Traditional Family Recipes & Their Stories
Mouths water as we smell our favourite cookies baking. The first bite into a still warm, soft chocolate chip cookie or a melt in your mouth short bread done to perfection creates a taste sensation we do not easily forget. Everyone has a favourite recipe, possibly passed down from generation to generation or maybe a newer recipe tried and family approved. Family recipes come with their own stories.
This recipe, handwritten by my grandmother, is not one I have made often but the recipe brings fond memories of watching my grandmother make a large batch, carefully making rolls of the dough which she stored in wax paper and froze. If company or family dropped in unexpectedly she was prepared in a few minutes with home-made, fresh from the oven tasty cookies. By far her favourite treat, always in the deep freeze, ready to be thawed and eaten were her butter tarts. The flaky crust fell apart on touch and the looks of the tart would not win any baking championship except for the taste. Yet it is this recipe done in her own handwriting on this folded paper which evokes strong memories of the woman I called grandma.
My mother baked delicious cakes, cookies and pies. She usually had two tins of cookies in the pantry all the time, two of the family favourites. One tin held Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and the other she filled with shortbread cookies. Rarely did anyone go to the cupboard and find the tins empty. I inherited all her hand written recipes when she passed away but I do not keep the tins full like she did. Her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies always turned out perfectly – never too crumbly, never under or over baked and always delicious.
My youngest daughter, as an older toddler, had a limited vocabulary due to a stroke she had at birth. Often we had to guess at what she wanted. One day my mother asked her if she wanted a cookie. A huge smile and a nod of Amee’s head let grandma know a cookie sounded good. My mom asked her granddaughter, “What kind of cookie do you want?”
Without any hesitation Amee replied, “Stripes.”
Her answer perplexed both of us. She kept repeating her request for stripes. My mom grabbed both tins of cookies from the shelf and opened them. Amee took a shortbread and said, “Stripes.” We burst out laughing as we studied the cookies. Mom always rolled the dough in small balls and pushed them down with a fork – making it look like the cookie had stripes running across the top.
Amee took her grandmother’s recipe and learned to make stripes. My mom’s handwritten recipe card became almost unreadable from so much use. Amee made a new recipe card with her printing on it.
Three generations of special women in my life and I have a handwritten recipe from each of them. These remind me of stories, of family tradition and give me a sample of their handwriting too.
What favourite family recipe do you have? Is it handwritten in a book, on a card or simply made so often it is committed to memory? Do you share the stories that go with the recipe?
Posted: February 9th, 2017 under Storytelling.