Chicken Soup and Chopped Liver: Sharing Ashkenazic Jewish Recipes across Generations

This paper investigates how my grandmother’s recipes for chicken soup and chopped liver, two Ashkenazic Jewish staples, can be seen as part of a genre of writing in which women “creatively record and inscribe individual lives and situations” (Floyd and Forster 2003, 5). The vernacular details in my grandmother’s culinary instructions reveal how she channelled her self-expression and need for independence into her cooking. The paper explores the premise that the requesting and sharing of recipes is an act of trust between women and discusses what happens to family culinary ties and identity when that trust breaks down.