GINGER BEER HOT & SWEET

Aunt Mil is celebrating her 88^th birthday; and I am creating a special luncheon for her. I’ve invited a few of her friends and I’ve created a special menu with many of her favorites and a few surprises she hasn't tried before.

Ginger Root Photo from Wikipedia

Ginger beer is one of her favorite things that I make. She enjoys it hot or cold. In the evening after super she warms it and drinks a cup of it as she enjoys her cookie.

A couple days ago I was hanging out with my mom and told her of my menu for Aunt Mil’s luncheon. She told me of her childhood years when every home in Montserrat had to have a piece of ginger. She told me when she was a girl suffering with period cramps; her mom would give her a shot of gin and a cup of ginger tea to help stop the pain. According to her in those days it was a custom throughout the Caribbean.

As mommy shared about using ginger back home in Montserrat, her story took me back to the days when my grandmother made ginger beer. When I was a little girl watching my grandmother make ginger beer, I used to think, “I’m never going to do that”. I watched granny with the big stainless steel bowl and grater in her lap as she sat on the kitchen stool. Next to her she had a bucket full of ginger. She hummed as she was grating the ginger. Like Granny I to hum when I am cooking, but I have found that the blender works just as well as the grater and is certainly much faster and easier.

She was quick at grating, but to me as a little girl it felt like it took her forever. I loved her ginger beer and so did many of her neighbors. One day I asked her why she grated so much ginger and she rattled off the names of the people who needed to get a bottle.

I remember how happy granny’s neighbors were when they got a bottle of her ginger beer. That is the joy I wanted Aunt Mil to feel when she and her friends shared her special luncheon. 

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