Saving recipes
Some of the most precious things a family owns aren’t worth much at all. They’re the things that got used.
How a worn 1983 cookbook from Singapore became a gift for my sister and Mum’s friends, and why passing on recipes matters.
Mum’s copy of the ANZA Recipe Book 1983 is one of those. Stained cover, soft edges, a tired spine, and years of kitchen on every page. It was never meant to be fancy.
A cookbook from another life
I was born in Singapore and spent my first ten years there (a fantastic place to grow up, by the way). In the early 1980s, Mum was part of a community of Australian and New Zealand expats brought together by ANZA, the Australian and New Zealand Association. In 1983 its members put together a book of their own recipes, and Mum had a hand in it.
It’s a snapshot of that time. Aussie and Kiwi home cooking, made in tropical kitchens with whatever local ingredients were on hand and a fair bit of improvisation. Every recipe came from someone’s own kitchen, and plenty of the names belonged to people Mum knew.
When I went back in 2023, for the first time since 1989, it still felt like home. Thinking about Singapore always brings Mum to mind.
Getting it done in time
Mum’s copy was falling apart. We talked about it before she died, and I knew that once it was gone, it was gone for good… and that it meant something to more people than just me.
So I furiously scanned every page. Some needed cleaning up so you could actually read them. Others I left alone, because a few splashes and marks are part of the story.
It was painstaking, but it was also time with Mum. Every few pages there’d be a recipe I remembered her making, or a name I hadn’t heard in years.
Then the cover. The original had faded and stained badly, so I redrew the ANZA logo (kangaroo, kiwi and all) and the title lettering as close to the original as I could, and added the title to the spine so it sits properly on a shelf. The aim wasn’t to improve it, just to make it look the way it did when it was new.
Sharing it
I had a small run printed. One went to my older sister, who sadly wasn’t part of that time in our lives. The others went to two of Mum’s friends from Singapore, one of whom contributed recipes to the original all those years ago.
They were pretty excited to receive it, especially knowing Mum had a hand in it. For them it’s not just a cookbook. It’s a piece of a shared life, and a way of remembering her.
The recipe that lives in your head
This ties in with one of the cards in our One Day activity: Passing on a family recipe: writing down the recipe that lives in your head, measurements and all. Practical Life & Legacy
So many family recipes are never written down. They live in someone’s hands… a pinch of this, cook it until it looks right. When that person dies, the recipe can go with them.
You don’t need to scan and reprint a whole book (unless you want to). You might:
- Write down one recipe you make from memory, with real measurements
- Ask an older relative to cook with you while you take notes
- Photograph a handwritten recipe card before it fades
- Gather a few family recipes into a simple folder to share
What’s the recipe that lives in your head?
When I see the book now, I think of Mum in her prime, but also in her weakest hours. Mostly, I feel relief that in a brief moment of strength, we got to talk about recreating it before she died.