Food History

I was going to start answering questions today and there is indeed one question to answer. I hope you don’t mind, Alison, if I leave it until Friday. Tomorrow I have a class to blog about and today, well, today I have a charming distraction.

Once upon a time I kept a journal of recipes from friends. I started in 1977, and from 1983 until 1988 I traveled a fair amount. The recipes are the core of my first understanding of cuisines other than my own. I didn’t just travel, I lived with other people who loved cooking and we shared our cuisines. I realized that I didn’t know all my mother’s best recipes, so I wrote them down in the book. From January 2 until July 30 (it goes backwards – in the front section are nursery rhymes and other cool things) I have recipes from all the most interesting cultures and from many fascinating people.

I thought I had lost this book. Today it reappeared, magically, in a part of the flat I had already searched three times. Tonight, therefore, is for reacquainting myself with the basics of home-cooked Japanese food from near Yokohama; for wondering if I should make those Welsh recipes again; for dreaming of Canadian snack food; for yearning after Indonesian chicken.

It also means I can check my assumptions when I do my food history. I didn’t just write down the recipes because I loved them at the time (though this is certainly true) but because memory changes things, and I wanted to be certain of my understanding. Just as my students discovered that modern apples are sweeter and that their palates had memories of more savoury fruit, I can rediscover where my palate has come from and more easily allow for my own biases.

What I’m doing tonight, though, is flicking through the book and remembering the friends who wrote their best recipes down for me. This old diary may be work-related, but there is a great deal of remembered joy hidden between its battered covers.

PS If enough people are interested, I can give some of the non-secret recipes from my notebook. I can explain why the secret recipes are secret, but I can never give them away.