Legacy

My grandmother recently moved into an adult family home, necessitating a downsize from her apartment. As the embroiderer and tea-lover in the family, I chose a few handmade linens and the Japanese teapot that my grandfather brought back from occupied Japan.
I also chose her recipe box.


It is everything that a recipe box should be--well used and well worn. Cards that are grease-spotted, wrinkled, both typed and hand written. Recipes copied from magazines and cookbooks and gifts from friends. Glimpses of the church and neighbor communities within the directions for upsizing for potlucks and notes on baby showers. A lifetime of friends and family sharing food, raising families and celebrating.


An appalling number of the recipes contain some variety of flavored gelatin. Some of them are clearly dated with their emphasis on canned or prepackaged ingredients and references to an obscure substance called spry (a brand of shortening that was sold in the 1930's to 1950's). A number of them reflect her Scandinavian background with names like Fattimunda, others simply reflect the times (Lemon Fluff, anyone?).


Her Danish Brown Sugar cookies have been a fixture in my holiday baking ever since I was able to make sense of a recipe that called for the ingredients in pounds. This year I may have to add Delia's zucchini bread and Minnie's (my great-grandmother) Spanish Cake.

I am well into creating my own lifetime recipe box even though I have moved the cards into a notebook for easier access. There are cards from friends and family, made-up recipes too good to let fall into oblivion and experimental recipes from online cookbooks--a truly contemporary twist on recipe-sharing. The things that I collect will change over time--from exotic treats to plain and frugal family meals to Fifty Ways to Use the Forty Pounds of Blueberries that we just picked.
I hope that I can also incorporate not only some of my grandmother's recipes into my cooking routine but also some of her love and dedication to serving those under her care.