Buttercups and Birthdays

By Leo Racicot

I started to say there are no more bakeries here in Lowell but there are a couple downtown I’ve yet to investigate. Growing up, I guess I was spoiled for choice; there was Price’s on Chelmsford Street where the family and most Lowellians went for their baked goods. There was also the wonderful Yum Yum Shops, one next door to Chelmsford Market Basket (DeMoulas), further up on Chelmsford Street, and my favorite Yum Yum, in the heart of Cupples Square. Also, just up the street from us on Broadway Street, near where the Kathryn Stoklosa Middle School now stands, was Zipp’s Bakery. Most people don’t remember Zipp’s but I was a regular customer;  close enough for me to walk or ride my bike to. Zipp’s donuts were so big, one could feed a family of five. They were that grand. Zipp’s had the best raspberry sticks, I can still taste their freshness, their tangy-sweet combination of flavors. I never wanted them to end, wished the whole day could be taken up eating one. Also, still part of my olfactory memories is the distinct smell of Zipp’s as I got nearer and nearer to it. I could smell its baking ovens as soon as I hit Muldoon’s Oil at the corner of Broadway and Mount Vernon. Some places you never forget and I have never forgotten Zipp’s, miss it to this very day.

Getting back to Yum Yum. It had a confection called buttercups. Buttercups (sometimes called chess squares) were flat cake-like sweets cut into squares. Because at that time, I had no idea what they were, what they were made of, I liked the mysterious nature of them. Sinking my teeth into a fresh buttercup was like no other taste sensation — totally satisfying. The delights of them are still deeply embedded in my taste-memory bank. Once Yum Yum Shops disappeared, so did buttercups. Now-and-then, I’d stumble across them in a stray bakery or two but they were never as good as Yum Yum’s and I haven’t seen them sold anywhere in years. Most people nowadays don’t know what I’m talking about when I ooh and ah over them. They seem to have been strictly a sweet of the 1950s and ’60s.

Every birthday, we went with Marie to either Price’s or Yum Yum for our birthday cakes. Since we knew there was no birthday fairy who, like Santa Claus, was going to surprise us with cake and ice cream on the day itself, as that day approached, anticipation was high and moved on up to motor speed for the day when Ma and Marie would say, “Let’s go get your birthday cake!”  Piled high in front of us — the birthday boy or girl got to sit on a special higher chair — were bowls and bowls, veritable mountains of potato chips, peanuts, popcorn. Of course, I loved the frosting part of the cake, could never get enough of it. As I age, I find myself scraping the gooey, too-sweet slab off of a cake or a cupcake as fast as I can; one of the necessities of aging. I much prefer, and my system can tolerate better, the not overly sweet cakes baked by the Asian Bakery on the corner run by Betty Chiu Leung. At 50 or 60 dollars a pop, I convince myself they’re well worth the price for their delectability and decorative look, pleasing to the eye as well as to the taste buds.

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My birthday party, age 7 or 8

Yum Yum Shop interior

Clara Zipps Bakery

Price’s Bakery

Betty Chiu Leung

Buttercups