I tuned into one of the cooking channels part way through an episode of Trisha’s Southern Kitchen. Trisha and her sister were recording an episode entitled Shoebox Memories, recreating recipes from home. As I had changed channels and missed the beginning I also missed the lead-up to the history of the recipes. They were working on Sunday Chicken Special or Heavenly Chicken or something equally scrumptious.
One sister was measuring; one was assembling and stirring ingredients. The backstory seemed to be that meal preparation had always been a family event. The precious recipes were stored in a shoebox and the sisters were going through the hoarded treasures one at a time, trying to replicate the taste, the atmosphere of home.
Trisha held up the recipe in use saying it must have been a favourite. The page had been folded carefully to fit in the box. It was liberally dolloped with spots. She said it was likely mayonnaise, one of her mother’s go- to ingredients.
What intrigued me was the “shoebox” visual. Memories and mementoes in our house were stored everywhere, shoeboxes included. Mom kept most of her recipes in a small box made for the index cards she used. She did have some cut from newspaper folded to fit or pasted to another card. She also made great use of the Mennonite cookbook.
Spots did tend to land on the cards and the open pages of the cookbook. Mine had splats in the section devoted to creating cookies. The Chocolate Chip Toll House cookies apparently made quite an impression at my house. The Banana Cupcake recipe likewise was heavily embellished.
When my guys were young they liked to lick the mixing spoon and the beaters from the mixer. It kept them distracted and content while I poured the mixture into the pan or muffin tins. The large bowl was wiped clean with tiny fingers.
Nick enjoyed puttering in the kitchen with me. He was thrilled to help measure, dumping the dry ingredients into the bowl and stirring carefully. I have some snapshots of him as a small child, wrapped in an oversized tea towel to protect his clothing. It did nothing for his sticky face though. One small boy standing on a chair to reach the counter: how much trouble could that be? That is another story.
Shoebox memories: that encompasses a lot. I keep letters and cards in boxes and I reread each one time and again. I wish I had begun that habit earlier. I used to receive many letters and kept them only until I had sent a response. I would have had enough to fill a small closet. What treasures are now lost?
I did find a letter to mom from her grandmother Lucinda Good. I have one from my grandmother Vera. Grandma was a faithful correspondent. She didn’t have a lot of schooling but she had heart. Her sentences had few capitals and little punctuation. Reading her narratives in her small cramped handwriting was an adventure. My husband needed me to translate.
Grandma had a mission, to do the best she could with what she had. That oozed out everywhere. Her letters, over the phone, in my frequent visits; all told the story of her love. The memories of my many blessings would overflow a multitude of shoeboxes. I need a large attic to store them.
Mom kept almost everything. She had precious cards, some with a photo inside. These were tucked safely inside in a small card box, which was placed inside another larger box with more of similar size. The entire collection sat inside a dresser drawer, on a shelf or under the bed.
On occasion when I stopped to visit I found that all the collected items were unpacked and spread out uniformly. She needed to revisit the memories. She was too tired and overwhelmed to put them all away.
Later when we were going through things when they had to move, we found containers labelled carefully as to contents but nothing inside, or some photo that was foreign to us. We had a horde of old negatives that we could not identify. We also had an envelope of studio poses of total strangers; fine looking folks who had no provenance as far as we were concerned.
When Carol and I browse in antique shops, we find similar photos of lost relatives from other families. Carol says “oh, there is Aunt Matilda.” We had developed the habit of naming our unknown relatives to give them some connection. By their attire we reasoned they likely belonged to the generation of our great- or great-great-grandparents. Lost to us but loved enough by someone to have kept the photograph for so long.
- Joyce Hoey is a longtime Gazette columnist
