In my fairly usual rush to get ready for the holidays, some things have gone missing. The realization started before Thanksgiving as I was planning on making some pies – the family chocolate pie from my Aunt Estelle’s recipe and our famous pecan from a recipe of unknown source. And as I thumbed through the recipes I’d found in the cigar type box that originally held Christmas cards, I had come across three handwritten pecan pie recipes. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the store I went to right before Thanksgiving was out of pecans, and I couldn’t muster up the energy to go to another, so Thanksgiving has come and gone and the family had to make do with store bought pecan pies.
Not wanting store bought pies for Christmas, I rummaged around and found the index cards that, not surprisingly, had not made it back into the cigar box-come-lately-recipe holder. It was only today that I really looked at the recipe cards and realized they were written by three different people. The handwriting on each was distinctive: one was written in my mother’s rather fanciful printing, not as elegant as her beautiful cursive, but still showing clear evidence of years of penmanship in school, an art so sadly lacking today; the second was written in my oldest sister’s sort of practical cursive, not as flowery as one might expect, but lovely nonetheless; and the last was written in my barely legible print.
I think graphologists, those who study “the relationship between handwriting and the character of the writer,”(1) might label me schizophrenic if they could see it as I note that my E in pecan and pie resembles a cursive capital letter without the adjoining loop while my e in eggs looks like a lower case cursive letter. Oy vey!
Back to the box – not realizing that I hadn’t returned the recipes to the box, I looked there first and discovered yet another index card in yet another person’s handwriting. This one, I don’t recognize. I think it’s my youngest sister’s hand, but I’m not positive. Still, it makes sense that I wouldn’t be as acquainted with Shelly’s handwriting as I am with my mother’s or Carol’s.
Writer that I am, I had to sit and put some thoughts about this on paper which means that the pecan pie remains unbaked. But there are questions to be posed. Why are there so many recipe cards for the same pie? I look for answers in the details. Two are carefully encased in plastic, three calling for 1 cup pecan meats, mine calling for 1 C pecan pieces. One calls for 1 cup red Corn Syrup (Karo), a second asks for 1 Cup red Corn syrup with no brand specified, a third lists 1 cup corn syrup [Karo] without mentioning the color, and the last says 1 C dark karo using the brand as the noun and adds (I bottle makes 2 pies). Given that I come from a very large family, I’m sure that last note was a welcomed addition.
But the questions I have about these recipe cards does not address the larger question which is where are my two "real" recipe holders. One is some kind of stainless steel and looks like a file for larger index cards. The aforementioned index cards are all 3x5. And the stainless steel is stuffed with papers of all sizes, many torn out of magazines, a few hand-written fairly neatly on the smaller index cards, and some, if I recall correctly, are written on "regular" 8 1/2 x 11 inch notebook paper. But here the details are not important. The important thing is that I haven't found that box since I moved and unpacked over a year ago. And I've no idea where this cigar box came from.
The other "real" recipe holder is a green plastic box full of Betty Crocker recipes with lovely pictures that I somehow inherited from my mother-in-law. Years later, I found one just like it on e-bay and purchased it for my daughter. Of course, I could borrow those recipes from her, but I'd still like to know where MINE went.
All of this chatter about recipes would make one think that I cook a lot, and that would be wrong. I cook as seldom as possible and am not particularly fond of the practice. I simply cook to eat - a practice that I am very fond of. And now you might think I would be sharing the infamous pecan pie recipe, but I'm not going to. Family secret - although how it has remained so having been written down four different times is beyond me. The one I would share is our truly remarkable recipe for homemade ice cream. It's to die for. Indeed, it's so wonderful that we simply refer to it as, "The Recipe." Sadly, it's in the missing recipe box! Hopefully, it will turn up before summer.
Did I mention the killer fudge?
( http://handwritingfoundation.org/graphology-history)
