A small project that looks at the food that people cook – and eat – with friends and family: the meals that are cooked without recipes, without cook books, from memory. This is not food for impressing; it is the everyday meals that we cook for the ones we love. A further aim of the project was to see how people record recipes. I had been thinking about family recipe books and scrapbooks and I was interested in how people might write down (or draw or photograph) the process of cooking a familiar meal.
I had some really nice contributions – all written, and generally using the traditional recipe format (title, ingredients list, method, yield etc). All of them were revealing about the writers in different ways and all are a pleasure to read. Interestingly, the contributions seemed to reveal the gender divide that exists in cooking: despite much coaxing of fellow students, colleagues and friends, the contributors were all female.
I initially collected all the contributions on a blog, www.roastpaper.blogspot.com. I'd forgotten about the texts until early on Saturday morning. I have collected them here as a modest A5 book, printed at home on different coloured papers and stapled; a small and final part of my MA major project hand-in.
Roastpaper
Roastpaper is looking for contributors for a new project that looks at how food fuels friendships and how eating together creates a sense of family: What’s your favourite recipe? Who are the friends you most like to share it with?
Send your most-used recipe – the one you can cook without even thinking about – breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner or supper; a list of your favourite dining companions; and a brief note explaining why eating with these friends is so special to roast@jamesbrook.net
thank you!