Beloved family recipes

> It is up to us to preserve the secrets to those dishes passed down by our mother or grandmother for posterity

MY LATE mother was a pretty good cook. Whenever we had gatherings with extended family members, she would be the one roped in to cook most of the dishes.

Mother’s cooking was simple. She didn’t cook elaborate dishes which required a long list of ingredients.

Usually, it was only a few key ingredients but she knew the right amount of seasoning and condiments to get the food to taste good.

When I was in secondary school, I helped to cook when Mother was busy.

It was simple stuff: chicken stew with potatoes, stir-fried vegetables, and omelettes.

At that time, I didn’t have much interest in cooking; it was a chore I had to do as the eldest in the family.

After I got married and became a homemaker, I didn’t bother to learn her special dishes, such as steamed yam cake and glutinous rice dumplings.

I was more interested in baking cakes than making traditional fare such as these.

When Mother was in her 50s, it dawned on me that I had better learn her specialities while she was still able to teach me.

So one fine day leading up to the dumpling festival, she taught me how to make the glutinous rice dumplings.

I took a photo of the women in the kitchen that day: Grandma – who was still sprightly then – Mother, and Third Aunt. The image is forever imprinted in my mind.

Grandma now can hardly walk, Mother has passed on, and my Third Aunt has moved out of the neighbourhood.

It is a treasured memory of familial bonding in the sweltering afternoon heat.

And I learnt how to prepare glutinous rice dumplings, including the trickiest task of wrapping them up with bamboo leaves.

Dear readers, what about you? Do you know how to whip up your mother or grandmother’s special recipes?

If not, it’s high time that you get them to teach you, especially if they are getting on in years.

Do it while they are still able-bodied. If they are physically-challenged, it might not be possible for them to be pottering in the kitchen, but they could narrate the recipe to you.

With modern gadgets, it is easy to record and preserve them for posterity.

If your folks have handwritten recipes which you want to preserve, instead of typing them out, scan them into a computer and print them out onto cards.

If you use normal 70 or 80gsm paper, you could laminate them.

Cut them out into uniform sizes and place them in a box or a tin decorated with a photo of the cook.

Some of you may prefer to save the recipes electronically for ease of retrieval on your smartphone or iPad.