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Improv Food

The concept of a food memoir makes sense to me intuitively. The food we care most about is always on account of the memories associated with them. The story around that dish could have been in a home - a kitchen in that home, by a street-food vendor's stall or a restaurant table. The venue is less important than the story that unfolds there and the connection the person makes with the food. Interesting idea in this essay about performing the recipe instead of following it. The idea that something can be performed automatically lends itself to improvisation and and exercise of creative freedom. If the recipe calls for canned tomatoes surely fresh is just as good if not better. Why only fresh basil if there is also fresh cilantro on hand. What could some diced jalapeno peppers hurt even none were required by the recipe. The person performing it should have their stylistic signature on the performance. 

Not every actor that performs Othello performs it the same way and that is part of the joy - you watch the differences in the thespian's interpretation of the same character and the script. They are all performing the recipe - not following it. Reading this made me feel a whole lot better about my absolute inability to stick to any recipe - it is a significant effort to even follow it for the first time. As I read it and the concept of the dish forms in my head, I start to make mental substitutions already - the things I agree with, those that I don't and what I am indifferent to. 

They all play a role in how much I change as I go and what comes out the in the end. The things I do not experiment with is the dishes I learned from observing my grandmother. Those did not come with any recipes - I just helped her with prep in the kitchen and watched her make her magic. This is not something to meddle or trifle with because I am afraid it will compromise the integrity of the person she was as I knew her to be and want to always remember. 

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