Naming the Women

On Saturday, Dad called me trying to decipher Dorothy Carr's Lefse recipe.  While I was looking for something else, I ran across the recipe for Myrtle's Coffee Bread in my great-grandmother's handwriting.  Both of these brought to mind Ruth Brekke's Ginger Cookies.  Esther's Cardamom Toast.  Arlene's Pan Bread.  And other recipes in my repertoire that invoke a name--sometimes known, sometimes unknown.

Dad said he remembered Dorothy Carr, and even I remember Ruth Brekke, but I'm not sure any of us know who Myrtle was.

In the food that we eat, however, we invoke their names and their lives, the care they took for family and friends, and their  willingness to share with others who want to pass along the goodness.

Most recipes, despite their individual varities, are anonymous.  Most of the time, we don't pass along our name as the source of what we share in this way, and we don't recall whose dish inspired us this time we make it.

But when I am reminded as with these examples of the generations (primarily of women) who have cooked and shared and blessed  the people in their lives--and me--with their recipes and their names, I am also reminded of the many nameless whose lives have fed my own.