Keepers of the Flame--Part Two

Part One was about making a family tree, a fully-developed one. The next step is to send a copy of the tree to all the branches of the family, asking for corrections or additions. When this has been done, and the tree is as accurate as you can get it, mail a copy to all of the members of your generation. Ask them to update their tree on a regular basis and to send those additions and unfortunate subtractions to all the other members on the list you have provided them. In this way the family tree gets to be kept up to date.

Now another step. This one seems to be so small that you may wonder why I am suggesting it. Sitting at a table for meals is an entrenched part of the Jewish experience. Everyday meals, Shabbos meals, Yom Tov meals--all contribute to our "family memories." No one makes a carrot cake like your aunt; no one makes a kugel like your grandmother; no one makes cholent like your mother. And no one will ever make them again unless the recipes are collected and written down.

If you are reading this then you already have a computer. Use it to store all the recipes you can get from all of those cherished relatives and then send out the recipes to the rest of the family, or print out the copies, buy three ring binders to put them in, and then distribute them. As someone reminded me in a comment on the first of these postings, they make great gifts. Fortunately for members of my husband's family, one of my daughter's did this. If not, my mother in law's recipes, the ones that everyone looked forward to, the ones that spelled "Babi" would have been lost. My mother makes a cake called a "gesundheit kuchen" which was her grandmother's recipe, which came from HER grandmother. And yes, which my mother's grandchildren also use.

Note: if there is a story that goes with the recipe I like to include it with the recipe. One of my cousins has a carrot cake recipe that contains no carrots, but is still called carrot cake, and the funny story behind this recipe is all part of the fabric of family history.

Men who are reading this--you are not exempt from this activity. A male guest at our Shabbos table was reminiscing about the incredible Shabbos lokshen kugel his grandmother made. He commented that no one anywhere had ever made a kugel like that one. The logical question was "Why don't you get the recipe and have your wife make it?" Unfortunately, the grandmother was no longer living and no one had thought to get the recipe down in black and white. "I didn't have any sisters" was this man's answer to why the recipe had not been preserved. Gentlemen, "keeping the flame" as regards recipes is not "women's work" alone. Recipes, and the stories that come with them, are in everyone's domain. After all, we all eat.

So, first a family tree and then family recipes. What's next? Stay tuned.