Food

What Family Food Traditions Really Taught Me Why don’t older generations write down their recipes? Recipes are generally and primarily passed down through observation and relationships instead of through more formal documentation. Cooking is a communal process. One way to think about this is in line with the picture/no picture debate. Is it more important to live this moment or to film it? For older generations, the response to the pressures and difficulties of life was to recognize the fleeting nature of the moment and to use that recognition to live more presently in it. This sometimes resulted in things like recipes not being written down. Why are family traditions disappearing? Family traditions are disappearing because the pressures of today (e.g., distance, technology, and the failure to prioritize connection) often result in questions about prioritizations of time. Time creates distance, which makes it difficult to pass on family traditions. If traditions aren’t passed on, eventually they’ll disappear. How does family connection affect mental health and community? The family is the nucleus from which communities are built. The relationships that occur within families are the first relationships that give you an idea about how to interact with people and how to move in space and time. When those roots are missing, a person might find themselves feeling rudderless. A person might find themselves struggling to understand who they are and where they come from. When you don’t understand the root of your own experience, it becomes difficult to have empathy for someone else’s struggles. Families that can’t connect lead to nations that can’t connect. The heart of mentorship and parental relationships is love. Listen to this episode of The Ruth and Scott Podcast as we talk about this and more.  Recipes are generally and primarily passed down through observation and relationships instead of through more formal documentation. Cooking is a communal process. One way to think about this is in line with the picture/no picture debate. Is it more important to live this moment or to film it? For older generations, the response to the pressures and difficulties of life was to recognize the fleeting nature of the moment and to use that recognition to live more presently in it. This sometimes resulted in things like recipes not being written down. Family traditions are disappearing because the pressures of today (e.g., distance, technology, and the failure to prioritize connection) often result in questions about prioritizations of time. Time creates distance, which makes it difficult to pass on family traditions. If traditions aren’t passed on, eventually they’ll disappear. The family is the nucleus from which communities are built. The relationships that occur within families are the first relationships that give you an idea about how to interact with people and how to move in space and time. When those roots are missing, a person might find themselves feeling rudderless. A person might find themselves struggling to understand who they are and where they come from. When you don’t understand the root of your own experience, it becomes difficult to have empathy for someone else’s struggles. Families that can’t connect lead to nations that can’t connect. The heart of mentorship and parental relationships is love. Listen to this episode of The Ruth and Scott Podcast as we talk about this and more.  “What is that?” I asked myself as I looked down and toward the stovetop at the pot that now stood empty except for the black spot at the bottom. It took another second for me to reach toward the knob in front of me to turn off the burner. I don’t know how I did it. But somehow, on this day, the christening of my culinary journey, I had burned water. But then, my journey with food has always been a complicated one. On one side of the family, I had a grandmother who catered events and had even written a number of cookbooks. On the other side of the family, I had a grandmother who was a deaconess but who also showed her love through food. One of her first actions any time we were together was to cook for me. One of her favorite things to cook for me, at least during breakfast time, was bacon. Another thing was sausage. I remember, as a young child, the smell wafting up from the cast-iron skillet, and the warmth both from the stovetop and the feeling of knowing I was loved. That was the day I almost got kicked off of a mission trip. The reason? Challenging this advice. It was one of those situations where a student doesn’t have any knowledge of cultural competence because their learning environment doesn’t foster it. They hadn’t received that training from their learning experience. And, as far as their community (including their leadership) outside of that direct experience with teacher training, those with influence had similar backgrounds and also lacked that training. Because they didn’t have it, they didn’t recognize its importance. As a result, any challenge to that worldview was seen as a threat and a challenge. The only reaction they could think of to this perceived attack was to remove the threat to this comfort zone. Then, there was the winding path my journey with food took through my middle school and high school years. There was actually a running joke in the house at that time that any Thanksgiving without some kind of minor fire was a miracle. Before you ask? No. I didn’t start the fire. They were already burning before my own journey with cooking even got turning. But there’s definitely a difference between my burning water and the kind of cooking those closest to me know me for now (This includes my fried chicken, a recipe a friend affectionately calls fried Charlie.)—rooted in family food traditions, culture and history, a history of love that didn’t need to be written down because it was lived, and at the same time, an opportunity for me to be presently and