Emmie's Soup is another Joseph Corella pen-named story. This one is set during the Great Depression, and is told in the first person by Patsy, who thinks back to when her dad set off tramping to find work, leaving Mum, Patsy, George and Vivvie to manage as well as they could. Mum takes in ironing and things are so desperate that she has to wait for her pay to buy bread or fuel. When a customer goes to live with her sister, Mum can no longer manage, so she takes the children to stay with Great-Granny, who would rather be called Emmie.
Emmie has a cow, a vegetable plot and an ingenious method of survival. She gathers fuel for an hour a day, sells blackberries to the factory to buy sugar, bottles some for herself and uses them for barter. She makes butter and preserves. All this, as Patsy discovers, takes a good deal of time and work, as garden stuff must be fed to the hens, and their manure dug in, and the calf must be shut up at intervals to ensure milk for the house.
All is well until bad weather ruins the last of the blackberries, the cow is injured and the hens stop laying. Suddenly the magical plenty is gone, but Emmie has one last line of defence. She uses a large bone from the butcher and a bit of rice to eke out some few remaining vegetables and concocts her special soup. Soup keeps the family fed until the season turns and the hens start laying, the cow recovers, and mushrooms appear. Best of all, Dad sends news that he has found a job not far from where Emmie lives.
Now elderly herself, Patsy thinks back... and gives the reader the recipe for Emmie's soup.
This story is based on things I learned while writing The Powerful Pickle Problem, (Post 7) during which I talked to people who were children during the depression. My grandmothers were the models for Emmie; both doughty ladies who were experts in making do. The children were named after real family members; Mum, Dad and Mum's cousin.
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Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)
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