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When my little sister and brother and I were young children, my single mother struggled to make ends meet and we didn’t have a lot of extra money for luxuries like sweets. Her idea of a great dessert was a bowl of instant white rice with maple syrup poured over the top. Or sometimes, Mom would mix powdered sugar with milk and a drop of red food coloring and spread it onto graham crackers. But each spring, we looked forward to a very special sugary treat.
Our neighbor a few doors up the block was a traveling candy salesman. Each year after the Easter holiday was over, he would present my mother with a big bag of leftover foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies. Oh what joy! We knew it was time again for “DEAD RABBIT SUNDAES!”
My sister, brother and I would sit at the kitchen table with a pile of chocolate bunnies in front of us and we’d begin carefully peeling away the foil wrappers. The naked chocolate rabbits would be piled up into a large metal bowl. Mom prepared a make-shift double boiler of the metal mixing bowl propped over a saucepan of boiling water. She gently placed our painstakingly peeled rabbits into the bowl and we all stood watching wide-eyed as the rabbits slowly melted and grotesquely distorted. “They are dying!” my little sister would scream. Of course it wasn’t all bad because we knew what was to come!
Mom used the spatula to swirl around the melted chocolate rabbit mixture until it was smooth and creamy. When it was melted to perfection we’d dish up our bowls of vanilla ice milk (the cheap ice cream-like product they sold back then) and Mom would pour on the warm, aromatic chocolate. Then it was time to dig in! Almost forty years later, my siblings and I still fondly reminisce with Mom about our “Dead Rabbit Sundaes”. I don’t know if any other dessert could every measure up to that memory.Other ways to reach.
*This is another wonderful guest post from my friend Maryann. Maryann lives in Littleton, CO. Her blog is www.artists.50interviews.com.
Maryann…such stories bring back great memories of family, mothers, and charished traditions…all wonderfully unique.
Funny how child hood experiences often become such a part of who we are as adults! Maryann STILL loves desert & chocolate, and I'd dare to say that today she would much prefer the dark chocolate foundue desert at The Melting Pot Restaurant over a Dead Rabbit Sundae…especially if her siblings & Mom were there to share, too!
Maryann, I love hearing stories like this. It was a time when we slowed down and enjoyed just being together as a family. As hard as we try in today's world many of these simple pleasures turned treasured memories just don't seem to happen.
Great story so many of us had the same problem.
What a great story, Maryann! I can just imagine you as a lovely little blonde cutie looking forward to Dead Rabbit Sundaes!Best, Pat
I remember that fake ice cream stuff. My mom used to buy it by the gallon. I'm sure dead chocolate bunnies would have made it taste so much better. I loved your story!
Thanks, Barb for passing this on to me.http://www.lorislolz.org/2010/04/join-hersheys-be…My recent post Join HERSHEY’S Better Basket Blog Hop to support HERSHEY’S $7,000 donation for the Children’s Miracle Network
I would have never thought of melting them down- what a great idea! Your story makes me glad I can now afford fair-trade organic chocolate, with nuts. I'll bring some next time I see you:)
Heartwarming… great story… I expect no less from you! You ARE creative and curious, my brilliant friend… xoxo…
This is a really wonderful story, I am glad to have read it.
It makes me remember to craft some memories with my kids. Happy Easter!
too funny. I am always considering how much my kids HAVE compared to what I went without, as a child myself. Reminders like this are precious..
What a great memorable story…sometimes the best stuff comes from just making it work. Dead Rabbit Sundaes sounds delicious!