Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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I wasn’t looking for memories.
I was simply searching through my recipe box for my carrot cake – the one I copied more than 50 years ago when carrot cake first became fashionable. Back then, the real star was the cream cheese icing. It was, quite literally, the icing on the cake.
As I flipped through hundreds of well-worn cards, I realized something. My life could almost be traced through those recipes. I’ve always believed it is who sits around the table that matters most. But lovingly prepared food has a remarkable way of bringing those people together.
The oldest cards date back to my bridal shower in 1973. Friends arrived bearing handwritten recipes instead of bottles of wine or scented candles. Many carried titles aimed at pleasing my new husband: David’s Favourite Meatloaf or David’s Favourite Barbecue Sauce. Looking back, it seems every newly married woman was expected to learn the quickest route to her husband’s heart.
There may have been some truth to that. Three husbands later, I can confidently say that romance may fade, but a good dinner is always appreciated.
Friends, colleagues and neighbours all left something of themselves in my kitchen. Every recipe carries a face with it.
Miss Martin, my head nurse in the delivery room, brought her unforgettable raspberry pie to share during a quiet break between deliveries. Nancy’s beef stroganoff remains the finest version I’ve ever tasted. My Christmas chicken liver pâté has become a family tradition.
Google can give me thousands of recipes in seconds. It cannot give me my mom or sister’s handwriting.
When I come across their cards, I have to stop. Terry’s cheesecake, chocolate decadence, foamy plum pudding sauce. Judy’s antipasto. Their familiar script brings back laughter, family dinners and summers together. Sometimes it also brings tears.
Google also cannot replace the stained index cards spotted with butter, vanilla and flour from decades of use. Those little drips are badges of honour. They tell me these recipes weren’t simply collected, they were loved.
Food has always marked the seasons of my life. Summer means my mother’s incomparable sour cherry pie and Muskoka blueberry pie made with Ontario wild blueberries, despite their eye-watering price. Autumn brings sour cream apple pie, later transformed into my own peaches-and-cream version. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without pâté, chili sauce, damson plum jam and the recipes that have quietly become family traditions.
Over the years, my cookbook shelves expanded along with my curiosity. Indian cooking entered my life through dear friends. Hollandaise sauce became something my children refused to eat anywhere but at my table. Even my cookbooks tell stories, their margins filled with notes like, “Husband loved this one.”
My recipe cards are as much journals as they are directions.
One time I was with friends at a remote cottage. I volunteered to make eggs benedict for 13 people. “What can I do?” my chef friend asked.
“Poach the eggs,” I replied.
The cottage kitchen had no slotted spoon, so he calmly lifted each egg, drained it with a tea towel and placed it perfectly on the waiting muffins.
“You’ll burn your hands!” I protested.
His wife smiled and said, “His hands have been burned so many times, he hardly feels it any more.”
Those are the moments recipes never record, yet somehow they become part of them.
My chef friend also discreetly rescued a kitchen disaster of my husband’s making with such grace that no one at the table knew anything had gone wrong. The story still makes us laugh whenever those lamb chops are served.
Recently, I found myself wondering what will become of these recipes when I’m gone.
Will someone treasure the box? Will anyone recognize my mother’s handwriting? Will they make the banana cake with coffee icing that my son still talks about, or the rhubarb custard cake with baked meringue that converts even those who claim they have no room for dessert?
Perhaps I’ll begin choosing the very best to pass along.
If I could plan my own wake, I’d ask for my favourite recipes to be served instead of dainty sandwiches. Let people remember me over good food, shared around a table.
Because that’s what all these recipes have really been about.
Not ingredients.
Not techniques.
People.
One request remains.
When the time comes, bury me with my Cuisinart.
I bought my first one more than 50 years ago after my sister insisted I needed it. It revolutionized my cooking, from flawless pie crusts to endless family meals. It may be the most faithful kitchen companion I’ve ever owned.
If heaven has a kitchen, I intend to be well equipped.
Anne Fraser lives in Thornbury, Ont.