What is the one item, save except possibly gossip, that weaves its way around the world, near freely and instinctively, as a moniker of culture, creativity, love of food, celebration of local ingredients, growing seasons, experimentation, imagination, satiation, survival, sustenance and, above all, generosity of spirit? It’s the recipe.
I got to thinking yesterday as the flow of recipes bubbles up into a seasonal crescendo in anticipation of the unique and powerfully traditional Thanksgiving celebration in America, about how people have a natural instinct to share their recipes with others, just how powerful this sharing instinct is and has been down through the ages, as if it was and is a statement unto itself of the ubiquitousness of human power and generosity.
My thoughts were triggered by a Facebook post – yes, one favorable use of Facebook – from my niece’s Mother-in-law, and referencing “the feast” to come. It was an offering to the planned gathering, and it reflected the sincerity and thoughtfulness of the fitting in to their table. It just struck me as the very essence of not only what this particular holiday is to us here in America, and is peculiarly strong in the northeastern region of the U.S. where the tradition was spawned in perhaps its enduring American iteration, but it just stood out to me as the very essence of sharing that we as a species do and continue, almost in an unfettered, unselfish way. Take it all the way back to the early cave drawing days of man, enduring in so many regions of the world to this day. How profoundly telling.
What could be more natural than sharing and nurturing through food? I think of the momma bird dedicatingly and instinctively flying back and forth from the nest and patiently yet determinedly feeding her young as she prepares them to fly the nest.
It is so very telling to me that many cooks and bakers experiment daily in their kitchens, not just to keep their loved ones fed and nourished, but beyond that, as a gesture of the instinct to imagine, to create and perfect, to continue in the countless iterations, to work on a recipe until its variations are explored, its textures, flavors, aromas and physicality are worked on in pursuit of a new and valued item for presentation to the table. This constant endeavor is repeated over and over and over again and has passed down since the beginning of upright man, the foraging and presenting, the “cooking” endeavor in man’s history on this earth. Just when did early man first consider the presentation of food, its visual component? Just when did “styling” become a part of the consideration of the preparation and feeding process? Was it a handful of seeds nestled on a leave?
One major contribution to globalization we have all benefitted from is the further and fuller sharing of world wide food culture. For the most part, it is a celebration of all corners of the world’s eating traditions. We have learned so much. But also, it has highlighted the scarcity, the starvation, the pestilence, the poisoning, the famine, the neediness of humans all over the planet. And, from all corners, the world reaches out to help others, to teach others, to introduce clean water and planting and harvesting help through the sharing of local-adjusted working plans, technologies and practices.
And so, we embrace this gesture of humanity, to share how we prepare our food, mostly unwittingly, freely and willingly.
As we work up to the American holiday of Thanksgiving this year, 2019, amid all the turmoil, the posturing and reckoning, the soul-searching for values and scrapping over consideration of right and wrong, and of our particular nation’s state of being in this moment of this global world, my hope is that we can let us look to, appreciate and celebrate the sacred tradition of sharing, that spawned a holiday and tradition so enduring, here in our particular corner of the world – that it could be in fact, a gesture of survival, perhaps as intended, on so many other levels of the human experience.
Surely, I have been the beneficiary of the great gesture of sharing of recipes for years and years. My Mom gifted me with her very best recipes and they continue to be my treasures to this very day. She began my passion for cookbooks by selecting, inscribing and giving me books that she’d thought I’d love. They too, are among my treasured possessions.
So share a recipe today, with a loved one, with someone else, with someone who might want to experiment and experience your own particular sensibility. Or, just as a gift from your heart.
You can find this recipe here: