ARTWORK
Project: How My Father Learned to Cook
How My Father Learned to Cook, 2009
Hutt explored the relationship between food, families and memories in this series of guest posts for the “Other People’s Pantries” series on The Perfect Pantry blog. In each of four posts she weaves together stories of her food-related memories of her father — especially those involving him learning to cook after her mother passed away — with his recipes and Hutt’s photos.
“My dad had a way of making the simplest foods into a celebration...For each thing he grew, he created a special ritual to enjoy it, something as simple as walking around with a pocketful of salt so he could eat radishes and cucumbers right out of the garden.”
— Sarah Hutt, The Perfect Pantry
#1 Eggs, or no eggs (Recipes: Wacky Cake and Poor Man's Cake)
“When I was a kid, my mom created a special scrapbook cookbook especially for my dad.
He was plagued with terrible headaches and swelling in his hands and feet, and assumed that he had food allergies. Through trial-and-error cooking, they concluded he must be allergic to eggs…It wasn’t until he was in his late sixties that he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease, hereditary angioedema — not food allergies — and, after treatment, to his great joy he could eat anything. But two of those egg-free desserts, made with ingredients from my mother's pantry, remained his particular favorites: Wacky Cake, which my mother made for family birthdays, and Poor Man’s Cake..…”
#2 Coffee (Recipe: how to brew the perfect cup of coffee)
“Like every dad, mine gave his opinion freely, but there were some things he considered life skills. He couldn't understand how you would ever be able to get through life without them.
These included: how to drive a car while shifting between gears so you could glide through curves and down hills instead of using the brake; staying at a consistent speed on the highway to conserve gas (in the days before cruise control); parallel parking in three turns of the wheel.
He also felt very strongly about his coffee.…”
#3 Maple syrup (Recipes: maple nut bread and a maple cocktail)
“My dad had a way of making the simplest foods into a celebration.
He spent a lot of his free time in his backyard garden, talking to robins and tilling the soil with his trusty hoe. Each garden season was met with great anticipation: the first rhubarb, green onions, beefsteak tomatoes, basketball-sized cabbage heads — you name it, he grew it.…”
#4 How my father learned to cook (Recipe: traditional spaghetti gravy)
“When my mother passed away, two days before their anniversary, she and my dad had been married almost 15 years.
While I doubt he ever got over the shock, my dad stepped into the role of single parent and, all things considered, he did a pretty good job. As we moved through those first weeks, one thing that became apparent was that he didn’t really know how to feed two growing daughters…”