A Taste of History

A Taste of History - A Visual & Tasteful Narrative of Our Stories is a personally sourced, made and printed  hardcover book I created throughout 2022. This book was created as a Christmas gift for my mother wherein I researched our family tree, traced our lineage, collected photographs dating back from the 1800's-present, and paired them with handwritten recipes that I typed out - which were from her mother's (my maternal grandmother's) recipe collection, and her own recipe collection. 

"The concept of this book is to preserve the history, heritage and memories of our loved ones. Friends and family push us to experience new things, new flavors, new cultures and cuisines while minding our roots and remembering where we came from. People and places (who we may have never had the chance to meet or had the opportunity to visit) can touch our lives while holding no physical form.

“The question “how do we preserve our heritage and memories?” is a timeless one. We attempt to encapsulate moments of those we love and the memories we hold dear in photographs, videos, letters, gifts and other physical attributes. Life and living are fleeting, while we grasp at what we can because it’s all we know.

We keep these items, but we fail to consider that keeping memories and moments alive infinitely can be done through food. Many important events, joyous or bleak, are centered around food. Many keep their wedding cake frozen for over ten years to take a small bite of on anniversaries, while you may never want to smell roasting marshmallows again because you toasted them over a gas flame, or the smell of the sandwiches from a certain deli make your stomach churn because they were served at a funeral that was particularly difficult.

Food is a vessel for love. Cooking is a timeless art, constantly being evoked for change. It is the centerpiece of moments in time that is often overlooked and in hand, forgotten. Additionally, what we make today may not reflect how it was originally intended to be made. Handwritten recipes being passed between friends was a love language that has almost stopped being done entirely. This book was made with the purpose of saving these moments forever, and honoring those who did so.

It is worth considering how important food is to cultures, families and tradition, while often being disregarded and overlooked. When you eat to stay alive, you must shop for the ingredients and budget your time. To create a dish, you must sit and cook the dish deliberately and with full attention. It becomes a tedious, tiring thing, and therefor a task, which no longer joyous.

So with this in mind, I hope to spark feeling. I hope to leave a mark. I hope that when this book is opened for a recipe, something will be evoked through photographs, in writing, and in message. I hope memories from the past are contained within this physical form, while being created in this present moment of time.

To those I’ve never had the chance to meet but who have contributed to this book in some way: thank you. Thank you for capturing memories, being the person behind the camera, the one writing down a recipe and recognizing moments worth keeping for generations.

To those who haven’t met me, yet have picked up this book to skim the pages or find a new recipe, thank you. I hope this inspires you and sparks joy. But most of all, I hope you enjoy.

​With love, Jocelyn."