• About Me

…C'est toujours la même histoire…

…C'est toujours la même histoire…

Category Archives: Essays

Cooking as a Personal Narrative.

23 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by nomdeplume_83 in Cooking, Creative Writing, Essays

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cooking

232323232%7Ffp53379)nu=467;)957)237)WSNRCG=33848;44 5328nu0mrj

Mema and Aunt Sandra

 Non-cooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

– Julia Child

As I slowly blend the roux for my grandmother’s chicken gumbo recipe, I’m transported to another place and time. One of my earliest memories is sitting at Mema’s kitchen table in East Texas, as she slaved away at the hot stove, baking homemade bread or macaroni and cheese (very often at my request). I’m four years old wearing Mema’s tattered red nightgown. I’m wolfing down snap peas from my grandpa’s garden, absorbing the sights and sounds of her kitchen: The scent of her buttery homemade bread. The flavors of her saccharine sweet tea and chicory coffee. The texture of her velvety chocolate-brown roux. Pecan pie, boudin blanc, crawfish étouffée, hominy grits, red beans and rice. These dishes form the distinct fabric of our family’s history.

My grandmother, Isavern Marie Lejeune, cooked tirelessly for our clan on a consistent basis. As our family’s matriarch, she felt it was her duty to nourish each and every one of us. All of our gatherings revolved around food, much as they do today. I never truly appreciated the value of her exquisite Cajun meals until I was an adult, and by that time, she was gone. I pay homage to her now by introducing her dishes to friends and acquaintances. I regard her recipes as living, breathing entities. By keeping these dishes alive in our family, I honor what she meant to me.

Replicating these dishes for my loved ones is an incredibly personal and intimate act. As I recreate these meals for my loved ones, I’m painting a portrait of my Mema’s tenacity, my Uncle Joe’s oddball sense of humor, my Aunt Sandra’s benevolence, my father’s ingenuity, my mother’s fortitude. I cook to forge a connection with my grandmother, as well as those who came before her. Mema stored these recipes safely in the back of mind; never once were they written down until my very practical mother and I decided to record them for future generations. Mema’s mother Malina “Minnie” Crochet taught her to cook these dishes, as Minnie’s mother Marcilia taught her. Mema had no use for measuring cups; she eyeballed all of her ingredients, and her dishes never suffered for it. The tastes and textures of her meals were ethereal, out of this world. I’ll never know when or how my family’s recipes originated, but I like to believe it was many generations ago, possibly somewhere in Novia Scotia or Southern Louisiana. I’m still in the process of mastering these recipes, but I plan to carry them on as long as I live and breathe, to my future progeny, my family, my friends, and my loved ones, old and new.

I cook not merely for sensual pleasure (although that’s certainly a part of it), but to nourish the soul as well as the senses. I cook to keep tradition alive. I cook well because a life without fine cuisine is akin to a life devoid of color and meaning. I cook well because I can.

 Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

– Harriet van Horne

Advertisements

Art Books Cooking Creative Writing Essays Fashion Music Quotes Recipes
April 2018
M T W T F S S
« Aug    
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  

art boeuf bourguignon books cooking creative writing David Foster Wallace Diane Arbus Doris Day Edith Piaf editing fashion John Hawkes Julia Child Kathleen Hanna Le Tigre literature Marianne Faithfull Martha Wainwright neurology Oliver Sacks Paul Westerberg photography proofreading quotes recipes Regina Spektor Shel Silverstein Susan Orlean Sylvia Plath The Replacements Vogue

Categories

  • Art
  • Books
  • Cooking
  • Creative Writing
  • Essays
  • Fashion
  • Music
  • Quotes
  • Recipes

Blogroll

  • Advanced Style
  • Anthony Bourdain Tumblr
  • Austinist
  • Awesome People Hanging Out Together
  • Basket of Kisses
  • BITCH Magazine
  • BUST
  • Electric Literature
  • English Russia
  • Etiquette Hell
  • Feministe
  • Feministing
  • Femonade
  • Flavorwire
  • Fuck Yeah, Awesome '90s Stuff
  • Fuck Yeah, Jewish Men
  • Goodreads
  • Grammar Girl
  • I Love Charts
  • Ill Doctrine
  • Lifehacker
  • Listography
  • Listverse
  • McSweeney's
  • My Mom, The Style Icon
  • NPR
  • Passive Aggressive Notes
  • PostSecret
  • Psychologies Magazine
  • Psychology Today
  • Radiolab
  • Rock Star Scars
  • Salon.com
  • Shakesville
  • The Atlantic
  • The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
  • The Guardian
  • The Howling Fantods
  • The New Yorker
  • The Paris Review
  • This Is Not Porn
  • Tiger Beatdown
  • To-Do List
  • Tom and Lorenzo

@nomdeplume_83

  • RT @sgrstk: Your energy is more valuable than your time; something that only takes minutes, can drain you for hours or days. And, well, som… 10 hours ago
  • RT @vulture: Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody talk their first kiss, making each other sob in public, and fighting about communism https://… 1 day ago
  • 🧡🧡🧡 twitter.com/PatinkinMandy/… 1 day ago
  • RT @GQMagazine: With his first solo album in 14 years, the Talking Heads legend @DBtodomundo is attempting his trickiest act of subversion… 1 day ago
  • RT @icetsvu: Toxicology found traces of Mighty Dog and botox. It's called Sugary Smoothie. It's a drug Cocktail from Silverlake. https://t.… 1 day ago
Follow @nomdeplume_83

Goodreads

Advertisements

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel