Recently Athena and I began watching the National Geographic Series No Taste Like Home, available on Disney+ and hosted by Queer Eye Fab 5 foodie Antoni Porowski. Reminiscent of another of our favourite shows, Fake or Fortune, which traces the provenance of an art work in a quest to determine its authenticity and monetary value, NTLH similarly traces the provenance of a favourite family dish to reconnect each episode’s celebrity guest with a piece of their family history.

Each episode is a mini mystery with a series of culinary delights culminating in the discovery of a surprising origin story to a favourite family feast, and some long-forgotten family secrets connected to it. Guests include Awkwafina, Justin Theroux and Florence Pugh who trace back recipes to countries, regions and family members long left behind, with Antoni serving as their guide.

The show reminds the viewer that food is so much more than simple nutrition. Family recipes are a reminder of our communal spirit, of the importance of family, and of the value of slowing down to savour tradition in our modern, frenzied world. The show invites us to remember the ways family customs pass from one generation to the next—and traces the many stories each family meal carries within its flavours. Sometimes, over the course of a life, the stories behind a favourite dish fade into distant memory. Antoni helps his guests reconnect with those stories and reawaken their connection to the cultures and customs that have shaped them.

Inspired by the show’s premise, I dug up an old spiral bound recipe book my mother had assembled decades ago and gifted to my two older sisters and me. Not being much of a cook myself, I safely tucked it away among my many books where it has steadily collected dust, unopened, patiently waiting for someone to take a peek. With our recent move to our new condo, the moment seemed right to give it a good dusting and a new spot in our kitchen.

Located on our built-in kitchen shelf, it is perched next to other classic recipe books with titles like Help! My apartment has a kitchen and How to not die. I peeled open the plastic cover and paged my way to the Table of Contents. There, my mother’s handwriting separated dishes into categories such as Soups, Meat Dishes, Vegetable and Salad dishes, and Desserts. The recipes are written in my mother’s handwriting and in her mother tongue of Afrikaans, which adds a layer of challenge to their reading.

Some of the recipes instantaneously brought back memories of backyard family barbecues or Sunday afternoon brunches. Others I had long forgotten. In the salads section, I found a recipe for my father’s favourite potato salad sauce, and in the meat section, my mother’s curry chicken stirred my taste-buds. Memories flooded back of sunny Sunday afternoon lunches on our outdoor porch in Pretoria, with my dog Snoet sunbathing on the bricks. My mouth watered at the memory of meandering into my mother’s kitchen and smelling a large pot of beef tongue and raisins simmering on the stove top.

Food is about so much more than simple nutrition. Each dish carries with it precious moments of our collective past that become ever more valuable as the years pass and familiar faces fade from memory. For me, these recipes are bittersweet, serving as a reminder of where I come from but also of what I have left behind. And I have left behind so much. The memories are tinged with sadness for the family members no longer alive, and the land of my ancestors I abandoned as a young adult. The dishes scrawled in my mother’s recipe book represent a personal history. Like a cultural finger print, they are a monument to the fragility and endurance of my family.

One could say that we live on only as long as our memory persists among those who care about us. Family recipes are a mini rebellion against obsolescence. They carry with them the legacy of women and men whose life struggles and accomplishments have slipped from conscious awareness. Every recipe is a celebration of the many lives that led to mine, and the slow march of time from one generation to the next.

As I skim through my mother’s spiral bound notebook, I feel my heart expanding as I feel a connection that moves me beyond words; a connection to a collective of lives lived in a different time and place, with struggles and joys experienced long before I was ever born.

Some of the people whose hands touched these dishes, I met growing up, while some I will never meet or know. Their memories lurk in the flavours that likely morphed and changed as each generation took what came before and made it new again.

In one of the episodes of NTLH, Antoni traces his guest James Marsden’s childhood memory of his mother’s Texas chicken fried steak back to Germany and the schnitzel. This is emblematic of how culture carries on and changes, each generation reinventing parts of past traditions while adding their own particular stamp - flavours old and new combining in a dynamic dance across time.

Creativity prompt: Do you have favourite family recipe that holds special significance? How have you made it your own? Share it in the comments below!

Stefan is Tilted Windmills’ clinical counsellor, generative coach and a self-described wounded healer. If you’re seeking support, consider booking a free 30-minute consultation.