Munching Memoirs

Today, I spent some time organizing recipes. I found one written in my late husband's handwriting. It was his mother's recipe for a New Year's Day pita that is traditionally made every year. Another recipe was written in faded handwriting that I assume was my great grandmother's recipe. It was filled with things rarely used today such as lard, and fillled with instructions such as "sift flour." Of course, there were recipes of mine that I wrote before the days of computer access and then there were some that were printed from the Internet. There were some recipes that instructed, "melt in the microwave." Notable in reviewing my recipes, was how they took less time to make than former generations.

Reviewing the recipes made me aware of not only the technology that has entered our lives in a few generations, but how our diets have changed as well as the amount of time that we spend preparing our diets. These recipes are a mini memoir. They produce a visual of the kitchens and people who enjoyed their favorite meals.

It is easy to ignore daily routines such as cooking, when writing a memoir. However, it is the attention to those details of daily life that a memoir can be written with feeling as well as accuracy.