Preserving and Sharing Food Stories

Sometimes the place where stories are isn't where we expect

(Hey guess what: I’m doing a giveaway of my new class, Finding your Food Story: Read to the end to learn more!)

Food history is a collective history, one that shapes each of our lives in unique ways within overarching common experiences. Given the times and places we live, we might experience larger forces like (for example) trade, economic booms and busts, agricultural innovations, the impact of marketing on food popularity, etc. etc. etc.: In other words, larger society-level forces that shape what and how we eat.

But of course, our individual experiences within those larger contexts can vary considerably, as does the likelihood of our knowledge and experiences ever being recorded and passed on.

I like to use the example of brewing, because for many years (and still to some extent today) a lot of westerners associated brewing history with monastic history: And for them, that was where it started and ended. Monks (not nuns) brewed beer, and then it became more popular and commercialized over time, then we had craft beer and voila! Here we are today.

Of course, that is not the history of brewing: A history that is mostly female and mostly not white or European. The oldest known evidence we have of brewing comes from China, from the Fertile Crescent, and from Africa.

Through most of history, brewing was by and large women's work (the specifics, of course, vary between places and times, but from a bird's eye view, this is the case). In Europe, yes there were monks that brewed beer, but so did nuns, and so did many, many women in rural and urban areas across the continent and around the world (I talk a bit about this history, and link out to some good resources, in this recent newsletter issue).

But those stories were not, on the whole, preserved: There are myriad reasons for this, including the high cost of parchment and printing (I write about the history of cookbooks and recipe writing here for Mold) and literacy rates, among other things, but one reason is also that the stories of people not in power are often not considered worth preserving by the people who are.

This is why I go on and on about the importance of preserving stories: And why each of us has an active role to play in carrying culinary traditions and the stories of the folks behind them forward into the future.

This can happen in tangible, physical ways, like through preserving physical materials including cookbooks and recipe cards so future generations have access to them. Or, preserving stories can happen through recording memories and traditions that have been passed down orally or otherwise might be lost if a chain of communication is severed or an elder passes.*

Here are two simple ways you can start preserving your family stories and recipes this week:

-Do a quick mental assessment of what family culinary information you have access to, and how it's recorded: Do you have recipe boxes (and whose recipe boxes?), or cookbooks? Are there certain recipes or traditions that are important to you but that aren't written down? What information is most important for you to capture and to preserve to pass on to future generations?

-Consider where you're storing physical materials so they'll last longer: A cookbook sitting in direct sunlight in a hot kitchen will deteriorate more quickly than one sitting at a stable room temperature away from sunlight. Sometimes, it can also be useful to store materials in special archival boxes from places like Gaylord.

Doing those two things: Thinking of what you've preserved already (and what else you want to make sure to preserve), and where your physical materials are being kept now are two first steps to preserving family recipes and stories.

From there, you can think about other aspects of preserving: For example, do you want to digitize materials (and how will you do that)? Who is best-suited to care for materials long term? To the extent it's possible, how can you plan for disasters?

Building the future we want means looking for stories where they are (as in the example of brewing history above) and preserving the stories we have so future generations understand the traditions that inform their lives.

Whether or not you consciously realize it, you are creating history every day through things as simple as what you choose to eat (yes, really!) And that history, no matter how seemingly small, shapes the future. We choose what stories to carry forward into the future, so the question becomes: What stories are you carrying forward?

In Preserving Family Recipes and Cookbooks, I deep dive into best practices for preserving paper-based materials, based on my experience working in libraries and my work as a food historian.

Finding your Food Story will include some of those elements, too, as well as guidance on conducting oral histories and otherwise capturing stories you want to carry forward.

Preorder one, or both, during the Culinary Curiosity School's launch sale and save 40% off the preorder price, with the code CURIOSITY.

Finding your Food Story class giveaway:

Finding your Food Story is a 6-month deep dive class where we explore food storytelling, and connecting to our own stories, through several different learning paths and through monthly themes.

It includes a big resource library (maybe the largest I’ve ever made for one of my classes?) plus live sessions to explore our monthly themes and get real-time support for your work.
And a Slack channel, so you can stay in touch between calls and have access to me every weekday for your questions, celebrations, and whatever else I can do to support your journey.

It’s a blend of research methodologies, reflection and meditation techniques, hands-on learning, and the skills I teach as a writing coach for constructing a consistent practice (so you actually do the work you want to do, but without burning out).

It’s a unique class, and I’m eager to fill it with folks who are curious, multi-passionate, and creative: No need to be a writer or a creative professional, or an expert cook, to join us. Just a desire to learn, an open mind, and a passion for developing and deepening your creative work.
It’s perfect for writers, but also to genealogists, historians, artists who want to weave more food-related elements through their work, and cooks and chefs who want to tap into their own unique storytelling voice and bring that forward into their work.

Here’s the giveaway I promised:

The live sessions for the course run from March-September, but for folks who preorder before December 31st, you also get:

• Free access to an extra class, for everyone who signs up: Choose from either Ferment and Chill, Rooted in Place, or Creative Cooking Playground. 
  Just email me (hello@root-kitchens.com) with your choice and I’ll take care of the rest!

• Entry into a 2-for-1 giveaway: I’m giving the winner two spots in the program for the price of one. Buy for a friend, and you could come along for free (or, buy for yourself then treat a friend).
  

I’m also running an additional 2-for-1 giveaway for paid newsletter subscribers: So for paid subscribers who sign up for the class, you’re twice as likely to win that free extra spot.

And, a lil’ reminder that I’ll design a custom gift message for you if it’s a gift: just email me at hello@root-kitchens.com.

I can’t wait to see you there!

*Oral traditions and written ones exist alongside and bolster each other: While we often think of written traditions as being better for preserving (which, to capture a story in one form as it exists is true, and is wise in case an oral tradition is lost), oral traditions offer a richness, an adaptability to audience, and a different flavor of engagement. Both are important ways we share our understanding with the world.