Writing Down Recipes To Make More Memories

Sweet crumbly biscuits served at my 'Soul Food' table

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“We’re losing recipes!”

A playful quip about how as time goes on, young Black folks are becoming less concerned with passing down the nostalgic elements of their childhood. It can be said about anything—music choices, the way people date, how people host guests—but around the holidays (and related to food) is when you see it most.

Black folks posting Tiktoks of them in their kitchens using “shortcuts” or switching up ingredients in recipes that feel like they were passed between all of our households. Using air fryers and Kitchenaids to cut the cooking time in half or replacing time-honored ingredients with those that are cleaner or healthier.

I love when I see it said for something that is absolutely chaotic (like the new generation doesn’t need to suffer from pressing comb ear burns anymore), but in the midst of the joking it kind of made me think about tradition.

A few weeks ago, I cooked on a Sunday Morning—well, I baked. I made my grandma’s biscuits. A recipe she cobbled together from her memories and recipes she tore out of magazines in the 60s.

Adding the recipe to my own recipe book

I got the recipe out of her cookbook that I’d been asking my mom to give me. A few cookbooks are floating around the family that I’ll likely never see, I’m guessing this one that I remembered is the one my mom got after things were split between her 7 other siblings after my grandmother died.

I wasn’t particularly close with her but the thoughts of matriarchs, cooking, and tradition reminded me of the 1997 film Soul Food. It takes place in Chicago and is the story of a large family that will ultimately unravel after the death of their Big Mama (Irma P. Hall). Every week they have Sunday dinner, she cooks a full spread and the entire family comes over to eat, kiki, and honestly judge each other and the grandson Ahmad (Brandon Hammond) watches it all.