Stirring Up Memories: What Cooking Taught Me About Time

Family recipes have a way of carrying more than instructions—they hold the quirks, shortcuts, and “heaping tablespoons” that define the people who made them. This post follows Jean’s attempt to recreate her mother’s cooking, from tapioca pudding once known as “fish eyes” to Depression‑era mock apple pie. Along the way, it becomes a reflection on memory, legacy, and the bittersweet moment when you realize you’re the last keeper of certain stories. It’s a journey that’s part kitchen experiment, part time travel, and part reminder that the flavors we miss most aren’t always about the food….AI

When I was growing up, my mom didn’t call foods by their proper names. “What’s for dinner?” my dad would ask, and she’d answer, “An old dead cow,” or “an old dead chicken.” One of my favorite desserts was “fish eyes pudding.” I don’t know how old I was when I finally learned those chewy, translucent little balls I loved were actually tapioca. We had it often because it was a good way to use up milk or eggs that were about to spoil. My mom was the queen of using leftovers. If she boiled potatoes on Tuesday, the extras became sliced and fried potatoes on Wednesday. Her soups were never the make the same twice because any left-over vegetables or starch went into the pot.

Mom didn’t follow recipes, which made it impossible to learn to cook from her. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it, even though I can hear my brother’s ghost laughing somewhere in the Great Unknown. As a teenager he took an interest in cooking and was often looking over Mom’s shoulder...or vise-visa as Jerry tried his hand. I don’t have to tell anyone who knew the two of us that he turned out to be the better cook while I turned out to be a five‑trick pony. I can make scrambled eggs, grill a steak, make chili, bake bread and order pizza.

When I was a teenager, Mom would warn me I’d never find a husband if I didn’t learn to cook. I’d tell her I planned to find one who was rich enough to take me out every night—or one who liked to cook, like my brother. It was hard for her to argue back when she herself had broken the norms of the ’50s by teaching a boy—gasp!—the secrets of marinating, roasting, simmering, sautéing and frying.

Circling back to tapioca: I loved the way Mom made it, and when I was living on my own I tried to recreate it, but it was never as rich as hers. One day I went to her house and asked her to make it while I watched. “You just follow the directions on the box!” she insisted. But the problem was, she didn’t. Her tablespoons were heaping, not leveled off like I’d learned to do in high‑school home‑ec. She added extra egg whites and more vanilla than the side‑panel recipe called for, and she didn’t even realize she was doing it.

Recently my youngest niece made a batch of chili sauce using Mom’s recipe and she gifted me some. The sight of those jars brought back such a nice memory of Mom and me standing side-by-side chopping red and green peppers and onions, and of the sweet aroma that filled the cottage as the chili sauce simmered on the stove. My husband’s favorite Christmas gift was a dozen jars of Mom’s chili sauce, a tradition that lasted between them for years. When she died and our stash came to an end, my chili was never the same because my “secret recipe” was simply a jar of her sauce, a pound of hamburger, a can of Bush's red kidney beans in mild chili sauce and a can of Hunt's basil, garlic and oregano diced tomatoes. And a tablespoon of sugar. One thing mom did drill into me is you always add a little sugar to anything with tomatoes in it, "to cut the acid." 

My niece’s chili sauce planted a seed: maybe I could replicate a few other family favorites using the box of stained and yellowed recipe cards written in Mom’s handwriting. And then serendipity stepped in. While I was looking through the recipes, one of my neighbors here in the independent living building stopped by with a half‑dozen peanut‑butter cookies that tasted exactly like Mom’s. She bakes often, but this was the first time she’d given any to me. The serendipity didn’t stop there. That same night our chef served barbecued spare ribs that almost matched Mom’s. So I checked the ribs off my list—too messy to clean up afterward, I remembered—and I moved making cookies to the bottom.

I also crossed off her baked beans, a favorite with any kid who tried them. Reading the ingredients, I can see why. No one today would use a pound of brown sugar for every pound of beans. Would they? I could feel the fat jumping onto my hips just reading the recipe. That narrowed my list to tapioca pudding and mock apple pie. If you’ve never heard of mock apple pie, it’s made with Ritz crackers instead of apples, and as I remember, its taste and texture fooled everyone. A Google search surprised me: this Depression‑era favorite is making the rounds on TikTok! I decided to make it sometime when I need a dish to pass.

So my legacy‑cooking experiment began with tapioca. Here’s a mini history lesson: tapioca originally came from Brazil, where Indigenous tribes harvested the tubers of a shrub called cassava. The extracted starch (the tapioca) became known worldwide, especially as “poor man’s food” during the Great Famine of 1876–78. Fast‑forward to the 2010s, when tapioca became internationally popular again as the key ingredient in bubble/boba tea. Tapioca is sweet and savory, and here in the U.S. it comes in pearls, flakes, and flour. The flour is gluten‑free and is used in baking as well as to thicken soups, sauces and gravies.

At the store, I chose a bag of instant tapioca (by mistake) for my adventure back in time. My first batch was a control batch, made from the recipe on the bag. The main difference from Mom’s recipe is in the modern version you no don't have to separate the eggs and, of course, she didn't use instant. I was pleasantly surprised, however, at how good it tasted. Next I went to Trader Joe’s and bought a bottle of pure vanilla and a bag of small pearls tapioca for my second batch, which I made following Mom’s “enhanced” recipe with its heaping measurements, extra eggs and vanilla. I loved it.

The only downer in my tapioca experiment is that since my brother passed away there is no one left who is old enough to remember my mom's and my arguments over me learning to cook. It’s a strange place to be in life, isn’t it. To realize there’s no one left who shares the memories of large chunks of your life. We can write about our memories. We can even tell them so many times that a loved one can fill in the details we leave out. But it’s not the same as having a sibling who speaks the shorthand of a shared childhood, who can laugh and cry over the same moments.

If you still have siblings… I’m just sayin’. Time doesn’t stand still. ©