RECIPE RECOLLECTIONS

By Shoilee Mandal & Georgina Coupe

Two takes on scattered memories about food, growing up, and their loved ones, as they find their place in recollections of the past.

Tiny Recipe Cards in my Head

They come to me, 

Tiny recipe cards,

Waves of flavors, memories of people, places,

Scribbled on paper, post-it notes, backs of envelopes,

Filed in my head

No reason why they pop up, 

Why the cabinet of my brain chooses them at that moment,

Mary’s turmeric eggs, her masala veggies,

Mama’s gravy,

Elle’s pasta with mini cubes of cheddar mixed in,

That fluffy focaccia Naomi baked one Sunday,

‘Swansea Tapas’

They pop in and out,

Memories not only from the past 

But from places far away where I once was,

Reminding me of people I love,

And people I once knew. 

Recipes of the Heart

I recall the age of seven,

Watching Ma cook,

I open her massive recipe book,

With dust swarming the air

My fingers cramping

From the weight of hundreds of pages

I ask which page she’s on,

Which recipe she’s following,

To which she opens instructions

That I can’t quite piece together just watching her,

Where she herself wouldn’t know which step she’s on.

Shreyan, two at the time, 

Swinging his legs from his little dining chair

With turmeric stained all around his mouth

Flavors and textures 

That couldn’t quite be put into words

Yet an embodiment of nostalgia

A balance I could only recreate

With eyeballed measurements,

Recipes with no true calculation,

Yet a full serving