Tag Archives: family recipe

On Family Recipes and Giving Thanks

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you all so much for your responses both here and on the Facebook Page to the previous blog post On Finding Home And Honouring Yourself, I’m so grateful, thank you.

I just wanted to add as a P.S. that there were some fascinating themes that came from it – whereas some find Home externally in a place, or with other people, some people find Home within, particularly people who are more nomadic and travel a lot, rarely settling in a place for more than a couple of months.  It also seems that a lot of people who move abroad tend to keep a piece of their childhood Homelands with them too, and appreciate it when they go back for a holiday, even if it’s not to move back. Continue reading

Family Recipes Are Awesome – Let’s Bring Them Back

I love family recipes.  They are different from national/regional and traditional recipes because they are unique to each family.

Normally this might make you think of a stereotypical Italian family where everyone says, “Ah, but I miss the way my Mama used to make this dish”, and it is passed down from generation to generation; but I have brushed with this myself when I tried to make Kartofelgulasch (Austrian potato goulash) for my partner.  He’s Austrian (surprise!) and Austrians have a very strong (and tasty) culinary identity and history.

It’s become something of an obsession of mine to try and recreate my partner’s family dishes – not just to surprise him, but also out of curiosity, and we get to eat the whole lot regardless (yum!).  I tried to make it as per the traditional recipe – lots of onions, equal amounts of potatoes, the whole pot of paprika, dry-cured sausages, beef stock and goulash spices – but when I presented it eagerly and expectantly to my partner, he said:

“This is tasty, but this isn’t Kartofelgulasch from my childhood”.

And I was utterly stumped.  I checked the recipe again and used a different sausage, convinced that maybe this would be the cause.

But no.

Continue reading

Enter your email below and get Letters From The Kitchen Table - learnings, love and wholesomeness on and off your plate

* indicates required