Connect with your own history through family recipes

It’s raining outside and the fireplace is illuminating the living room. I am on the rust-colored couch, the one next to a wall of windows, wool socks on my feet and I’m staring up at the rain. The woods behind my house are absent of leaves, and the pouring rain has created a green haze throughout the mountains. I am sick, or tired after ballet or my world is crashing down. I hear my mother’s footsteps causing the wooden floors to creak as she brings me a bowl of steaming chicken and dumplings. She hands it to me the way my grandmother handed it to her. The creamy, pepper-filled broth burns my tongue in the most satisfying way. The dumplings are lumpy and perfect, rolled by our hands yesterday in preparation for yet another rainy day.

It’s sunny and miserably hot outside, and my new apartment is filled with the sounds of traffic. I am lying on my bed next to my one window, and the world outside will not stop moving all night. I am alone, and I think back to the steaming bowl of chicken and dumplings. I crave the broth warming my throat, and I wish I had written down the recipe all those times my mother and I made it on rainy days.

I don’t experience a lot of rainy days in Atlanta, but I do experience homesick days. Thus began my journey of copying down every single family recipe from my mother’s folder of hand-scribbled comfort foods. This quest originated from a simple feeling of homesickness, as well as a midnight cravings, and transformed into an exploration of my family’s history.

I sat with my mother over the winter break and wrote down recipes, transcribing her handwriting into my own from one page to another. I asked where each recipe came from, who originally made it, what she remembers about eating it as a kid, and soon I was digging deeper. From my great grandmother’s biscuits to a traditional Thanksgiving casserole that has been altered multiple times over generations, the food revealed the development of our family. The chicken dumplings I once viewed as a tradition between my mom and myself was put into context as a mother-daughter tradition spanning decades.

I returned to Atlanta with my recipe box full of history and felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that something had led me to writing them down. There was a newfound feeling of security that I never knew I needed. My family’s recipes were now in two places and hopefully safe from being destroyed if they were lost in one or the other. The traditions had a lesser chance of being forgotten, and somehow that meant even the family members I never met had more of a chance to be remembered.

I have attempted a few of the recipes and each one is its own challenge. I have coated the kitchen in flour, over-boiled rice until it stuck to the pan like concrete and re-read the recipes countless times. Cooking a full dinner while in college classes is daunting, and it’s often difficult to muster the courage after a full day of writing and visual demos. Yet, in the end, I sit down with my bowl of chicken and dumplings and feel as if I’m on the rust colored-couch watching the rain. My family remains far away but our history sits on the shelf in a box marked “recipes.”