Yesterday I winnowed through my packed, messy recipe box. I saved some old cards for sentiment’s sake. I know I will never again make Tuna Stack Pie–a stack of crepes layered with curried tuna. I made it for John (because he likes tuna fish!) when we were first married, and it became something of a family joke. The Tuna Stack Pie card stayed.
Why not just eat an apple?
But I tried to be fairly ruthless and culled the recipes I have never made and never will make. At some point in the early ’80’s, for example, I apparently thought Fruit Leather sounded like a good idea. That card is gone now, along with John’s Granola, another dated, “healthful” item. In fact, John doesn’t like granola and never has and I have no idea how that recipe got its name.
These items, unappetizing though they are, pulled at my heartstrings. Those recipes have sat in that box for twenty or thirty years, where I’d always thumb past them to find the recipes for sugar cookies and pie dough that I’ve made over and over again.
I’ve seen that Fruit Leather card a hundred times. Like all old objects, those recipes represented the past, and I already miss them a little.
Yep. There’s sentiment attached to them.
Let me begin by saying I am not a cook. So when I had to sort through my mom’s recipes I thought I would toss all of them but for sentimental reasons I kept quite a few. Have I tried any of them yet? Of course not! But knowing they are there waiting for me to try some day is somehow comforting to me.