The Handwritten Recipe Notebook as a Place of Memory

Abstract

A handwritten recipe notebook is not a mere domestic collection of recipes, but a material support for an immaterial tradition that combines culinary knowledge with commensality practices. These are formalized texts (a title, a list of ingredients, and directions) activated through the oral performance of a formalized setting (the food preparation process), which combines sequences of gestures instead of (or together with) words, or/and through a writing activity (copying a model or transcribing the recipe after dictation). The final material artefact (namely the dish and the written recipe) incorporates the syncretic and immaterial memories of all previous performances. A recipe notebook is not a simple anthology of texts either, it is instead a subjective “critical edition” which grows page by page, according to imperceptible selection criteria; with the passing of time, the pages become impregnated with smells, traces of pots of oil or sugar, children’s fingerprints, figurative drawings, etc.