Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Some Thoughts on Recipes, Food & Family







It sounds simple enough: we have changed the way we eat so it is time to clean out the recipe box. 

We have been eating radically different for over a year and a half now. We don't eat grains, dairy, processed sugar & a great many other things. We made this change for health reasons and saw great improvement in the health issues we were targeting. That is reason alone to stay on track. 

But during and after the move we got off track. Nothing huge, a trip to the Mexican food restaurant here and there, a natural soda when we went shopping, a dark chocolate peanut butter cup every so often (too often) and on it went. Last week we decided to put a stop to eating those things that were not contributing to our health. I felt the need for some new recipes and headed to the library for some cookbooks to inject some new life into our food. It is already working and we feel much better. 

New recipes led me to my recipe box. It is a simple metal box I thrifted in Nova Scotia but it is filled with recipes that were given to me by my mom, some from my grandmother, some from old family friends, others gifted to me at my bridal shower some seventeen years ago, while still others are ripped out of magazines, cut out of the newspaper or written in my own hand with memories of a soup I made up on a snowy winter day. It is not steeped in ancient history but my history with a bit of friends and family sprinkled in for extra flavor. 

So as I began to clean out this box yesterday, putting aside the recipes I know I will never make again, the memories came out along with those cards and cutouts. My daughter started to help and as she read through recipes looking for those key ingredients and tossing aside those with offenders, I found myself telling her to slow down, wait, not so fast. I was not ready to let go. 

After we made it to "Z" she headed off to do other things and I was left there with a pile of recipes I would never make again; the Hot Chicken Casserole made with Stovetop Stuffing and mayonnaise, the Peanut Butter Balls held together with an amazing amount of powdered sugar then dipped in chocolate, the Raised Waffles with all of their yeasty, doughy goodness built up from time spent rising overnight. All recipes once loved, filled with memories and the kind of comfort only good food can make.

That is when it began to hit me and thoughts of my Aunt's Recipe Box came to mind. I had been given my Aunt's Recipe Box via my grandmother before she passed away. It is a sweet little box filled with family recipes that span decades, most written in the hand of my grandmother or aunt Syl, some newspaper and magazine cutouts, just like in my own box. I recently sent that amazing little treasure trove of family recipes to my cousin. She was delighted to have a little piece of her mom after missing her for so many years, I think we are coming up on almost 20 years since my aunt passed away. It all came full circle when I realized that a recipe box is a family history, a little time capsule if you will. A record of what was prepared, consumed, loved and brought the family together around the table. 

So with that I tucked those recipes I will never make again into the back of my recipe box, an archive of where we have been, what we have eaten and who loved us enough to share a little bit of their kitchen with ours. 

Do you have a recipe box?
I would love to hear about how it.



16 comments:

  1. I don't have a box, but I do have a notebook filled with index cards in protecter sheets that are written in my Granny's handwriting or else typed by my grandfather. I never use them in the kitchen, but on a cold winter's night it's fun to pull them out and just browse. I miss my Granny and this makes me feel just a wee bit closer to her.

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    1. That does sound like a lovely way to connect with her on a cold winter's night! How wonderful to have her handwriting and I am sure the type of an old typewriter used by your grandfather.
      Thanks for sharing this Tracey!

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  2. I did have a recipe box. I bought it at the craft store and painted it myself. Then D and I created a recipe template that I could copy paste and print out recipes. I don't have it anymore. But what I do have is a notebook I started almost ten years ago filled with every single recipes I know off the top of my head. I bought a beautiful blank book years ago in italy that I will one day copy all the recipes over too.

    In college I did a really cool art project where I had all the women in my life give me their favorite comfort food recipe handwritten, I made photocopies of them and transferred them via wintergreen transfer onto handmade paper and used that to make my own cookbook. I incorporated photographs of food I had done in the dark room between each recipe. It's cool. I still have it. Art school was fun! :)

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    1. That book sounds like a treasure KC. I would love to see it someday!

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  3. I don't have a recipe box, but I do have a large wicker basket where all the recipes printed from the computer, or torn from the magazine pages go. I really do need to sort through it.

    At my bridal shower all those years ago guests were asked to share their favourite recipe with me and I kept them for a long time, but like you changes in how we eat meant most of them would never be eaten again. So they are gone.

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    1. My recipes were in a basket before this little box came along.
      I am sure I will go through and weed out these again someday on my path to have less. We will see.

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  4. I don't have a recipe box but instead a recipe book that my mom made for me when I got married. She put in many of my favorite recipes of her's from when I was growing up. She even photocopied some from her box so I'd have the handwriting. One of my favorite treasures of my mom's is HER recipe box. It has cards written by my grandmother, my mom's grandmother, and my great aunt. I love looking at the cards & the handwriting. Many of the cards are spilled on & wrinkled but that makes me love them even more!

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    1. Love that you have samples of all of their writing. That makes them a treasure right there. And the spilled a wrinkled ones... proof of well loved recipes! Love!
      Thanks for sharing Jen!

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  5. Oh have I recipe boxes! I have one that was my mother's and one I found while thrifting. Now the recipes in it are ones I do not use. I've moved more to cookbooks and my ipad with recipes stored there. We have shifted our cooking habits like you and many of the old recipes are not good recipes. Loved seeing what you are doing and what a great post!!

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    1. Thanks Karen!
      How wonderful to have your mom's recipe box and I am intrigued by the recipe box found thrifting. How fun!
      I know more and more people using the computer, ipad, etc... to store recipes. An interesting shift in our culinary lives.
      Thanks for sharing.

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  6. I have a bursting recipe *drawer*! I kid you not. It gets jammed because it's stacked too high. I really must do some culling, as you have.

    I'm glad you didn't toss all of your recipes. Some recipes are worth saving, even if you know you'll never make them again. Love this: "...my recipe box, an archive of where we have been, what we have eaten and who loved us enough to share a little bit of their kitchen with ours." Yep!

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    1. Thanks Patricia!
      A recipe drawer! That sounds like it would be fun to go though... like digging for treasure ;-)

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  7. I have a box that I recently started. Before that I had a notebook that I outgrew, but still use. I remember a friend doing the same thing with her book when she was an affirmed vegetarian. I always thought she should have kept those family recipes like her mom's pot pie. Even though she didn't eat that way, it is still a family heirloom of sorts. My book contains my grandpa's lasagna even though I don't eat that way. Instead I have it to remind me of meals and memories past. Also they are great foundations for our meals. His red sauce is fantastic over zucchini noodles.

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    1. I am pulling from non-Paleo cookbooks more and more to use elements of other recipes, just like you say. How fun to have a piece of your grandpa's cooking in your kitchen! Love that!

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  8. i've tried to to recipe boxes. i am a off the cuff cooker but lately i've been thinking about how much easier it would be to replicate things if they were written down. Plus, there are some recipes i want to get from my grandma. I don't think you have to get rid of those recipes. I think you might be able to reinvent them using what you want to eat now. they might taste and look different but if the essence of the dish is there, it is enough.

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  9. We're pretty much off wheat flour (except when my husband shops, apparently) and I feel wistful at times about my old favorite bread recipe which I will probably never make again.
    My recipe box is about 20 recipes hand-scrawled and taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet door.

    You have the most beautiful photos, Dawn.

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