Wednesday, August 02, 2017

Treasure trove of recipes acquired

Managed to 'kidnap' Khalati Idah home last weekend, and she brought along her treasure trove of recipes in form of three thick handwritten notebooks with recipes collected from all over the world, over a period spanning more than fifty years.

What amazes me more is that each book is complete with index and review of the recipes she's tried. She even has accompaniment suggestions for some recipes! Gems thought long lost forever, those dishes my grandma Zaynab used to cook plus those by others in the extended family who are known to be great cooks are in the books too! You can't imagine how excited I am.

With her help I managed to transcribe about twenty long-wanted recipes that night, the others will be done slowly after this.

I wonder if this is a project that I'd undertake next. The books are all written in the way it was told to her, using old style measurements like kepoi, cupak, tahil and even those 20¢ of this or 10¢ of that (how to translate inflation?) and all in Jawi too, so it's time to brush up on my Jawi. Perhaps Mama would jump onto this project too.


Addendum : Unfortunately, this project will never take off. Apparently certain party are not happy that I wish to  immortalize the memories of our ancestors 😓😥😢