Family Recipes Keep us Connected to Our Memories
Whenever I feel lonely for my family, I pull out my recipe box and cook
“Recipes are like poems, they keep what kept us.” Henri Coulett
If we are lucky, we have a stash of family recipes, written in the handwriting of our family members past and present. It is in my box of handwritten recipes that I find comfort when I am longing to be transported to my grandmother’s kitchen, or the long-ago kitchen of my youth. When I want to elicit the mood of my mother’s kitchen in winter, when the wood stove was glowing and a pot of soup simmered, I cook.
Sitting with my box of recipes connects me to all the times I was nourished and loved by the hands that wrote these recipes down. This connection is as visceral as actually being in my grandmother’s kitchen on a summer afternoon, or my childhood kitchen on a winter evening.
One of the things I love about this treasure trove of memories is that each one tells a story. Many of my recipes are written on scraps of paper — whatever was handy at the time — and that, in itself, is part of the story.
