Recipes were meant to be shared

Many times I have heard people say they loved a recipe nana used to make, but alas, she took it to the grave and it ain’t comin’ back.

Surely those days are gone?

I think we need to embrace family recipes, no fuck it, all recipes, and pass them on for future generations to enjoy… let them become part of your family’s, or who knows, the culinary worlds, history.

Many of the great dishes we eat today were village family style recipes. Recipes for luscious (yeah, that word again) liver pates that came from butchers who kept the cheapest cuts of meat for themselves. From farmers who had an abundance of their crop, and no means of refrigeration came the jams, pickles, salted and preserved meats we enjoy today. Dishes like ribollita and panzanella that were created to use yesterdays bread. Pastas that have gone from the poor mans table to that of top restaurants around the world. Salted fish from the abundance of cod in the north sea. Jungle curries made with whatever you could gather from ontop an elephant. Fish head soups and stews because someone got smart and realised the tastiest meat on the fish is in the head… argh. Stop me now. The list goes on and on.

But that was from a time that recipes were passed down from grandparent or parent to child. What happened?

Maybe we just got too busy. Caught up in the hustle and bustle of our work a day, nine to five, fast and ever so efficient little lives. Maybe fast food became the obvious choice to go with our fast cars and even faster women and cheetahs (because they’re quite fast too).

Or maybe we just don’t have the time to hang out with our parents and grand parents anymore, thus making it damn near impossible to learn their recipes. Maybe they should just email, or tweet them, or send them to you on facebook or some other social media I don’t really understand. Yeah. That would be heaps easier… you could get them to do all of the work for you. Well if my children turn out like that I’m gonna be disappointed I gotta be honest. The integral part of many family recipes is the gathering, the action, the touch, the feel… and that’s not just in the states practicing inbreeding programs in this country (and you know who you are). But that is what makes it all the more “family”.

I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t be shy of sharing a recipe, or if someone offers to share one with you grasp that opportunity with two hands… and one foot (your other foot is needed for stability while you hop around grasping the opportunity). Be honoured and humbled (if you can do that in the same sentence). Free the love, free the wealth and free Nelson Mandela!!! What. He is free… a few years back… not exactly mister current affairs, am I.

And the positive thought for today – I believe that everybody has at least one great recipe in them… truly.

And the negative thought for today comes from the movie Fight Club. ‘You are not a beautiful and unique snow flake. You are nothing but decaying organic matter’ or something like that. You get the picture.