You Tube meets the ‘greatest generation’ of  grannies

It’s been almost 21/2 years since my grandmother’s death. Her influence in my world, particularly in the areas of entertaining and cooking, is immeasurable. What my grandmother inspired in me was an ardent ability to welcome people into my home, a passion to cook for friends and family,  the now rare practice of setting a lovely table (even for weeknight dining), and the ability to enjoy not just the tangerine fruit, but the sensual pleasure of peeling it in the first place. Lastly, though no less important, there are certain dishes my grandmother made that forever mark a sentimental place in my memory.

As a first‑generation American, my grandmother came from her impoverished, basement wine‑making, bread‑baking, gardening Italian family and grew old in an America of excess and product availability she couldn’t have  imagined as a child.

From her roots, and subsequent exposure to a fledgling global marketplace, she made oddly  Americanized versions of chop suey, lasagne, coq au vin, pepper pot, beef stroganoff and a tangy sweet dish she called orange chicken. When I was a child, and my grandparents lived 3,000 miles from my brother and me, my  grandparents made chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, packing then tenderly in boxes tied with string, and mailed them across the country to us.

It is these gestures, treats, thoughtfulness and the sensual  memories such as taste, texture and smell that accompany a grandmother’s cooking and leave indelible prints on our hearts. While our mothers (and bless the applicable fathers) give us sustenance day‑to‑day, it  may be stated that, in general, it is our grandmothers who have the time and motivation to “treat” us. 

It’s this type of reverence and love for good old grandmother that seems to have inspired the Web site:  What’s Cooking Grandma?  It’s technology our grandmothers never dreamed about but are nonetheless either victims or stars of the site devoted to grandmothers and their hallmark dishes. 

The Web site states:

“Grandmas of the world show you how: We want people across the world to record granny cooking in her kitchen ... What’s Cooking Grandma? is a project to create a cookbook of the grandmothers of  the world sharing their special recipes.”

The concept is both dear and genius: Film your grandmother in her kitchen as she cooks one of your favorite dishes. Edit, upload, and voila! You have documented a bit of family culinary history, and shared your grandmother’s talents with an audience to boot.

The site even offers tips for filming granny:

“Film grandma at work in her own kitchen. We like films that concentrate on the grandma as much as the food. Ask her to share the secrets and stories related to the cooking.”

The beauty of this site is that it  focuses more on grandma than the cooking. And one aspect of several of the films I viewed on the site is that the grannies are darned serious about the filming, while the filmmakers appear sentimental and adoring, as if attempting to capture their beloved’s essence more than document the cooking process.

Welcome grandmothers and grandchildren to the Internet, to You Tube, to another way that    technology links generations and allows us a glimpse not only into the kitchens of the grandmothers of the world, but to these exquisite  intergenerational relationships.

I just wish I had captured my own precious grandmother on film in her kitchen. For me, my memory will have to suffice.

Locate the Web site at humanbeans.net/whatscookinggrandma.