No Recipe Exists
My mother and I have spent years trying to recreate my great-grandmother’s recipes for Chicken and Dumplings. The problem is that my great grandma never used a recipe and when questioned on her techniques, she would say cryptic things like use two fo the blue scoops full of flour. She was a country cook from the coal mine fields of southern West Virginia. She was a cook to end all debates – hands down one of the best cooks I have ever met. But, most of her techniques have been lost to time.
I have also spent untold hours trying to recreate my former mother in law’s chicken curry. She learned from her mother in law, back in India. The order and quality of spices is important, as are how you still and the heat of your pan. It’s something I was never able to prefect, even after taking meticulous notes. My daughter and I had dinner with my ex mother in law the other night and it was like a slice of Heaven to sit down to some of her curry – that curry I cannot seem to replicate.
Some of the very best cooks and their very best dishes shall forever remain unique, simply because the recipes only seem to work if handed down orally and by example.
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