Food as Family History

This video is long (about 9 minutes, 45 seconds) but I really enjoyed it. In case you don't have 9 minutes ad 45 seconds to devote to watching YouTube...I'll break it down for you.

Miss Schenone had a deep rooted jealousy for people with old "family recipes", and she wished that she could unearth one. As it turns out, she could. Kind of. Miss Schenone had a grandmother, named Adelle Giza (I have no idea how to spell that, but it's pronoused Ah-dell Jee-zuh). Adelle used to make ravioli, using an enormous 3 foot rolling pin and a lot of elbow grease. By the time Miss Schenone developed an interest in things Family History related, Adelle Giza had already passed on, leaving behind only the memory of her ravioli...and an enormous rolling pin. Through three separate trips to the mountainous regions of Italy, Miss S. learned how to make ravioli using this enormous rolling pin, plus Grandma's ravioli cutter (unearthed by a kind cousin). She made ravioli every day for a month before she could say that she had mastered the recipe. And now? It's hers. She can make up that little bit of family history every day if she wants to.

It got me thinking - what foods have I got that could serve as Family History? My grandmother, on my mother's side, was a master at...well, I'm not sure what you call it. She's the lady that could throw together Jell-O salad like nobody's business...and a mean casserole....everything from a can or a box. My favorite recipe from her, though, would have to be her tuna sandwiches. She grew up on a sharecropping farm in Alabama. Cans of tuna were, relatively, expensive. Eggs, apples, pecans...those all grew, for nearly free, around the yard! Her tuna salad was about 1/3 tuna, and 2/3 chopped apple, nuts and boiled eggs. It's divine.

What recipes do you have, lurking in your grandmother or mother's recipe files?