I’ve been copying the family recipes to give to the kids (specifically middlest in CA, who we visited recently). Trying to copy them, I mean. If all I had to do was copy them, I could have taken it to Office Max and used the photocopier.
The trouble is, I don’t really cook from recipes, exactly. They’re more like guidelines, or suggestions. In some cases they’re archaeological remnants of a recipe that used to exist somewhere, back in the days before blenders and slow cookers and in some cases even before electricity, modified and then modified again for modern use. But was the recipe ever updated? Of course not. I know how to make it — the actual text on the card is more like notes for a performance than an actual recipe.
So for each dish, I have to look at the ingredients list and see whether it even lists the ingredients I usually use, in the amounts I use. Then figure out whether I make it the way the directions say. If there aren’t directions, what do I need to add to make it make sense for somebody who hasn’t cooked much before? And how much does it make, anyway? Oh, and I suppose I’d better mention what baking dish or kettle to use. And what substitutions you can make. And how long to cook it. I mean, “until done” probably isn’t obvious to somebody who hasn’t made a cake before. And what about the family history that goes with, say, my grandfather’s recipe for chili (that I think is really Basque baked beans) that he got from the other sheepherders back when he was herding sheep in Colorado?
I got more done than I expected to, but not nearly as many as I had hoped. And Steven now has the only existing copy of that chili recipe with the directions and the story.
And I now have significantly more respect for anybody who has gone to all the work to actually put together a decent cookbook, no matter how uninspired.
Wow, you ARE adventurous. I would never think to mess around with a recipe to make it unique and my own. But you do. And that’s something your family will always have. 🙂
–Chris
Well, it’s not exactly messing around and not consciously trying to make it my own; it’s just how I learned to cook. It was mostly from working with my grandmother and my mother, learning the feel and texture of the ingredients and how they should look when there’s just the right amount, sifted properly, mixed right, cooked to done. The only time we consulted recipes was for baked goods, which are more sensitive, or for making something new. I’m not really very good at things that require precise measurement or technique :p
Heh. Somewhere around, I’ve got a bunch of old family recipes that I should probably do something with before it’s too late — send copies to my brothers and mom, too. Thanks for the inspiration (and the warning that it’ll be more work than I expect!).
Everything is always more work than one expects :p
I do this with recipes, too, even though that’s not how I learned to cook (I actually learned from recipes, and yet, somehow, I never follow them the way they’re written, even the first time). Someday, I’d like to create a cookbook, not for sale or anything, but just for me and my family. My mom did a family history cookbook for her side of the family, but the recipes are just the recipes people sent in – they aren’t recipes with stories. There are stories at the front of the book, though.
That’s a really good idea about the cookbook. I’ll have to think about something like that. I’ve been posting stuff here occasionally, but something more systematic would be easier to find, maintain, and pass on. Even gathering the family recipes the way your mother did is a good way to preserve the family culture and heritage.