The ingredients includes a story
By BILL DUNCAN
The View from Here
I have long felt that every recipe has a story behind it. I know my family’s "secret" barbecue sauce has a story and it has been shared, along with the recipe, by generations of Duncans. The sauce is an unusual and delicious mixture, but the story behind it is just as delicious.
My father had a large warehouse in Moultrie, Ga., across the street from a tobacco auction house. At each auction, a man named Boatwright would serve roast beef sandwiches with a special barbecue sauce. The story goes that he had a crush on my mother and when she complimented him on how good the barbecue sauce was, he gave her the recipe.
Only members of my family are allowed to know the ingredients and even while I am writing about the stories behind the recipes, I am not about to break my oath and print that recipe. What makes it more special is the copy of the recipe we have on file in my house is in my deceased mother’s handwriting.
I wrote a column several weeks ago and mentioned a letter I had received from Jo Ann Bender owner of the Lazy Bee Bed and Breakfast in Colville, Wash. This week in the mail, Jo Ann sent me all her secrets in her cookbook, "Favorites from the Lazy Bee," a virtual storybook of recipes. Each recipe includes a story that came before the ingredients. "The recipes in this cookbook," Jo Ann writes, "has a story that speaks to the magic of life at a small ranch in the forgotten corner of Washington State."
In fact, her ranch bed and breakfast is so far north, she shops for groceries in Canada because it is closer than a three hour drive to Spokane.
Some of the recipes are original, but Jo Ann admits most have been shared by friends, family and visitors to her bed and breakfast. Her crab and shrimp dip recipe says she got it from Ellen Dilly, who received a copy from Jean Edgerton, who got it from Virginia Whitehouse, who got it from a friend in Hawaii. "Good ones must have a travel history," Jo Ann writes, explaining that her friend, Judge Kathleen O’Conner claims that there are few original recipes.
In her lemon cake recipe, Jo Ann said she got a call from Dawn Owings asking her for the size of the pan she used in baking the cake. From that conversation, she learned that Dawn collects cookbooks and found the first version of Jo Ann’s cookbook, which had left out the 9 x 13 size of the pan needed to bake the recipe. Dawn also confessed she had bought the earlier edition for $1.99 from Goodwill. As a result of the phone conversation, Jo Ann has had the latest edition edited by Dawn’s discerning eye.
Jo Ann must believe in the old Swedish proverb, "Where there is a grandmother in the house, the children always have a friend. Since she often cooks and bakes with her grandchildren she has included them in her stories. For example, she tells about how her four-year-old granddaughter, Frances, cured Jo Ann’s persistent cough when she held up her little finger on the right hand as a magic wand and solemnly said: "I love you." She tells about baking French bread with her granddaughter, Anna, and adds each time she bakes the bread it "brings up memories of a little girl peeking under a moist towel to see if the bread has risen."
Despite the remoteness of her bed and breakfast, Jo Ann cites one story about making scones when she decided not only to bake the scones, but to hold high tea at the ranch. She had a time convincing her husband, Bud, but in the end he wore his black tie jacket, a top hat — and of course, jeans, to welcome the guests. The high tea was a sell out.
In the 21st century when prepared foods have all but eliminated the cook, it’s a pleasure to know that traditional recipes still have a story to tell.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470. To order Jo Ann’s unique cookbook, send a check for $16 to cover the book and postage to Lazy Bee at 3651 Deep Lake Boundary Rd., Colville, WA 99114)