Where to Find Memoir Ideas? Amid Recipes
RECIPES ARE POWERFUL storytellers. Never was this point driven home to me like when I first encountered the Hart Family Round Robin Newsletter, a tradition of my mother-in-law and her seven siblings, all children of the Depression, and prolific recipe-swappers. So, when students asks me where to find memoir ideas, one of the places I always recommend is in their family recipes.
At its simplest, the power of recipes to tell a tale can be seen in a family cookbook whose pages are literally spattered with memories. But recipes also reflect a wider story, and can relate a time in an entire nation. For instance, it’s no surprise to find that cookbooks published during Prohibition eschew alcohol, and that those printed during the two world wars are stringent in how they ration delicacies.
So it is with “charity cookbooks,” or those lovely collections printed by the ladies auxiliaries. Many people I know collect these. I know I do. Published before women had the right to vote, many of these projects served to galvanize women while also slyly developing their business skills.
It’s a wonderful thought, isn’t it, that food can bind together people in a common, powerful purpose? I love it, even as I realize that these purposes can range in value from the global, such as the right to vote, to the most tender, as when sisters try to stay in touch while helping one another live within their budgets.
This was the case with my mother-in-law and her seven siblings, all preacher’s kids from the dusty Midwest, who never took a nickel for granted. These were people who would rarely call long distance, and so when they married and spread out, kept in touch with a family mailing that always included recipes.
The Hart Family Round Robin Newsletter was actually a package of letters that traveled every month from Edith Smiley Hart to each of her children, of which she had one every other year for 16 years, with her husband, the Rev. Seth Isaac (“S.I.”) Hart, before he left her for another women in the congregation. But that’s another story.
In order, those children were: Lorene, Iona, Lillian, Elizabeth, Luella, Dan, Ray and Adina. My mother-in-law was Lillian, who became a preacher’s wife and learned not only to make do, but to pass along her tips on how to do so, removing her letter each month from the packet, and slipping in a new one, recipes included, and sending it off to the next sibling in line.
In his early life, my husband witnessed this letter each month as it arrived at their home; was read to from it as a child; he ate what was made from its recipes; he laughed and cried at the news it brought, and learned to quietly watch the concern roll across his mother’s forehead when the news that was not for his ears was silently digested at the table.
When Lillian died in 1989, the circle wrote to him, and asked him in. Soon, we took delivery on a box of colored stationery, the pages printed with the logo of the heart and the robin. I remember that he held the box to his heart as he headed off to type.
My husband took his duties seriously, each month removing his letter from the thick package when it arrived and swapping a newsy typed update and swiftly mailing it off. He would read to me from the letters as he had been read to, and sometimes I’d cadge a recipe or two from the sisters before he sent it back out. Within a few years the regimented six weeks between deliveries became eight and then 10, as the news first of illness arrived in the packet, and then of deaths. The letter lived for more than 50 years, making its way around America, until recently there was little more than heartbreak in its pages. In the last two years we lost Elizabeth, then Adina and then, just recently, Luella.
Because of that letter I know that in 1964, the deep fried fish dinner at the Daisy Dell in Rapid City, South Dakota was $5.95. And, since it was the big-ticket item on the menu, my mother-in-law set out to replicate it at home for her family. Someone named Don W supplied her with the recipe, scribbled on the back of a delivery of perch fillets, in which he reveals (if only to me) the secret ingredient.
“Mix a very thick batter of pancake flour,” wrote Don, “and 7-Up. Rinse and dry the fillets, dip in batter and fry in deep fat until a medium brown color. Delicious.”
If you make it, please be sure to pass it on.
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My Mother used The Joy of Cooking, my oldest sister uses it, so when I got married I bought a copy. It just seemed like the natural progression, but whenever I think about my mother’s cookbook, I feel angry. Angry because someone crossed out the word “cooking” and replaced it with “burnt cooking.” I always blamed my Father for the dirty deed, but I am really not sure who did it. It’s sad to say that my mother hated cooking, but not because she couldn’t cook, but because my Father systematically tore her meals to shreds at our dinner table, almost every night. I guess you are right, recipes and cookbooks are powerful storytellers.
What a beautiful story, Marion! Thank you for sharing. I teach a personal history workshop called “Cooking Up Some Family History” and have found that whether your mother was a gourmet cook, or had fifteen different uses for Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup (as mine did), food elicits powerful memories and wonderful stories.
Hello, Myrna. I am only now, after reading your comment twice, ready to exhale. Wow. Now there’s a piece of memoir. Brilliant characterization, though heartbreaking. But you and your loyalty, your father’s actions, and what we are left to envision of your mother’s responses leave us gasping. Nicely done, Myrna. Come back soon and share some more. Your small comment is a gem I will take to my writing class to teach just what kind of detail we look for in memoir writing. Thank you.
Hi, Kristi. How lovely to hear from you, and how great to hear of your workshop. Would you like to send a link to it? I’m sure the blog readers would love to know more. Me, I want those Cream of Mushroom Soup recipes. Stay tuned to find out why.
I can’t cook a lick and I love this. I collect cookbooks and I read them but never cook from them..they are stories tho..or I imagine the woman I’d be if I did cook…but I do love practical housewifery cooking. Things to make with a package of pudding and four pears or a box of crackerjack and two steaks. It can be done. Love this food writing Marion!
“A Box of Cracker Jacks and Two Steaks” is either the title to one smashing book or the beginning of a hilarious romantic evening. Either way, it sounds fun, as does the title, “imagine the woman I’d be if I did cook.” Very lovely, indeed. So great of you to sound off here. Please come back soon for more.
My sister is Lillian but we always call her by her first name Bonnie, actually named Bonita. Our mother is Ione (Iona but with an “e” and pronounced by her as “Yone” and in “phone”). We never called her “ione” either but by her first name Rachel. Rachel is the daughter of Sarah whose own mother “Angela” (McPherson) became an actual angel barely three days after giving birth (her first), so Sarah, my maternal grandmother, was reared by her father George Newton Stafford.
I never met a recipe I didn’t like. Come to think of it, the only recipe that I as a child met was on the kitchen counter when I was eleven years of age and returned home from elementary school. The menu was always headed by biscuits to be made from self-rising flour (from paper twenty-five pound bag) and clabbered milk.
Mama Rachel was another woman who had children regularly every other year for sixteen years. But that year I was in seventh grade and she went back to work “second shift” (3 to 11pm) as a piece-work “looper” in men’s hosiery.
My only comfort as chief cook was the instructions on the kitchen counter in the warm handwriting of my absent mother those months before the next sister was born the following October 7, earlier than Halloween.
It was at Mama Rachel’s elbow that I learned to make biscuits, not from any recipe. Even so, my first attempt turned out like rocks, round and hard. But my father appreciated my early efforts and did not beat me this time.
Still slogging through my Vermont stories through recipes . . . on chapter 3. The story of the Round Robin enlarged my heart three times or more . . . so lovely. Thank you, dear Marion. Much love to you and your beautiful family.
Hi Bob. That you never met a recipe you didn’t like is such a lovely line that I might be able to set it to music. though do tell us more about clabbered milk. I’m fascinated. And then, of course, there’s that last line, where you leave us hanging. Hmmmm.
Hi, Anne. So glad to hear that your book progresses. We are waiting by the bookshop door, you know. And it’s winter — at least where I am. So write on, sister.
Chicken schmaltz. All you need to know.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Gorgeous. Thank you.
When I got married over 50 years ago at age 18, no one, in my family or elsewhere, gave me one shred of advice about birth control or anything else useful concerning married life. That is, except about cooking. My older sister’s contribution was 3 typed recipes that she had gotten from our mother.
I became a good cook, and the recipes are stained from years of use. I’m not much of a brisket or chopped liver eater anymore, but I still make the chicken soup. I got pregnant immediately. My cooking skills were often validated —“this is the best you’ve ever made”—but the rest of the marriage was a failure.
Hello, Dorothy:
Your opening sentences are marvelous. What a fine piece of writing; the timing is superb, especially, “That is, about cooking.” Love that. I also adore that your recipes are stained with use, and all of us whose recipes are similarly colored can relate.
Keep those comments coming, Dorothy.
Thank you for your comment, Marion, it is much appreciated. I am a painter; you and I met at a “ladies’ luncheon” at Annie’s house. I have also devoted some creative efforts to writing, and I have been thinking of taking a class with you, to learn how to become a better “word painter”.
My life, like all of ours, has been full of stories. People have often commented that I should write “seriously.” Would you recommend the “Memoirama” as a good option?
Hello, Dorothy. Welcome to my blog. I am delighted to see you here, and remember our meeting well. Yes, your life is full of stories. I have no doubt of that, and I believe that everyone should write with intent, and not merely practice writing. I think it’s one of the many things that differentiates me as a teacher. I never assign useless exercises or give prompts, so come along and let’s work together. Yes, Memoirama is a good choice, if you only have one night. The next one is November 10, at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. There are also longer classes (6 or 8 weeks) beginning again soon. I’ll be delighted to see you there. In the interim, of course, there is my new book, which should get you going. Hoping to see you soon.
I now have your book, Marion, I can start there.
Thanks!
Dorothy
Marion – What a lovely story. Pancake flour and 7-up – could it be the mid-west prohibition era solution for beer batter? My mother was an only child, my dad had one sister and our two families weren’t particularly close in both distance and temperament … I always envied my friends who had scads of aunts, uncles and cousins. Many thanks.
I share the tales told round our family table and recipes on my blog. My mom was not a cook – her favorite ingredient was a can of Campbell’s. She didn’t add it to everything but just about. However, she love, love, loved family dinner time. It was an hour, often more, to share our day, rant and rave about politics and who knows what else.
Take care,
Susan
Hi, Susan.
I, too, envied everyone who had family — the bigger and louder the better it seemed for quite some time. My sister and I had no aunts or uncles; both of our parents were single children. My husband’s family amazes me still, 23 years into this marriage. Thanks for the link to your blog. I know we’d all love to read it. Write on, sister.
Bob, I agree with Marion, the last line left me hanging too!
I have returned to this blog every day since it was first posted and have re-read every line. The first day I read Marion’s post, I responded with the first feeling that washed over me. As a result of my writing, I have been overcome with emotion and grief over the would if’s of my childhood. I can’t stop thinking about food and how I react to all aspects of food, from the grocery list to the dish detail after the meal. I have yet to put my finger on my feelings, but suffice it to say they are charged with an agitation, that seems to go deep into my soul.
Myrna’s testifying above moves me, as did her first comment. And Marion, your willingness to engage with your audience so thoughtfully, as a non-condescending writing teacher and witness to the value of another’s life story, inspires me also. In fact, I am going right now to draft a new chapter called “My Sweet/Sour Childhood.” I am intrigued by these two basic tastes and both their culinary and metaphorical dimensions. Just after I tweet out these food memoir blog posts of yours!
Shirley, that is the best title! Bittersweet, except the bitter encompasses a large percentage of the mix.
I agree the opening line sets the tone for the piece and intrigued me to keep reading. My mom didn’t use a cook book that often, but love to pull recipes from magazines and newspapers. Being a compulsive type (no pun — but also a superb typist from her days as an executive secretary), she decided in 1969 to type up all those recipes she’s saved, organizing them like a cookbook, encased each in a plastic cover, and inserted into a three-ring binder. Even included a table of contents! I use it to this day — remembering her Thanksgiving turkey and red cabbage with raisins especially at this time of year. “It was a lot of work” she had to tell us. I was in college then — and only in later years appreciated the really vast undertaking it was. Love and memories, literally bound together with cooking. Thanks for this evocative post.
Clicked the link to your post because I was missing the Daisy Dell, which closed down a pretty good number of years ago, not to mention that I live across the country from Rapid City now. I thought I would Google to see if anyone knew the recipe for their amazing turkey-fried steak. Never had anything like it anywhere else. I wonder if it was made with the same batter you described. Good chance from the flavor that I remember. I think I’ll give it a try with some left over T-bird.
Thanks for the post.
Katie and Marion….I too did a web search for Daisy Dell….I grew up in the same neighborhood this fine establishment existed! It was such a special treat to pile into the wood-grain paneled station wagon and drive to the Daisey Dell. The food was so tasty – and if the restaurant was full, there was car-hop service! To this day I can see the red and white patterned paper food tray the food was delivered in! The fried turkey breast with a tempura like batter was so very good and I’m confident it’s the same recipe used for the fish! I am so excited to try it out.
Thanks for the memories!
Susan
My Mother still makes the Daisy Dell fried Turkey. Its probably the same batter as their fish. It is the best!