Coming Home – To Handwritten Recipes

My nan kept a bound notebook full of handwritten recipes. It was the only book she needed in the kitchen. I loved leafing through the pages to see all the divine goodies she made for us there in her handwriting. Scones and Kisses and Spongecake and Christmas cake. It was a treasure trove of my favourite things. I’m sure there were savoury dishes as well but you won’t find my childhood fingerprints on those pages! My mum has a similar book, a little more modern looking, but equally full of mealtime inspiration. There are less complicated recipes in hers, Mum is the first to admit she does not enjoy cooking. Mum’s ‘easy cake’ and hedgehog recipes are typical of her book though. Simple to make, forgiving with quantities, yummy to eat and they never, ever fail. Guaranteed.

Unlike my nan’s, our kitchen is bursting with recipe books. Some of them are beautiful coffee-table style books that I have spent hours leafing through drooling at the photos and dreaming of the table settings I see there. Others are simple but tried and true faves (Family Circle, Donna Hays). Still more are from my favourite authors who have written about gardens and food and created the longed-for lifestyle in print. I have Lunch at Madame Murat’s (Mary Moody); The French Cookbook (Joanne Harris of Chocolat fame and, yes, there is an incredible hot chocolate recipe in there!); Frances Mayes Under the Tuscan Sun recipes (best ever ragu just for starters). I have a home-printed folder full of recipes from Streat co-founder Rebecca Scott (her slow cooked tomatoes are somehow better than any others and she turns vegetarian into something to yearn for).

The personal nature of handwriting is something I cannot explain to my children of the millennium who refuse to pick up a pen because their lives are on screens. I actually don’t know if my kids could read my cursive script. Perhaps it can be used in code breaking eventually?! I adore keeping the letters and notes that someone has scribbled down for me. It’s their handwriting, it transports me immediately to a time and a place and into the company of that person. My own handwritten recipe book is an attempt to collate all those feelings into one volume. Seeing their handwriting as I cook feels personal. Meaningful. And that’s what food should be. It’s not just fuel for the body although in a busy household I am the first to admit that ‘fuel’ is what I often serve. Food is also for the soul. Food is a demonstration of love and friendship and when shared it’s the purest form of connection I know.

We claimed her jealously but my sisters and I shared our Nan with all of our friends. There are dozens of others who called her Nan. She was everything you dream of in a grandmother. She gave the best cuddles. Knitted constantly creating woollen toys and blankets for our beds and ponchos and jumpers, probably hundreds of then, until her hands couldn’t hold the needles anymore.

And, yes, Nan was the source of all our favourite foods. In Primary School she and Pop lived nearby and it was to her house we could go for lunch or after school for a table laden with all the foods we liked to eat. Creamed meat for Michelle. Apple and celery for me. Always donkey. yes. Donkey. You don’t eat it? Apparently others call it… strass? It’s a deli meat and the name is a family thing from way back apparently! Dozens of scones always and then a round container full of Kisses. Equal numbers of pink and white iced delicacies. One of each. And then a couple more. Have as many as you want, Melinda. Thirty years later my children, her great-grandchildren, enjoyed a table full of the same treats when they gathered at her unit on Mondays after school. Sponge cakes dusted in icing sugar for every single birthday. Actually, multiple sponge cakes for one could never be enough. Extra whipped cream on the side. The cream in the middle, though thick and sweet, was also never enough and needed that extra dollop to make it truly luxe.

When we moved into Ardley Nan became a regular presence at my kitchen bench. She would watch quietly as I bustled about and offered only admiration for my efforts in the kitchen. We drank endless cups of tea together, teapot tea, Lady Grey leaf tea that my husband had to source from England for her as it is almost impossible to find in Australia. Only then with teacup in hand could I push her for cooking advice. We made scones together many times and laughed at how the same ingredients turned into completely different products under our fingertips. The closest she came to frustration with me was watching me make Kisses. I just couldn’t find the rhythm of sliding the trays in and out of the oven in the same way that she did and my clumsy pace put our sweet treats at risk of a brown crispy top. That, by the way, is a no-no when baking Kisses. Nan bought me my electric mixer to help me learn to make her sponge cakes. Mine is the same brand as she had only decades younger and somehow the lack of experience showed there too. I think her machine set its own pace and turned itself off when the mix was ready, so familiar with the routine it was after years of service to the Queen of the Kitchen. 

It seems appropriate to finish this trip down memory lane with some of her recipes. Kisses are for road trips and sponge cake is for a birthday. Scones are for every meal, every day. Nan’s scones are legendary but they take some practice. Poor mum is still lambasted for her creation of ‘rock scones’ and I’ve also never mastered the fluffy lightness she would effortlessly produce time and time again. Ian can do it though. Now that I think of it, he hasn’t made a batch of scones in years. It’s time, don’t you think?