Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Aprons, a distant memory

For many enthusiastic collectors, aprons have become a charming link to the past.
Housewives don’t wear them like they used to, but prior to the fifties and sixties, they were protection from the spatters and spills that occurred in every busy kitchen, along with drying tiny wet hands and sweeping crumbs from the oil cloth on the kitchen table.
My mother, as well as other ladies of her generation, had a stockpile of them and wore them every day. They were almost exclusively handmade, embellished with rows of rick-rack or hand embroidery. Most often they were made from scraps of leftover material or an old garment ready for the trash heap.
Aprons had many uses aside from protecting the ladies’ everyday dresses. They were handy for carrying small items scattered around the house, the hulls from shelled peas, strings from green beans, apple peels, and eggs carried from the chicken coop. It was also practical for holding baby chicks that had to be corralled and taken back to an enclosure.
From the garden, it carried in all sorts of vegetables and in the fall it was used to carry apples that had fallen from the trees.
It was used to wipe their brow when cooking over a hot wood stove. They served as potholders when taking a hot dish out of the oven and were ideal for a quick dust of the furniture when unexpected company were seen coming up the road.
And how many of us remember our mother or grandmother cleaning out our ears with her apron?
When dinner was ready, Grandma could be seen on the front porch, waving her apron, telling the men to come in from the field because it was time to eat dinner.
What heartwarming stories those old aprons could tell if they could talk. It will be a long time before someone invents something that replaces them. But I doubt that any new invention will leave as many lasting memories or longings for the past.

Banana Split Cheesecake Squares
from Kraft Kitchens

1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 cup halved strawberries
1 banana, sliced, tossed with 1 tsp. lemon juice
1 can (8 oz.) pineapple chunks in juice, drained

HEAT oven to 350°F.
MIX graham crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of 13×9-inch pan.
MIX cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Stir in mashed bananas. Pour over crust.
BAKE 30 min. or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate at least 3 hours. Serve topped with the strawberries, sliced bananas and pineapple.