When my grandmother moved out of her house, I became the heir to a great many things, including a hardwood table, six chairs, a stand mixer, and a recipe box.
I was quite excited about the recipe box. As a fan of both cooking and family heirlooms, I looked forward to trying out some classic family recipes. And so it was with great disappointment that I looked through the box and found not much that I wanted to try at all. No, O gawkers, it was not full of nightmarish tuna Jell-O molds or anything like that, but it contained the same simple casseroles and make-ahead dishes that you’d expect from any busy mid-century adult, most clipped from boxes and soup labels.
What had I expected? My grandmother was a working mother with three young children. Of course she made cream of mushroom soup casserole; she had neither the time nor the money to whip up a homemade masterpiece from scratch. And anyway, when it came to desserts, she wasn’t the main baker in the family. My grandfather was.
Before he lost his vision, my grandfather served in Korea. He didn’t tell many stories about that part of his life. He could have described what happened, but we could never understand the actual experience. But what we did know was that he baked. He mastered the art of making donuts and cinnamon rolls in an oil-drum stove.
But when he died, he left behind no recipes at all. He didn’t use them. He threw together whatever felt right, and somehow it all worked out.
My mother is a recipe user. She follows every instruction to the letter and balks if anyone suggests diverging. My sister is like her. I am like my grandfather. I throw things together in whatever way feels right.
Someday some hopeful relative may come looking for my recipe box, remembering how much I liked to cook. They’ll surely be disappointed by the few scattered pages of notes I bothered to jot down. They may know what I used to bake. But I can’t pass on the experience.