This blog post is a little bit of a love letter to recipes. Simple ones. Ones that take hours to prep for, follow and make. The ones that have been passed down generation to generation. The very special ones that you only share within a family or the very best of close friends. Ones from the high school recipe book your class made as a fundraiser (yep, we did that in Kaslo! <3).
In this post, we play with the question, “What’s so special about a recipe?”
Recipe connection: Summer book read
I should be transparent about the inspiration for this post. I was in a bookstore on the weekend and came across Japanese writer Hisashi Kashiawi’s book “The Restaurant of Lost Recipes”, which is about a father-daughter duo who own and run the Kamogawa Diner. They are “food detectives”, offering a service that revives lost recipes and rekindles forgotten memories for the patrons that come to their restaurant.
I picked up a copy that I’ll read this summer. Not having read it yet, I can’t speak to how good it is, but I love the idea of it. I love this nod to how powerful, moving and important the meals of these lost recipes are for the people who go to in the restaurant.
I know from experience that the right recipe can summon a childhood in a grandparent’s kitchen. A beloved meal at a parent’s table. A lost crush from university days long ago. A diferent period of time in a life. Connection to culture, tradition, place and meaning. A recipe can summon a key life event (for me – the amazing vanilla and raspberry buttercream cake from our wedding). So many things!
Recipes don’t need to be complicated
Sometimes the best recipes are very simple ones. Being a new-ish parent, I’ve been discovering some new recipes that are super simple, like figuring out how to make the best banana pancakes. In that sense, a new recipe can be both a way to make a new part of identify (being a new mom), and meeting a practical need. (Getting together a quick, nutritious snack together – for myself and a hungry toddler!).
Or, a recipe can be finding the quickest way to get a fresh, hot meal on the table that has some great leftovers, like the Butternut Squash Linguini from our Kaslo Sourdough recipe collection, which is truly comfort in a bowl.
And some recipes will be old, family ones that come hand-printed on an oil-stained, time discoloured recipe card that can tell a few stories on its own!
Make recipes special: The perfect gift
You, too, can hand write a recipe and share it with a friend of yours for their birthday. Or some other more every-day occasion that feels right to you. Sharing or gifting a recipe is part of what makes it special.
Come across one that you think your mom or brother would like? Hit that “share” button on your phone and message it. Even to a friend who’s not in the same town or city as you any more. It can be a simple way to say “I’m thinking of you. You’d enjoy this. Wish we could make and eat this together.” Or just “I am drooling over this right now.”
There are so many ways that a recipe can be special or become special. Good food will always bring good people together. And sharing a recipe might just be the key to doing that today.
What’s your favourite memory that involves a special recipe? What’s special about the recipe?
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