Dear Queenie,
I have a friend who loves giving out recipes. Need a guavaberry cheesecake? She has a recipe. Need johnny cakes? She has a recipe. Need her famous baked macaroni? She has a recipe for that too. The problem is that whenever I make the dish, it never tastes quite like hers. Then comes the tasting. She takes one bite and immediately says: "Oh, you didn't add the cinnamon." Or: "You didn't let it rest for 20 minutes." Or: "You didn't brown the onions first?" My response is always the same: "That wasn't in the recipe." Then she looks genuinely surprised and says: "Really? I thought I told you." No, darling. You did not. This has happened so many times that I am beginning to suspect she is withholding information. Either that, or she has forgotten what she actually told me. At this point, her recipes feel like movie trailers. Important scenes have clearly been edited out. Queenie, is my friend protecting family secrets, or have some people cooked a recipe so many times they no longer know what parts they skipped explaining? —Following Instructions, Apparently Incorrectly
Dear Following Instructions, Apparently Incorrectly,
Your friend belongs to a very special category of Caribbean cook. The ancestral cook. The one who learned by standing beside somebody's grandmother while measurements were communicated using phrases like: "A little bit." "Enough." "Until it look right." And the legendary: "You will know." These cooks often do not realize how much information exists only in their heads. After making a dish hundreds of times, certain steps become automatic. They no longer think of them as steps at all. To them, browning the onions first is as obvious as turning on the stove. Meanwhile, you are standing there faithfully following the written recipe like it is a legal document. Now, is there a chance your friend enjoys being the only person whose dish tastes exactly right? Possibly. Every family has at least one auntie protecting her culinary reputation like it is classified government information. But more often than not, the missing ingredient is not sabotage. It is familiarity. The recipe in her mind and the recipe she gave you are two completely different documents. The next time she offers a recipe, do not ask "What ingredients do I need?" Ask: "Tell me every single thing you do." Then prepare for a forty-minute explanation involving stories, childhood memories, and at least three techniques that somehow never made it onto the ingredient list. And if all else fails, accept this truth: Some recipes are inherited. Others are guarded. And a few are deliberately vague so nobody can ever beat the original. —Queenie
