Exploring our Culinary History

 Food in the context of family is often more than just sustinance. It is celebration, care, love, joy, comfort, or mourning. The table is a place where people gather, and a meal prepared with time and love opens the mind, loostens the tongue, breaks down the walls and creates space for connection.

Throughout my life many people have cooked for me, my mother and grandmother most often. 

Last year we moved my mother from my childhood home in New Jersey to California. In the process of packing up her things, she packed a box for me filled with the recipe boxes of my elders. I have my mother's recipe box, her mother's recipe box, and full notebook from Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, my great grandmother's recipe box, and my father's mother's recipe box. 

Looking through these hand written cards and magazing clippings feels sacred. It is fun to see the cultural trends that have changed, and some themes that tell me more about these chefs. My Nana really liked dates, there are so many recipes in her box that use dates. I would never have known that about her. 

I also found a hand-written recipe for Dandelion Wine from my dad's grandmother! When I started makeing dandelion wine he told me that he remembered going with his grandmother to pick dandelions for wine and that he hated the job because it took so many flowers. I guess as a kid he didn't get to taste how amazing Dandelion Wine is so he would not have appreciated all the long harvesting work via the end product. The fun thing is...her recipe is the same as mine! What a treasure to have that connection. 

My great-grandmother Campbell was super trendy and progressive, and while her box includes a good amount of dinners involving canned soup, she was ahead of her time with her salad recipes. No joke, she was using avocado in the 70's way before avocado toast was cool. 

Gotta love the typewriter throwback

I also found recipes for homemade hard  soapusing beef tallow and lye. 😳 We probably will skip this one.

Thanks Mrs. Davis

As we have looked through these, the boys have had to learn how to disciper cursive. 😄 Some of them are hard to read anyway because they are scrawled on the back of dry cleaning receipts or on napkins. Others look like they were carefully written in pen and ink. I can't imagine how old these ones are.

It is also surprising how many are lacking important details like pan size, oven temp and cooking time!

Where was this when I was cooking for Boston Project?

It has been fun to explore these small family time capsules. The boys and I have decided that we are going to work our way through them and try a sampling of the recipes. Some recipes we chose because we know they will be delicious: sweet potato pudding, spice cake and lemon coconut cookies made it on the list easy. Others made it on the list because I have no idea what we are making and how it will turn out: spiced grapes & tomato mincemeat will be fun. We are working through 2-3 recipes a month, so keep an eye out for some fun coming your way soon. The boys are also hoping to add a video component. More info on that as it develops. 

We are heading on a tasty adventure, it should be fun!

...even if Pennywise Pot Pie sounds terrifying!!!