How a Recipe For Hershey’s Cocoa Fudge Brought Me Peace
Sometimes the smallest thing sends me down a rabbit trail of memories.
I am on a mission.
A mission to try as many dishes as possible from my Momma’s recipe box. I have assigned myself this mission to help me understand her. To discover the essence of this person who is an integral part of who I am but had only my first four years to leave her mark on me.
I am building memories of who I think she was since my actual memories are few and fading.
In this endeavor, I am finding more than I expected.
There are recipes for good food and a window into the style of cooking common in her rural housewife world. My general sense is she collected or copied as many recipes as she could to build a repertoire of meals to carry her into her adult married life.
Momma was a product of the 1950s and 1960s rural America where young women of her class were expected to get married, have babies, and keep house which included cooking for her family. From what I can piece together of Momma’s life, she embraced this role.
The process is healing for me.
What I did not expect to find was a recipe to heal a memory of my father.
