I
t all began with an asparagus and new potato
frittata. I’d announced on Instagram the day before
that in this new world we lived in – one where my
partner, Tom, worked from home – we would be
hosting daily #LockdownLunches together. The next
day at 1pm, as promised, I launched Instagram Live
and proceeded to cook the contents of my cupboards –
potatoes, eggs, asparagus, red onions – all the while
chatting along to my handful of viewers and
instructing Tom to chop this and that.
For the next month, lockdown lunches became part
of our new routine – a promise to ourselves that we’d
take an hour a day to stop what we were doing, then
cook and eat a good meal. Soon, though, what began
as throw-it-together dishes – a spicy gazpacho here, a
honeyed halloumi wrap there – shifted to the comfort
foods of my childhood – homemade beans on toast just
like Gran made them, buttery lemon risotto à la Mum
(and Nigella!). Perhaps it was because I started feeling
more at ease with our loyal, engaged audience,
but light-hearted bickering with Tom gave way to
storytelling about cherished food memories. Then, at
the end of week three, I rediscovered the battered red
book that sat quietly in my desk drawer.
Spicy beanpot with cheese crumble. Red rice and
wholefood salad with carrots, currants and parsley.Stuffedcourgetteswithwalnutsauce.Jenny’sgreen
vegetarian chilli.Thesearejusta fewoftherecipes
written in familiar hand on the yellow-edged pages
of my family’s recipe book. Started in the 1960s, it
was passed down to Mum in the Eighties, then back
up to Gran and Grandpa after she died in the
Noughties, and now it was mine.
Decades of personal food history lie within the
book’s pages – from the tuna fish mousse Mum would
make for her and Dad’s dinner parties in their first
home together, to the corned beef, onion and potato
panackelty Grandpa grew up eating in Sunderland.
Notes from Mum such as ‘Don’t forget the moisture in
the meat!!’ are inked into posterity, as are the various
food stains on the pages – sticky, splodgy reminders
that this book once lived, in various kitchens, alongside
those who no longer live.
Those lunches were the first time I’d properly looked
through that battered red book, let alone cooked from
it. It always felt a bit too much; too much of a souvenir
from the past, one where Mum and Gran and GrandpaAs the world retreated indoors earlier this
year, Emma Winterschladen found herself
cooking on camera. It started as a way to have
meaningful interaction with people beyond
her friends and family but soon turned into a
means of reconnecting with her late mum and
gran, through the recipes they once cookedDecades of personal food
history lie within the pages of our
battered red family cookbookCooking
became a
means of
comfort
S ff d tt ih l t J ’
Emma’s lockdown
lunches were
an Instagram hit84 deliciousmagazine.co.uk