Memory and food. We all know they are entangled - both in our own experiences and in the "literature" which has burgeoned over the years. Memoirs and cookbooks, novels and nonfiction - all have both reinscribed and rediscovered the ways past, present and future, memory and history connect. And, how together they keep us both metaphorically alive and connected - and more than metaphorically.
A major contribution to this which is both a historic document and a legacy of its own is In Memory's Kitchen. Edited by Cara De Silva, translated by Bianca Steiner Brown, with a foreword by Michael Berenbaum, this book's subtitle says everything: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin. This is, indeed, a cookbook like no other.
First: what is Terezin? It was a town, a fortress and, in this reference, a concentration camp. Yes, wikipedia can illuminate the referent if you do not know. (Click here.) There is an extensive literature on this horrific history during the Shoah and this book is one aspect of that literature. It documents the survival tactic of some of the women imprisoned (and in many cases murdered) - through the use of memory and a focus on food even while starving. What survived was a copy of recipes - witness to both a demolished culture and, as or more importantly, to specific demolished lives. The survival of the manuscript itself is a testament to stubbornness - and the ways memory and food can do more than we might imagine in unimaginable - though very real and we must look directly at them - circumstances.
This is a painful read. And, it is a worthwhile read.
