What does a bowl of homemade split-pea soup, whipped shortbread cookies, and a plate of pan-fried eggplant all have in common?
Ok, besides being three tasty treats you probably wouldn't want to enjoy together, they are the recipes that have been passed down in my family for generations. Like many folks out there, I have a recipe book filled with handwritten recipes from both my mother and father's sides. It may not be much to look at, but it is one of the more valuable books in our house.
Ok, besides being three tasty treats you probably wouldn't want to enjoy together, they are the recipes that have been passed down in my family for generations. Like many folks out there, I have a recipe book filled with handwritten recipes from both my mother and father's sides. It may not be much to look at, but it is one of the more valuable books in our house.
Family recipes are the ultimate in comfort food.
Comfort food is described as a "traditional food which often provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer." It is a food that is shaped by our cultural heritage, and our family's eating habits. Not everyone will find comfort in pickled herring (including me!) but for my Scandinavian mother, it is a taste of childhood. Likewise how my father finds great comfort in the Italian foods of his Sicilian heritage. Lucky me, I get the best of both worlds, which is where we get the odd combo of split-pea soup, whipped shortbread, and breaded pan-fried eggplant from.
Family recipes have a rhythm and a pattern in-tune with the Wheel of the Year.
Some of those recipes are treats centered around traditional familial celebrations, while others are seasonal due to their ingredients, or basic make-up being something that is more desirable during certain times of the year. Making a big pot of split-pea soup requires a hambone, for instance - it is a meal that is often prepared after a festive feast shared with family - and it is not the sort of fare that one usually hungers for during the heat of summer. Vice-versa on a dish such as insalata caprese , which is a traditional chilled summertime dish, that makes the most out of fresh ingredients that are peaking at that time of year. So besides connecting us to our ancestral heritage, our family recipes also follow a well-established pattern that is cyclical to the Wheel of the Year.
Family recipes link us directly to our ancestors.
Family recipes often harken back to original techniques and ingredients that our ancestors employed. They are another aspect of verbal and written storytelling, another method to continue the traditions of our heritage. Although my Finnish forebearers would have cooked over a wood fire, and likely raised, harvested, and preserved the elements needed to make a kettle of split-pea soup themselves rather than picking them up at a grocery shop they way that I do, I am still continuing a family tradition by preparing my grandmother's recipe in the manner that she was taught by her grandmother, and so on down the line. This is the sustenance that has nourished, fueled, and comforted generations of my maternal grandmother's lineage, and it is a direct connection to those people's lives and stories. It is a simple and lovely manner of invoking and honoring those who have gone on before us.
Family recipes are a spiritual link of nourishment and love.
When I am preparing a dish from our family recipe book, it is the simplest thing in the world for me to look down at my hands and see my mother's or my aunt's or my grandmother's hands. When doling out piping-hot food from a kettle, I can become 5 years old again, sitting at the glass table in my Sicilian grandmother's chic bright orange 1960's kitchen, as she spoons hot fresh applesauce into a bowl before me, saying "Aspetta! Aspetta!" so that I don't scald my tongue. I can become my father or my grandfather, mixing cocktails, or carving a roast to share with family and friends... Preparing these cherished recipes has become a meditation towards connecting with my family... Those scraps of paper and recipe cards each bear the signature script of the hands which prepared the recipes that they wrote down for posterity, the same hands that comforted and instructed me as a child. Knowing that I am continuing a tradition of celebration and nourishment that evolved long before I ever arrived on this plane of existence, I can't help but feel their spiritual presence in my kitchen, cooking right along with me.