Brianne Egeto still smiles at the memory of her father’s proud approval of her first crack at cooking. She was nine years old and wanted to replicate her mom’s beloved tuna casserole.
Her parents indulged her kitchen creativity as she assembled the ingredients completely from memory and instinct, then served up her concoction — for breakfast.
As Egeto’s dad bit into his first forkful of the casserole, it crunched. Tuna casserole isn’t supposed to be crunchy, she thought. But her dad smiled and carried on, as if it was the best breakfast he’d ever tasted.
It’s memories like that Egeto is hoping to tap as the Port Moody Heritage Society gathers recipes and the stories connected to them for a special cookbook to celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary in 2019.
Egeto, a co-ordinator at the PoMo Station Museum, said food and memories are often intertwined, especially when it comes to family recipes — the special cobbler an aunt baked every Thanksgiving, the secret sauce prepared by dad to slather on ribs sizzling on the barbecue, the crunchy macaroni surprise in a child’s first tuna casserole.
Bringing those recipes together, and the stories that come with them. can create a kind of portrait of family life in a community, Egeto said. After all, everyone has to eat. But it’s the what, why, when and how of food that can spin a meal into a memory. And those memories are history.
“Food brings people together,” Egeto said, adding the heritage society wanted to embark upon a project that connected it with the community and vice versa. “Food captures a moment in our lives.”
With the help of a Metro Vancouver cultural grant, Egeto is hoping to collect 130 recipes and accompanying anecdotes before February. She would like to gather a variety that reflects the diversity of Port Moody’s population as well as ties to the past.
“I’m hoping not to get 100 shortbread recipes,” she said.
And once the book is published, Egeto hopes it will provide a lasting connection to the city’s heritage for new residents.
“Everyone has a piece of the community’s history,” she said. “Food has so many good memories, you never know what’s going to get dug up.”
• If you want to submit a recipe to the Port Moody museum cookbook project, call 604-939-1648 or email [email protected]. Each recipe should be accompanied by a story of life in the region that is under 300 words, as well as two to five family photos. The recipe book will also be the subject of discussion at a meeting hosted by the Vancouver Foundation as part of its On the Table project to celebrate its 75th anniversary. That event will be held Sept. 13 at 1 p.m., at the museum. To register, call 604-939-1647.
