Keeping Holiday Food Memories

This is the time of year when we all start thinking about feasts in New England. The weather is growing colder. Most of the planted food has been harvested from our farms (and from our backyards if we are gardeners.) All that remains to eat outside my house are the herbs, which are waiting to be chopped up and put in my turkey. This time of year I begin thinking about Aunt Louise's Sweet Potato Pie, Mom's matzoh ball soup, and our Christmas Ham or bird.

I keep a little recipe box in my kitchen. Some people have migrated their recipes online, but this is one thing that I prefer to keep on paper. Cards, stained with grease or slightly sticky with sugar crystals, get pulled from the little box each November. Generally, I don't like to cook. I make dinner each night, but rarely do I get fancy. This time of year is different. This time of year I am after the feasts or the sweet gifts in my recipe box. This time of year is a time for memories. I'm making them and keeping them.

I talk in my archives presentations about my mother's homemade pizza. She made dough from scratch every Sunday. She made homemade sauce out of garden tomatoes, froze it, then defrosted it from our large basement freezer to be used as the pizza sauce. Fresh cheese --added 4-5 hours after her whole pizza cooking process began -- would greet the three little hungry faces of her children who stared into the oven. "When will it be done Mom? We're hungry!...That smells so goooood!"

I make pancakes once in awhile. I hope my kid will remember that. Yet, I am pretty sure that the special memories I'm making with food are from the holidays. I am under no delusions that the everyday cooking around here will be remembered. I am not known for my cooking. No one is going to say, "Grandma Melissa was a great cook!" Yet, it would be nice to leave some food behind that embeds itself in my daughter's brain and makes her mouth water just from the memory.

A couple of years ago, my friend Sue and I wrote a food memories workbook to help people think about and keep family memories that our important to them. Though our work has taken us in different directions, for now, the workbook is still a valuable tool for recording food memories and keeping alive traditions for future generations. One of my favorite exercises is to create a food biography. This is a perfect thing to think about this time of year. I'm encouraging staff and students to think about their food memories with an exhibit and worksheet at the high school where I teach.

At home, for Thanksgiving, I have my favorite homemade cranberry recipe. My daughter will probably always remember that Dad prefers canned sauce and Mom will make the homemade, even if she (I) am the only one who will eat it! Aunt Louise's sweet potato pie has been a staple on my family table since I was a kid. This may be the one recipe that gets passed on forever. We have Stovetop stuffing (for her Dad and Granddad) and fresh GF stuffing for her mom and Uncle William. My husband bakes gluten free pies for all of us. We have our Turkey stuffed with vegetables. The rest of the meal may change each year. I have a nice carrot pear soup that I pull out once in awhile. Sometimes we make peas with pearl onions...but the staples will always be there --on our table and hopefully in our memories.

So how do we keep the memories alive? Besides my little recipe card box and a food memories workbook that I will pass on to my daughter, here are some other ways to embed the traditions:

• Cookbooks - add comments to the margins as you improve recipes. Note who likes what, when you cook it and memories associated with times you have eaten eat
• Talk it up! Bring your kids into your kitchen and talk about that fresh cranberry sauce. Every year, for awhile, I would hear, "Why are you making cranberry sauce when we have canned?" This year, my daughter said to me, "When we go shopping for cranberry sauce, don't forget that we need the two kinds."
• Take pictures. Take pictures of your food prep work, or have someone take a picture of you preparing the food. Take photos of your table and the people at your table. Consider creating a photo essay
• Record conversations about food at your holiday table. (I am beginning to use the Voice Library to record oral histories.)
• Have your kids help you in the kitchen. Have them taste test and add to your menu
• Make holiday menus. This is another good way to involve the kids!

Most of all, stay warm, enjoy your family and have a great time preparing those feasts -- especially if it is the only cooking that you will do all year.

Gifts of Heritage 2013

As the leaves begin to turn here in the Northeastern United States, we begin to think about the holiday season. In past years, I have posted about making holiday gifts of heritage. [Gifts of Heritage 2011 ;  Gifts of Heritage 2010] This year, I am going to post about finding gifts. Fresh from my local Comicon event, I am thinking about the things from our childhoods that bring back memories. Giving items that bring back holiday memories for the recipient is fun, but it is also fun for each of us to set out on a mission to find items from our past.


Love for Comics Span Generations

Last week, we walked through the aisles of the Granite State Comicon searching for My Little Pony items for my young crazed fan. MLP has a huge audience these days. In fact, My Little Pony was an "in" toy for 80s children a few years younger than I. Today's audiences are a whole different breed. Kids today like the big eyed ponies, rather than the rounder bodied ones of my youth. The ponies are also popular with "bronies,"which was something unheard of in my day. Comic books bring us together and could make a fabulous heritage gift for any living generation. For my parents, Howdy Doody and Superman comics abound. For me, it was the Marvel superheroes, Archie, and Casper. Check your local comic book store, Ebay, or the local garage sales to seek those characters who bring back happy memories for the holidays. One does not need to be a collector to enjoy a bit of one's most fun childhood reading material.

Food Heritage Gifts

 I'm big on creating and recalling memories with food. Consider filling a Christmas stocking with a comic book and some good old fashioned candies. [Consider that it's also not too late to buy some heritage candy for the Halloween season, since I got a jump start on this column early this year!] Many companies these days offer the candies of old. Search Google for "old fashioned candy."

When I was young, my holidays were filled with potato pancakes and matzoh balls. We don't make these things often enough in my house. While many of us still hold on to cooking and baking traditions, so many of us have given them up. We bake cookies in December in my house, but when I was young my mom covered the dining room table with chocolates that she gave as gifts to teachers and others who helped us throughout the year - chocolate covered cherries, chocolate and mint wafers, peanut butter cups...she even made a chocolate house for the family to enjoy. It would be nice to bring back some of those traditions from my childhood to share with my kid.

Toys with Memories

I plan to include this photo of me drawing in a gift of
brush markers for my daughter this coming holiday season.

The toys from our past still make great gifts and can bring back comforting memories. Do you have memories of a favorite toy? Consider sharing your love for that item writing down your memory of it and including it in a wrapped gift to a child. For example, I remember sitting in our large front hallway zooming Matchbox cars back and forth with the neighbors. My daughter loves to hear stories of my childhood and sharing it through my childhood toys adds to the interest.

This year, I began bringing games into my library for my students. I brought in some of my thinking favorites such as Mille Bornes and Battleship. I asked the high school students what else they wanted. Reminiscing about their earlier childhoods already, they asked for games such as Candyland, Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders. I was surprised that teens wanted to play these kids' games. I was equally surprised that so many of their games were games that conjured memories from my own childhood.

So when thinking about gifts this year, think about those memories that you can share. Think about connecting generations with gifts that appeal to all. Go out and look for them if you don't have them in your home. Bring your child to help you find gifts for your significant other. Talk to your parents and spouses about their most special old toys and foods and try to bring back that feeling of "specialness". They say that you can't really ever go back, but you can keep the memories alive. And, you can create memories for future generations based on past traditions.

A "Heartwarming Story with a Little Surprise:" Don't Forget to Document the Mundane

It took me a long time to learn how to speak to an audience. I am basically a shy person, but after over 40 years on this earth, I think I am finally learning how to be myself. Public speaking, like writing in many ways, has given me an opportunity to present the real me to the world. If you meet me one-on-one, I am not likely to tell you my personal stories with much detail. I always think, "Why would this person care to know so much about me?" (I am working to get over that.) I have never fancied myself a storyteller because I try to go light on the details and shut up as soon as possible.

I had been presenting a workshop for many years on preserving your family materials. I invited people to bring their personal items so I could tell them how to care for them. I kept the groups to twenty and under so that I would have the opportunity to look and talk about everyone's materials to give advice. It was (and still is) a fun presentation. But soon, people began asking me if I could accommodate larger groups. I needed to redesign the class, so I started seeking items with preservation issues at antique shops to use for demonstration materials. (If you are a regular reader of this blog, you now know how "More Finds at the Local Antique Shop" got started.)

When I began thinking about writing my book "The Unofficial Family Archivist," I started to learn to be a storyteller. My own childhood materials from the 1970s were perfect samples of imperfection. My yellowing Polaroids and browning "magnetic" albums would be great for demonstration. I began searching my collections for more materials for demonstration. Memories came flooding back. I began to incorporate my materials into my writing and my public talks. I also began telling stories behind the materials and most surprisingly to me, people have responded enthusiastically.

Stanscopes and slide viewer from my family collection

Yesterday I was working on a photo collage to use in a banner in a web site overhaul for ArchivesInfo. In the collage I included a photo of Stanhopes. I showed the collage to a few friends and asked them for their opinions on my design. My good friend, Erica Holthausen of Honest Marketing Revolution suggested that I leave out the Stanhope image because she didn't know what those things were. I wrote her the following: "the image on the right is of an old slide viewer from the 50s (the black thing) and old Stanoscopes [sic], which are picture key fobs with images put right inside. (Think viewmaster with one image built right in.) Stanoscopes [sic - I've since re-learned the proper name] were made as little keepsakes, often at touristy sites like Coney Island, which is where I suspect my father may have had one of these done. A picture of him as a little boy is inside.)"

Erica wrote back enthusiastically and I hope that she doesn't mind me sharing what she said here. "Oh, I love that story! Have you done a blog post on it? Totally blog-worthy! A great, heart-warming story with a little surprise: the photo of your dad as a little boy. Very cool...again, it's the story about the real person that makes the object so special." 

Wow! My story - Worthy of telling - People want to hear. I am reminded of that once again. 

In "The Unofficial Family Archivist" I made a point to tell my personal family stories to show how my family memories and archives are not so very much unlike yours. And when incorporating those stories into presentations, I see eyes shining in my audience and nods of recognition. Each of us has stories that make up a greater community story. Each story I have in my head has roots in some community with other people who experience similar things. The little surprise at the end is how each story is so personal. An object is an object until you figure out its purpose and then tell its history through a community lens. If you can put a personal lens on it, that makes it all the more special.

I have had two presentations each week this month. The presentation topic focuses on two chapters of "The Unofficial Family Archivist" and relates to personal narrative and preservation of personal papers. In working and reworking the presentation, I've had many memories flood back as I try to find personal stories to shed light on points I am trying to make. I am going to leave you today with a personal story I remembered the other day and incorporated into a presentation a couple of nights ago. The point of the story is to tell people that sometimes important things about our lives do not automatically get recorded. We automatically grab a camera for special occasions, but we usually need to think more about things that happen to us on non-"special" occasions. Some of the things we do every day may be worth recording to shed light on our own personal narrative or our own family history, and to show what it is like to live in this time and place. Grab the video camera to document a morning routine; write in a journal about the mundane events of your day; make a list of things that struck your fancy as you went about your business....here is one of those stories in my life.

There will never be another pizza like
mom's. This is not mom's pizza. This is from
Wikipedia.

When I was a kid, my mom made pizza from scratch every weekend. She would start the dough early in the afternoon - mix up the ingredients, put them in a glass bowl, and let it sit in the cold oven (which was warmer than the rest of the room even though it wasn't on.) She would come back to the dough a couple of times in the afternoon to pound it down and let it rise all over again. While the dough rose, she would defrost her home made tomato sauce. Mom kept a garden and would use the tomatoes for her sauce. My sister and I helped with the garden, though what I most remember about it was planting seeds and tossing cherry tomatoes in the air to catch them in our mouths. The sauce was kept in a downstairs freezer alongside meat we had delivered monthly and other frozen garden treats. Once the dough had sufficiently risen and this sauce was defrosted, Mom would roll out the dough and pull it into a square pan, then adding its toppings and placing it in the oven. Three little kids would hungrily peer into the square window while we watched the edges of the pizza brown and the cheese ooze on top.

This was every day life in my house. This story tells a lot about how I lived and what my mother valued. Perhaps it's a "heartwarming story with a little surprise." My eighties teen years were a holdover from a time that was quickly passing. My family, like yours, is a microcosm of life as we know it now, but we may soon forget. I have no pictures. I have only this blog post about mom's pizza. (I hope it wasn't too wordy.)

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Food Memories

There is always a story behind what we eat (and what we don't eat). 

In December, my daughter and I were admiring the gingerbread houses at a local pastry shop. The shop is down the street from her dance class and I bring her in once in awhile so she can get a treat. The gingerbread houses were part of a contest. My daughter and I voted for our favorites and this entered us into a contest to win a free tray of pastries. Above is the winning tray - a plate of pastries that I won for my friends. (Thanks Frederick's Bakery!)  BUT, I have Celiac disease and can't touch the stuff. I think the last time I won a raffle was for Yankee tickets when I was in high school. My Dad  gave them away because we couldn't travel into the city to use them. The treats do look delicious and I'm awaiting my friends' visit right now for some tea and company, AND so I can give away my treats like a pair of Yankee tickets... but I digress...

Bring up any particular food and I think I'd have a story about it that represents my life at that particular moment: From the Three Musketeers bar that I ate on the way home to placate my sweet tooth while the Frederick's tray sat beside me; (Yes, the candy is gluten free.) To the salami sandwich I had for lunch yesterday, which my husband proudly invented for me when I was ill last year... there are stories for almost everything I eat - when I first discovered the food; what I like about it and why.

On my drive home from the bakery I began thinking about all of the snapshots of food that I have in my photo albums. I have one of me laughing as a teen with my mouth closed tight full of cake. It's one of my favorites because my hair looked good that day. I have another one of me holding up a birthday cake that I shared with my aunt because her birthday is around the same time as mine. I have one of me cutting cake with my husband at our wedding... In fact, I realize now that I think about it that most of the food images I can remember involve birthday cake or sweets. I guess that most people must document birthdays and cake events better than any other event in their lives.

The black and white images in this post are orphan photos that I found in antique shops to illustrate my "Life in Context" project with professional organizer Sue West. Part one of the project focuses on food. All of the images involve meals at the table, foods half way to the eater's mouth or piled on plates. They are very informal images, capturing a moment in time and illustrating a shared human experience. [hmmm...There is no cake.]

It wasn't too hard to seek out images of food for illustration. The images are plentiful, yet we give them little thought. I'm going to try to go dig mine up today and see if they tell some sort of story about my life - a tale of who I am through what I eat.

How are you documenting your food memories? Do any of these images kick off memories for you about food? What role does food play in your life? How do the choices you make reflect your communities and people in your life? Have you won any food contests lately?

(This one is my favorite!)

Share your food memories at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeincontext/ and look for these images in the upcoming Life in Context Food Memories Workbook!

Food Memories and Culture

How are you documenting this festive season? Some of the primary things we think about when we consider the holidays are the special foods we serve. Give a little thought to what you serve, how you serve it, and why. Share your holiday food memories with your loved ones. Write down your memories. Pass on your recipes and stories you have about them. Photograph your dining events and those who attend them. Record information about your special serving pieces so that loved ones always remember the stories behind these heirlooms.

***

"Food is a vital part of culture. Our food heritage -- the dishes themselves, the dining company we keep, the places we associate with a good meal, our heirloom serving items, and more -- reflect our cultural identity, giving us a sense of who we are and what is important. 

"Food is part of the culture that cultural heritage professionals refer to as “intangible” because many of our food traditions are not recorded and are passed from generation by word of mouth or by live demonstration. For example, I know how to cook a meatball properly (the Italian way) because my Italian mother-in-law stood in the kitchen with me and showed me how her mother showed her.

"Think about the foods you eat that have special meaning to you because they were passed down by your family or were integral parts of your community life. Consider what foods represent your heritage and how that heritage has been passed on to you. Did you learn to cook standing at your mother’s side? Do you have a dog-eared, food splattered recipe book that once belonged to your grandmother? Do you have the sedar plate or the Christmas cookie platter that served your family well for generations? Is there a dish that reminds you of a favorite community eatery? This book offers you the opportunity to explore behind your everyday food experiences to discover the more meaningful side of sustenance. Why do we eat the things we eat and how do our meals reflect our life in context?

"We can think of the context of our lives in two parts: a little context and a big context. Our little context considers each of us at our very core. Who are you? What do you like? What specific memories do you have? The foods and food related things we like give some insight about us. We are a person who prefers salt or sweet. We may like to cook. We may prefer to go out to a restaurant. Those closest to us know our preferences and may acknowledge our food desires by serving us certain meals or helping us create food habits that suit our schedule. This is the little context of our food memories.

"The second part is a larger context. Who are you and who is in your community? What do you like to eat and how does it reflect your ethnicity, geography, or other community group? Do you like certain foods because they are part of your community? What specific memories do you have about certain foods and do other members of your community have related memories? How do your community’s memories differ from people in differing communities?

"... When you begin thinking about the value of your activities, your traditions, and objects, you begin to piece together a puzzle that provides a better understanding of your role and your place in the world. Understanding your food heritage is a vital piece of this puzzle because food says so much about your values and your culture. Indeed, you are what you eat!"

- From the upcoming, The Life in Context Project: Food Workbook

Join The Life in Context Project on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @URLifeinContext.

Learn more about this unique collaborative endeavor on The Life in Context web site

Read about simplifying and reorganizing food traditions to suit our lives from my Life in Context Partner @Space4U

Food Memories Contest. Be part of the Life in Context Project!

Sue West of Space4U and I teamed up almost two years ago. Sue is a professional organizer and I am an archivist. We are from very different worlds that overlap in the area of organization. Sue takes an "Organize for a Fresh Start" approach that helps you find your way-- to find a balance. I take an organize to document community approach that invites you to explore your role and examine your personal history. Our collaboration is turning out to be the perfect partnership.. Our specializations come together in a holistic way, helping people better understand themselves and the world around them. The Life in Context Project explores ways you can organize your life and your legacy, and tell your important "heirloom" stories to pass on to the next generation.


We are creating the first in a series of workbooks to help you document what is meaningful to you. This series aims to support you while you define the values and traditions you want to pass on to future generations. The workbooks will help you mold your legacy.  Food Memories – our first workbook – examines the role of food in your life. This resource will help you consider the meals, the events, and the heirloom serving pieces tools that define your precious food memories.

We are looking for your food related stories to include in the book.

We will choose our favorites to publish alongside our tips for telling your story, organizing your life, and preserving your heritage. The writers of stories chosen for inclusion will be mailed free copies of the workbook when it is completed later this year. One grand winner will then be randomly chosen from winning entries to attend our upcoming “Life in Context” webinar for free.

Email melissa@mannon.org with your entries in pdf format or with questions.

Here’s what we are seeking:

- Write 2-4 paragraphs about a food related object that is important to you.  Record your memory associated with it.

- Consider if there are people involved with this memory. Why are these people important to this particular memory?

- Do you have related documentation? Can this be put into a cultural context? When did this happen? To what community does this relate?

- See our worksheet for help with organizing and recording your thoughts here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeincontext/doc/223010991088364/

Samples!

Sue and I have chosen a couple of our own food memories to write up as samples for you:

Melissa’s Food Memory #1 – Bagels

A heavenly smell would fill the air when my mother brought a bag back from the bagel store in our neighborhood. Such places dotted the retail areas where I grew up on Long Island in New York State. Behind the counters were multiple flavors of cream cheese and lox. Most commonly in my parents’ home, we ate the bread-stuffs with butter and plain cream cheese. On weekends, we would slap cold cuts between a sliced bagel or turn it into a pizza with sauce and cheese.  We used cherry preserves (the kind with the fat red fruit spread throughout the sweet sticky goo) around Passover time when we also ate the treat on our matzo. Once in awhile, mom would excitedly shuffle her three kids off to school and run to the gourmet bagel shop for special flavors to share with her girlfriends over morning tea. I spent the day hoping that some flavors — maybe chocolate, chives or pineapple — would be left for us to sample when we got home.

I remember the bagels, but I can barely remember how they tasted and I cannot eat them anymore. My daughter will readily tell you the story. I have a photo essay I made that I made to hang in my kitchen when I was first diagnosed. I made a collage of four separate pictures of four different off limits breakfasts. My daughter finds this quite funny, in a way that only a small seven year old can find such things funny. “Remember that photo that was in the kitchen that you called ‘Not My Breakfast’ since you can’t eat those things because you have Celiac Disease, Mom?” She smiles at me as if she is proud that she understands this inside joke that tries to convey my loss of bagels to the world. This beautiful girl was impossible for me to conceive ten years ago because of a disease that went undiagnosed for twenty years (even though it is considered the number one case of unexplained infertility.) My daughter does not understand the full irony.

When a person is diagnosed with Celiac – a disorder that makes the body unable to process the gluten protein found in wheat, barley and rye – that person needs to eliminate the offending foods entirely from the diet. At first, it is a difficult thing to do. Some, like me, even get nauseous at the smell of bread for a short time.  I remember walking into a bagel shop during my “recovery” period to get some lunch for my husband. I had to turn around and walk out because of my physical discomfort. It was as if my favorite food had turned on me, until I put a new spin on it and realized it was just warning me away like an old friend looking out for my best interest.

To me, a bagel is one sign in my life that represents a lot. It embodies my Jewish heritage and my New York upbringing. It also stands for what I now cannot eat. It represents the struggle I went through to become a mother and to live a healthy, normal life. My daughter does not hope for me to save her some of my special food when I shuffle her off to school. Instead she anticipates that I will think of her and stop in the local bakery to get her a fancy sugar cookie…New Hampshire bagels are just not the same as New York ones anyway.

Sue’s – Rice Krispy Treats Food Memory

Rice Krispy Treats are back in vogue! At a favorite restaurant & café recently, the dessert tray included a childhood favorite, Rice Krispy Treats – only different. The treat had a peanut butter layer, with chocolate frosting.  Like Proust and his Madeleines, I was transported to my childhood.

Aunt Ludy and Aunt Esther, “the girls” as they were called by my mother, always made and brought RKT’s to Christmas, along with homemade fudge. They started their tradition in the days when my grandmother hosted Christmas, which would have begun in the 1950’s. It was a very sad Christmas the years following Esther’s death; Ludy did not join us but sent her gift.

We called them “the girls” because in those days, that’s what you called women of a certain age who had not yet married. Story was, Aunt Esther had turned down a marriage proposal. Aunt Ludy we didn’t know much about, but she never married.

My great aunts lived into their 90’s. Their personalities were very different. Esther had a lively sense of humor. She was the rebel of the two of them.  Ludy took great care of her older sister; her life was more planned and structured and she liked it that way. In their later years, Ludy would become Esther’s caregiver at their childhood home.

They inspired me just because they’d never married. In a time when most women in my family were married, and assumed from a young age that they would find Prince Charming, these two lived together in the house that their father built around 1900.

They were the biggest of Red Sox fans, taking the T into Boston until they were well into their 80’s. They had season tickets as far back as my mother can remember. Season tickets!

For their work, Ludy was high up on the Girl Scouts in New England, working out of their headquarters. Esther worked for the Universalist Association. In the year before I was born (1959), my mother worked across the street from Aunt Esther in Boston. Mom worked for the Unitarian association, for Dana McLean Greeley, who became the first president of the merger of Unitarians and Universalists.

Kellogg’s had created Rice Crispy cereal in 1928 and it was fine as far as cereals go, but in 1939, when Mildred and her friend Malitta needed an idea to help their Campfire Girls raise money, they put their heads together and a new delicious food was invented.  It was Rice Crispy Treats!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Krispies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Krispies_treat

The original recipe: http://www.ricekrispies.com/recipes/the-original-treats.aspx#/recipes/the-original-treats
2001: Students are working to make Iowa State’s annual spring celebration a record-breaking – and tasty – event by building the world’s biggest Rice Krispie Treat. (ISU is the alma mater of Mildred Day, who invented the Rice Krispy Treat recipe while working at Kellogg’s.)

The Lost Stories - Guest Post by Linda Norris

When Melissa asked me to write a guest post about the Pickle Project,  I pondered what to write about—recipes?  Oral histories?  Working in another culture?  So many paths to consider.   But historic photographs always intrigue me and they were no exception in Ukraine.

A bit of background:  in 2009 and 2010 I spent four months each living and working in Ukraine as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching museum studies and collaborating on workshops around Ukraine, a country I knew little about before I decided to go.   The Pickle Project is a collaboration with another Fulbrighter, Sarah Crow,  to document Ukrainian foodways, with their emphasis on sustainability and seasonality and to share, through exhibits and our blog,  that knowledge with audiences here in North America.   We’d both long had an interest in foodways, and we each found so much intriguing about food in Ukraine—pickles, but also home-made vodka, pampushki (donuts) and of course, borscht.

So I began to look for historic photographs about food.   About once a month, while living in Kyiv,  I would get up early on a Saturday, sometimes with friends, sometimes by myself and take the metro over to the Left Bank on the far side of the Dnieper River.  There, in a big convention hall, often housing other events at the same time (dog show, bridal show, garden show) was a weekly antiques and flea market—in many ways, much like any you might go to here.  There’s always something both compelling and depressing about flea markets for people who care about objects with their stories intact. There’s the feeling of a huge room of objects untethered from their owners.  The market always had all kinds of things:  beautiful Ukrainian textiles,  weapons,  Soviet realist paintings and murals stripped from public buildings,  and religious icons, along with small ceramic statues,  costume jewelry and the like.

 

But I began to seek out historic photographs of farming, eating, gardening and the like.  And I found some surprises—that seemed not so surprising once I thought a bit more about it.  I saw piles and piles of military photographs—not surprising when Ukraine has been fought over and over during the 20^th century.   I found far fewer mid- and late- 20^th century photographs than you would in the United States.   Not surprising when, under Soviet rule, so much was controlled and one goal was never to stand out.   And I found so many stiffly posed group photos:  again, not a surprise when Soviet life was entirely collective.   And sadly, I also found photographs with accession numbers that had clearly come out of museum collections.

 

But, I kept looking and found some wonderful images that conveyed both how much has changed in Ukraine (Kyiv is a modern city) and how much, in the villages, life continues at a pace of an earlier time (except of course, for the ubiquitous cell phones!)

The antique market always brought a sense of loss to me—but it was counterbalanced by one of my favorite museums in Kyiv—the Ivan Honchar Museum.   This museum aims  “to help revive national culture, promote ethnic consciousness, and preserve and develop the best traditions of Ukrainian folk art.” And according to the museum, “ In the 1960s his collection served as an alternative to the then official ideology and helped spark a renewed interest in national culture.”

Ivan Honchar went from village to village, collecting materials including photographs and carefully placing them in albums, along with his watercolor sketches of material culture.  Those albums, which the museum is in the process of reproducing, represent a traditional culture that, despite the best efforts of the Soviets, refused to die.   Ivan Honchar choose not to represent an official state culture, but rather the culture of villages and the museum that bears his name continues to develop lively programs on folk culture (become a fan of the Ivan Honchar on Facebook and check out their great photos!)

Across Ukraine’s diverse landscape, wars have been fought, genocide has been committed, and untold many stories have been lost.  When I pick up a photograph at the flea market, I hold just one of those forgotten stories in my hand and wonder.

And in the Pickle Project, we hope to capture those individual stories, photographs, and of course recipes.   To learn more about the Pickle Project, please check out our blog and become a backer on Kickstarter by February 1!

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Hi everyone. This is Melissa here. I started following Linda on Twitter, learned about her fascinating Pickle Project and made a pledge to help her capture the vital Ukraine stories she describes above. Linda's project with Sarah Crow is a fabulous example of how people can help save culture. Linda's work gathering photographs, stories, and foodways is capturing unique traditions and heritage that can be shared around the world, blending the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage. Every day, we lose artifacts and knowledge that are among the best human beings have to offer. Our stories, recipes, languages, songs and dances can only be remembered when people make an effort to pass them on. Please join me in making a pledge to help the Pickle Project reach its goal so they may document and share the rich traditions and foods of the Ukraine. Every little bit counts.

Read Linda Norris' blog The Uncataloged Museum

For more on "Intangible Heritage" see http://archivesinfo.blogspot.com/2010/11/intangible-heritage.html and 

http://archivesinfo.blogspot.com/2010/08/intangible-memories-preserved.html

Intangible Memories Preserved

Thinking about food is an easy way to evoke individual memories. A smell or taste can mentally transport a person to a time or place in our past with little effort. However, while it is easy to bring up these memories, it is harder to capture them for posterity. Like other "intangible culture" such as languages and social practices of communities, foods are often passed down in an undocumented form. It is a challenge for cultural heritage professionals to secure their remembrance in a formalized way. While reading "The Idea of Cultural Heritage" by Derek Gillman this week, I've begun tying together some of my recent work related to what cultural heritage is, what it means, how it's important to an individual, and how it is important to us collectively as humans.

I have been working on a program about capturing and relating individual life stories with a colleague, professional organizer Sue West. Our workshop discusses why it's important to tell an individual's life story, how to tell a life story, and how one story connects to a larger community. The program primarily focuses on how the objects in your life tell something about you. But, a few weeks ago, I came across this article to share with Sue so we could discuss the idea of intangible heritage and incorporate it into our workshop:

Write your own food biography: my life in 10 dishes.

After I shared the link with Sue, she immediately wrote back to me with a list of her most memorable life dishes that included things as diverse as her mom's gazpacho, french dishes from a junior year abroad, and Vermont cheddar. Excited that she connected with the food idea, I shot back an e-mail listing the cuisine with which I deeply connect:

Aunt Louise's Sweet Potato Pie (Aunt Louise is a Cherokee and I think this native American dish is amazing) Chicken gizzards (mom and I love them, but I haven't found another person who does) Pickled herring (my favorite "Jewish" food. Reminds me of my heritage....though I might add gefilte fish, blintzes, and matzoh ball soup in with the herring) lamb w cucumber (the first fancy dish that my husband made for me when he discovered he likes to cook) Cheesecake (reminds me of my favorite diner growing up) cookies (mom used to make them fresh every week) Heath bar ice cream floats (reminds me of my first boyfriend)...

But, while these themes are directly tied and specific to my own experience, everyone will be able to relate to something among them. This is how our individual heritage relates to a greater community. Also, while one may find a connection to my list, one may also have something to add, giving a new dimension to this culture I'm relating. For example, someone may lock onto my diner cheesecake and start thinking about their local diner cheesecake or other local diner dishes. We can contemplate a whole diner heritage. Can we compare how my little New York diner differs from a diner in the American west? Or, we can think about my ethnic heritage instead of my geographical locale. While I gravitate toward pickled herring, perhaps your ethnic food of choice is spaghetti and meatballs? We can even blend the ideas. While I grew up on Long Island with Jewish foods wafting from the windows of my house, my next store neighbors were Italian Catholic, fully embracing a meatball culture.

To solidify this food culture idea in my mind, last night through serendipity, I came across this article in my search for cultural news: UNESCO “Cultural Heritage List” to Include the Mediterranean Diet http://bit.ly/aDG5D2 . It brought me full circle to my e-mail back and forth with Sue. Ideas of preserving this intangible heritage are reverberating around the world, from your kitchen to the board of UNESCO. Consider what aspects of your culture are worth preserving that are yet to be documented. Share your recipes with your children and your local historical society. Share your thoughts about who you are and what influences made you the way you are. We will all be enriched for it.