked it by her tummy.
but i do know that for a whole long stretch there, the apron was not some symbol of oppression. rather it was saving hours at the washboard.
until the industrial age, washing your wardrobe of ginghams and calicos meant a.) bending at the river’s edge, or b.) scrubbing against the corrugated metal washboard, or c.) wringing the darn laundry through the wringer that could take off your arm if you pushed just a little too ambitiously.
and d.) any of the above, made splots of splattered tomato the last thing you wanted on your house frock.
thus, the apron. a washgirl’s best defense.
“there was a time when a woman rose and put on her apron as her most functional piece of clothing. she hardly left her bed, let alone her house, without it,” writes joyce gibson roach, a folklorist.
“early photographs of frontier women bear witness to the one garment common to all–the apron. frontier women wore aprons with pockets. those pockets concealed hankies, leftover cold biscuits and ham, small toys, eyeglasses, roots, plants, and other stuff gathered from the wilderness.”
or a gun, adds maryjane butters, a farmer and writer and hero to farmwomen, real and only wishful, all across america.
in her bible, “maryjane’s ideabook, cookbook, lifebook,” (clarkson potter, 2005) she tells the story of one molly owens, a frontier ranch woman, who made it a point to put on her apron whenever a stranger rode up. the apron, it turned out, had a special pocket in which ol’ molly concealed her gun. butters doesn’t let on if she ever actually had to pull the trigger.
and you thought you were smart, tucking your recipe cards in that there kangaroo pocket.
there is, it seems, a deep appreciation in some circles for the sociology, if not the politics, of the apron.
there is a book, and now a traveling exhibit of photos, text and 200 vintage aprons, titled “apron chronicles: a patchwork of american recollection,” written by ellyn anne geisel, with photographs by kristina loggia, that tell the stories tied to aprons, from the frontier to the holocaust.
i’ve not read the book, but it is, i am certain, one i could cozy up with. i believe in the chronicles of kitchen cloth. heck, i collect stories for a living. even stories from the pantry, where my aprons hang.
my aprons do tell stories, each one. and i have many.
there is the precious little patchwork, flapping on the left, up above. it’s the one i wore as i learned to mix a chocolate cake, roll out my first sugar cookies. it meant, when the apron was on, that i was a big girl. i was in the kitchen, at my mama’s side. i was following instructions, peeling back the mysteries of how to bake and how to be a grown-up.
when i did grow up, became a children’s nurse, we all wore aprons. instead of starched white uniforms that showed every germ and scared the pants off little children, we walked the halls, looking like so many cheery cooks. we tucked syringes and thermometers in our pockets, always had on hand whatever healing thing we needed.
when my grandma died, i was bequeathed her recipe box, her mixing spoons, and, of course, her apron. one of her many aprons, i do believe. she had lacy ones for parties. and frilly ones, too.
but she had a gingham one, a yellow-and-white check with brown cross-stitches up across the gathers, for everyday. it’s the one that takes me back to dear lucille, every time i see it in the drawer, folded, waiting.
and then i’ve got my latest. the one i bought just last summer, to celebrate the end of the building of my farmhouse kitchen. i got it at anthropologie, a store i love for the way it feels like the best of some old garage sale. they are big on vintage there, and so i grabbed a flouncy floral number.
i do believe, i, like the frontierswomen, spend more time thinking about the fashion of my apron than i do the clothes i wear underneath. in either case, not so much.
but then, before we leave this apron drawer, we must discuss the fact that there are many who do without.
i would say the reigning queen of this stripped-down kitchen style would have to be nigella. nigella lawson, of course, the british cooking goddess. the one who slinks around her london pad, wearing silky robe or bosom-hugging–and i mean hugging–three-quarter-sleeve cashmere sweater. (i read, i really did, that each of her cooking sweaters costs somewhere in the $300-to-$500 neighborhood. egad. i would tiptoe, yes i would, ‘round my canned ta-mah-toes, as she would say, if i donned such splendid threads at the cookstove.)
nigella and her decoutage, ample as it is, seem to have spawned a whole network of chesty wanna-be’s. checked in the food network lately? every single cooking dame is cooking at half mast (meaning half the mast is showing). and not a single one is tying on an apron.
so as we swing through the naked double-Os there in the kitchen, i will swing, once again, out of fashion. i will amble, yes i will, to my baking cupboard. i will haul the flour off the shelf, and always the apron with it.
i will tie one on, and make my clouds of brown-milled mess. and i shan’t give a single worry, for i will be duly dressed–for the cutting board and not the bedroom.
do you have an apron chronicle you would like to share? do you cook covered, or bare? tell me, tell me do….don’t leave me flapping on the line, like my life of aprons up above.
p.s. if you poke around the chair today, you will see all sorts of delicious kitchen-table shots. my sweet will, he of camera passion, made art for you and me. and we’ve hung it out for all to see. i do believe you’ll like it. i sure hope so.
Aprons … ooooo, love ’em, collect ’em. A few hang from my 1930’s metal kitchen cupboard, a treasured frilly one that once belonged to my grandma is folded neatly in a sideboard drawer and one that my daughter made when she was 4 is displayed proudly.But, perhaps my favorite apron was specially made for my mother many years ago before she went to the Philippines. She went there to teach children about God. These children were desperate, homeless orphans, cast-away children that no one wanted or who no longer had a family to look after them. They lived in the city dumps, some as young as toddlers. Truly heartbreaking.This special apron had dozens of pockets. Before she left, Mom bought hundreds of pieces of candy, tiny trinkets and toys. Little cars and pocket size games for boys, bracelets and rings for girls. Child-size hairbrushes, mirrors and barrettes for their hair. She filled the pockets of that apron and called the children to come. Even the tiniest gift brought great joy to a child that had absolutely nothing to hold onto. With that one simple act, done with the true love of God as inspiration, those children knew that God hadn’t forgotten them … even if everyone else had.I will never again see an apron without remembering the tender story of little hands reaching for a treasure.
What amazing writing! Now I want to go out and make aprons that will span generations! Anyone up for an apron making party?! I wear an apron when I’m feeling grounded to my home – goes hand in hand with rolling up my sleeves, cleaning the decks, dusting the cobwebs, and anything that puts me at the helm of the home. These are the happiest times, when food is made lovingly and carefully, when aromas drift from the kitchen as lures to entice the family out of their solitary corners, when stomachs rumble, concotions are tasted and corrected and anticipation is palpable. Better than the non-apron days when each family member ventures in the too clean kitchen, scrounges the freezer, looking for something foodlike – zaps it and retreats to their personal spaces.
oh, i’m definitely an apron gal!! where does one wipe one’s gunky hands if not on one’s apron??? i have a number of them-2 for cooking and several more for art projects and one w/ a hammer sling for when i’m installing pictures. and my friend Laurie has a fabulous one w/ ruffles that i covet and she longs to give me but the friend who gave it to HER might notice its absence……..
My little daughter is most definitely an apron gal. She has always tried to wrap and tie my big ones around her tiny self when she helps me in the kitchen. Then I made her one out of fuschia linen napkins and white trim. With a little ruffle at the waist, for good measure. Now she happily dons it, and directs me to put on my bright gold 1970’s Vera print which I found at a rummage sale, and we are a very bright pair together, spilling flour and missing the bowl with overzealously cracked eggs.
i have a stack of aprons in my kitchen cabinet, all well loved, they have almost all been gifts.teeney, eeny ones my girls wore when they were just old enough to sit on the counter next to the mixing bowl and pour the beaten egg out of its tiny bowl in to the bowl of batter and then drop the tiny bowl in for good measure. one with needle point balloons on the front. a blue jeany denim number with my nickname embroidered at the top.the one that is really my favorite apron is actually a pair of aprons, one that i used to think was huge but now i realize is pint size and one that i used to think was ginormous but now i realize is jus- right adult sizethey are a matched pair these two, a mother daughter combo, for me and my mom a way long time ago, made by my mothers dear friend who could do that sort of thing without even thinking or blinking.they are cream colored half aprons, gathered at the top, with two rows of gold, fringy trim at the bottom. in between the waistband and the fringe is a crayon drawing of a smiling blue eyed princess, wearing a green and blue crown and a red and blue triangle dress. the sleeves are peach colored with green stripes. she looks radiant with outstretched arms and hands that are round balls with fat oblong fingers sticking straight out to the side. she stands on her blue stick legs and triangle feet in a garden of yellow and red flowers.behind her is a golden sun smiling even more brightly that she. the whole scene is speckled and spattered with drips and drops of many a moment in the kitchen with my mother. moments when she taught me to always measure over the counter not the mixing bowl, to crack the egg into a separate dish in case it might be bad, where she just smiled when i accidentally dropped the dish into the mixing bowl.i cant even imagine how my mother’s friend took my little crayon drawing and got it onto those aprons, this being well before the days of scanning and printers and blah blah blah. but she did. and now i can wear the ginormous apron that is really adult sized and my girls can wear the huge apron that is really pint size and we can make magic in the kitchen and i can say “now grandma says fold the batter by reaching way down deep into the bowl and gently lifting it over … i love those aprons and now my girls do too.