Growing up as I did in the 1970’s, home cooking was the norm; eating out was the anomaly. Unless you counted Friday nights at McDonald’s, or breakfast at the pancake house after First Holy Communion, meals were served at our rectangular Formica kitchen table. Accompanied by wooden chairs that we dragged across linoleum floors, it was my family’s gathering place.
In our home, Mom was the recipe-follower. She taught me to cook and bake by adhering to precise measurements. If the recipe called for a teaspoon of cinnamon, she used a teaspoon of cinnamon. The only variant she allowed herself was to add a dash of nutmeg to her crumb cakes and pumpkin pies. She is nearly 85 years old, and still does not deviate from this method. There is no need to try something new and ruin an entire batch of cookies with all that butter in there, when you could just follow directions.
Her recipes are written down, some on scraps of paper stuffed into backs of old cookbooks, others on index cards, still more in a green, flowered three-ring binder. A smaller notebook is only for Christmas cookies. Some she’s transferred to her computer, making it easier to share with friends. Many of these same recipes are on index cards in my wooden recipe box, written in my young hand, or in my mother’s original script: bracciole; corned beef and cabbage; date nut bread; deviled eggs; goulash; Irish soda bread; Italian meatballs; lasagna; pasta e fagioli; sausage & peppers. When I married, my husband and I sat down to meals suitable for six; all of my recipes were for my family of origin—Mom, Dad, my two brothers, one sister, and me.
Dad had his own method of cooking. He opened the refrigerator and created something out of whatever he saw in glass containers or Tupperware bowls. Leftovers were never just leftovers. Instead of simply using up the old, he created the new. A random carrot, a stalk of celery, a hunk of ginger, a piece of meat along with an onion, spices, and soy sauce became essential ingredients for fried rice. Consequently, asking him for a recipe was an exercise in futility. If I wanted to know, I had to watch. If I asked him how long to cook something, he’d respond, “Until it’s done.”
Mom’s mom didn’t write down recipes either. Instead, Mom observed and asked questions. Then she wrote. The one recipe she never did obtain, however, was for my grandmother’s apple cake with warm lemon sauce. Grandma made it in a yellow enamel 8 x 8-inch square pan. It was a small cake, narrow in depth, not necessarily dense, a little light. Grandma would peel an apple picked on a trip to upstate New York. Her favorite was Macintosh, but she used any apple she had. She’d stand over the cake with the apple and slice it right there with a fruit knife, placing the slices on top of the cake and pushing them down into the batter just a little. When it was still warm from the oven, she sliced the cake and placed a piece on each of four plates: one for Mom, Uncle Bobby, Grandma, and Grandpa Sparky. Each person poured hot lemon sauce—as much as they wanted—on top. There were never leftovers. Everyone loved that apple cake. “Even my father,” Mom said.
Over the years, my mother tried to duplicate this recipe. Even when my grandmother was still alive, yet no longer cooking, Mom would bake an apple cake using a recipe she found. She would bring it to my grandmother, who took one look at it and made a face. Mom would say, “Just try it.” Grandma took one bite and said, “That’s not it.”
I have two of my grandmother’s cookbooks which mom and I have scoured for that apple cake recipe. We found some which Mom has tried, but to no avail. The last time I visited Mom, she said she found a new recipe for apple cake which she is going to try. This one called for salted butter and she never uses salted butter in her baking recipes. Maybe the salt is what gives it the right flavor. She’ll try. Yet again.
I wonder if what makes a recipe special is its connection to the person who made it. Taste is memory. It is experience. It is love. It is a reminder of those who have gone before us. It is what keeps my mom trying to find an apple cake recipe like the one her mother made. The one that brought her whole family together in the kitchen until every last crumb was eaten. Maybe Mom will never be able to duplicate Grandma’s apple cake because it is not made in their kitchen on Lake Avenue in Yonkers, in that yellow pan, with apples from Upstate. Yet she’ll continue to try. And, hope.