A look at generational inclinations
ChristyWrites just published another delightful article, Food Is Love, that got me thinking about how the love of food and cooking passes down through families. So I decided to take a peek at the kitchens in my family tree.
The farthest I can go back is my maternal grandparent’s kitchen in their apartment in the old town part of Heidelberg, Germany. It was actually my grandfather’s kitchen since he did most of the cooking. He had a very strong passion for cooking and I think I may have inherited that from him since no one else in my family tree had the same passion.
Opa, as we called him, only spoke German and vehemently refused to learn any English words. We American kids only spoke American but when Opa spoke he was very animated and loud with all manner of hand gestures accompanying every word. We usually got the gist of what he was saying.
One of the first things Opa would do in the morning was to make a pot of soup. It was, of course, made from scratch with only fresh ingredients — and always with copious amounts of fresh parsley. The pot of soup would simmer on the stove all morning so consequently his apartment would always smell of soup, even long after the soup had been consumed. I loved walking into my grandfather’s apartment because I was always immediately…
