TASTE AND TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTION
By Angela Whitlock and Jennifer McGillan, with Melissa Reynolds
As food and recipes move across borders, through generations, and between language and cultures, they are continually translated: ingredients are substituted, techniques are adapted, measurements are reinterpreted, and memories are reshaped by new places and circumstances. These transformations do not diminish a recipe’s significance. Instead, they reveal the ways food carries histories, identities, and relationships while responding to the practical realities of migration, community, and everyday life.
The articles collected in this special issue of The Recipes Project, “Taste and Translation,” explore translation in its many forms. Some examine the movement of recipes across languages and national boundaries, while others consider the transmission of culinary knowledge through families and communities or trace how dishes evolve in response to changing environments, available ingredients, and shifting cultural contexts. Together, they demonstrate that recipes are never static documents but living records whose meanings are continually negotiated through use, adaptation, and exchange.
The theme for this issue was inspired by an exhibition developed at Mississippi State University Libraries in 2025, called Recipes as Roots. The exhibit examined the role of recipes in preserving family histories, cultural traditions, and intergenerational memory. While the exhibition focused on the ways culinary knowledge is sustained within families – particularly through the often-overlooked labor of women – it also prompted broader questions about what happens when recipes travel beyond the households and communities that first gave them meaning.
How do recipes persist when they cross borders, generations, and languages?
What is preserved, what changes, and what new meanings emerge through adaptation?
The contributions gathered here offer diverse answers to those questions. Spanning multiple cultures, historical periods, and diasporic experiences, they reveal translation as an ongoing process of continuity and change. Whether transmitted through cookbooks, handwritten recipe books, oral tradition, migration, or communal practice, recipes serve not only as instructions for preparing food but also as vessels of memory, identity, and belonging. In tracing the many ways recipes are translated across time and space, this issue highlights the enduring capacity of food to connect people to one another while continually creating new cultural meanings.
The posts selected for this edition feature contributions from professional chefs, home cooks, archivists and librarians, food historians, educators, translators, and scholars working across a wide range of disciplines and institutions. Their posts will appear weekly, beginning August 4 and continuing every Tuesday through August 25.
In week one, we share the work of professional chefs whose experiences developing and perfecting recipes translated traditions and tastes across time and space. Daniel P. Bazzinoti of Johnson and Wales University writes about teaching young chefs the endangered craft of making blood sausage, while Sarita Bhagwat of Saffron and Savoir shares a family recipe that reimagines and reinvents French toast with Indian flair. Ozoz Sokoh of Kitchen Butterfly writes about learning to make suya, a popular street food in Nigeria, and the importance of learning cultural context for dishes, as well as what can get lost when a regional recipe goes national. Amber Sampson shares a recipe for Arizona Mesquite Cornbread, developed with the history of Irish immigration and Native Southwest foodways in mind.
In the following week, we turn toward the history and meaning of cookbooks that translate and communicate culinary traditions to new audiences. Jennifer Brannock of the University of Southern Mississippi examines the YWCA Cookery Book (1940), a cookbook that tried to bridge a cultural divide in British-occupied Lebanon, and by its author’s own account, failed, while Ana Ramirez Luhrs of Lafayette College explores Hands Across the Cooking Pot (1954), a cookbook which succeeds at cultural exchange along the Panama Canal. Tatyana Beck from the Gulf of Georgia Cannery writes about Fish Tales: Cannery Community Cooking, Past and Present (2026), a cookbook that showcases how food fostered cultural communication in cannery communities in British Columbia. Thei Zervaki of The Hungry Bookshelf writes about Santorini Tomato Fritters, their experience of being a translator, and the challenges of describing and interpreting dishes from one language and culture to another. Finally, Jolin Chan of Jolin from Scratch explores the legacy of Joyce Chen’s eponymous cookbook, and its important role in reaching America how to cook Chinese food.
On August 18, we focus on food and community, sharing posts that highlight how tastes emerge in particular communities with particular cultural characteristics. Anna Faherty and Rachel Church of the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine investigate two mysterious scrapbooks, one featuring recipes in English, the other, in French, and the woman who created them. Caitlin Arens of Pilot Light and Chris Cole of Dish Roulette Kitchen write about Humboldt Park, Chicago, through the lens of local foodways and Josean Irizarry’s smash jibarito. Mokoto Lezec and Kana Jenkins of the Gordon W. Prange Collection at the University of Maryland use a collection of menus to explore the impact of war, conflict, and post-war rebuilding on a beloved Japanese mayonnaise. Tamar Gonen Brown of Harvard’s Schlesinger Library explores the relationship between Jewish community, the making of gefilte fish, and her own family history. And finally, Elizabeth Nix and Christoper Fink of Ohio Wesleyan University examine cultural exchange within a diaspora via a discussion of Cuban sandwiches and fritas.
Finally, in our last week of posts, we examine how family recipes can translate experiences and tastes across generations. Janaea Eads writes about forging connections to her childhood by recreating the Sabudana Kichidi she ate in an orphanage in Pune, India. Stephanie Sorosiak explores organizing and translating the recipe cards belonging to her late grandmother, a Greek immigrant. Chong Ntxoo Moua of the Hmoob Stories Project writes about her father’s unique interpretation of a traditional Hmong dish of rice with water, and Jacquelyn D. Deppe of Seton Hall University explores the culinary history of the vanillakipfel, a classic Christmas cookie, and how her family’s recipe differs from published versions.
Banner Image: Collage of photos submitted by our contributors of recipes, cookbooks, and food.
IN THIS ISSUE
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AUG 4: CHEFS AS TRANSLATORS
From Tuscany to the Classroom: How Biroldo Continues to Evolve
By Daniel Bazzinotti
The first piece of biroldo (Tuscan blood sausage) that I tasted was handed to me by an 89-year-old butcher named Severino. Standing in a small family salumeria (a traditional Italian shop found in every neighborhood in Tuscany, specializing in cured meats) overlooking the ancient walls of Lucca, Tuscany, I watched as Severino chopped braised pork from the head and jowls of a local pig before sliding a small piece across the table. Smiling, he said in Italian, “This is my favorite part of the head. It makes our biroldo unique.” It was the tongue—rich, tender, and deeply flavorful from hours of slow braising.
Lost in Knowledge and Translation: The ‘nutty Case of Nigerian Suya and “Suya Spice”
By Ozoz Sokoh
Being away from home often leads to adaptations of methods and ingredients when translating, and recreating recipes. In this transnational game of “telephone,” a fair amount may be lost, especially where regional recipes have gone national. In Culinary heritage in Asia: National and regional identities, Reflections from the field, Stephanie Assmann suggests that safeguarding regional food products may consist of maintaining a “collective memory” of food as a positive self-identification and reaffirming diasporic group identity.
In geographies where cultural documentation is nascent, preservation of recipes and food products may be barely-constructed. Take the case of Nigerian suya, a popular street food composed of seasoned, grilled skewers of meat. While suya’s heritage is in the north of Nigeria where it is made by Hausa men, mallams, it has spread across the country via pastoral nomads. Today, suya is considered a national treasure, and every locale boasts a suya spot.
Grandma’s Savory French Toast
By Sarita Bhagwat
This is not a story about a French recipe; it is not a story that takes place even remotely near France. This is a story of an Indian grandmother who passed away 40 years ago, but whose culinary genius and creativity continues to live in our kitchen in Boston, Massachusetts, passed through from her daughter (my mother) to me, to my boys and to my (not so Indian) daughter-in-law!
My grandmother (aji as we called her) passed away when I was 15. But she was the one who first got me interested in cooking, and the idea of delivering love through food. She was tiny, barely five feet, fair skinned, slightly plump, but neat. She always wore ironed, tightly wrapped sarees, showing just a bit of milky white belly underneath the colorful sarees. Aji was an elementary school teacher, but her real passion was cooking.
Arizona Mesquite Cornbread: An Irish and Native American Connection
By Amber Sampson
Butter, corn, and mesquite: these are the ingredients that make up the recipe reflecting my family’s Irish immigration, culinary adaptations, and native food traditions in our Arizona home today. Specifically, the invention of this recipe was shaped by my culinary background: as a Chef living and working in Phoenix, Arizona, cornbread is a staple on many menus. Sweet from local honey, and zesty oranges, the base recipe for this cornbread was baked regularly to accompany bean stews in my childhood home.
AUG 11: COOKBOOKS & TRANSLATION
What were we eating? Salmon, seafood, and the diet of fishing and canning communities in British Columbia’s Salmonopolis
By Tatyana Beck
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the fishing and salmon canning industries on the West Coast of British Columbia (BC) were powered by a diverse workforce of Indigenous communities, European settlers, and international labourers primarily hailing from Japan and China. This multicultural working community was in turn powered by salmon.
The communities that fished the Fraser River and laboured for the expanding number of canneries along the BC coast were operating in the province at a time when Pacific salmon was particularly abundant, fresh, and accessible. The canneries along the Coast, which opened as early as the 1870s, were built at the mouth of the Fraser River, where they had access to a seemingly endless supply of fat, fully-grown salmon as the fish made their way from the ocean towards their freshwater spawning grounds each summer and autumn.
Curry, Casseroles and Cultural Exchange in Cold War Panama Canal Zone
By Ana Ramírez Luhrs
What do asopao de gallina (chicken stew), Johnny Mazetti, carimañolas, beef stroganoff, and Indian curry have in common? Collectively, these dishes reveal a cultural exchange between Panamanian and American women in Cold War–era Panama. These recipes are included in the bilingual cookbook, Hands Across the Cooking Pot, published in Panama in 1952. More than a collection of recipes, the cookbook provides a unique look into cultural exchange through food between middle- class Panamanian and American women in the Canal Zone during the Cold War.
The Y.W.C.A. Cookery Book: Community Building in Beirut
By Jennifer Brannock
On September 21, 1950, E. Gertrude Joly gave a talk about the women of Lebanon at the Royal Central Asian Society, a British society founded in 1901 focusing on the history and culture of Asia. In her speech, she described the diverse roles of women in the country, from educated Lebanese women advocating for equal rights (Lebanese women did get the right to vote in 1951) to village women who cared for their households while working in the homes of British families in Beirut. Even though Joly differentiates between the women of Lebanon, partially because of the audience at her talk, she celebrates the foodways of the women and culture, but with a caveat. “Arab cookery is very good, but you have to get used to it gradually – it is hard on Anglo-Saxon digestions until they have got used to it.”
Gelatin for Pig Rinds: Joyce Chen’s Translations of Chinese Home Cooking
By Jolin Chan
Joyce Chen’s path to becoming a chef, restaurateur, and author began in an unassuming setting: her children’s school bake sale. In 1957, bearing two dozen homemade egg rolls and a few dozen cookies, Chen dropped off her contributions to the Buckingham School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the introduction to her 1962 cookbook, Joyce Chen Cook Book, she remembers asking her daughter Helen:
Did you see my egg rolls there? She replied, No, I only saw your cookies there, not your egg rolls. I thought they did not like them so they had not put them up for sale. But on the same evening when I was shopping I met one of the mothers who was in charge of the food table. She asked me, Mrs. Chen, do you think you could make some more egg rolls, your egg rolls sold out in five minutes. What a surprise to me. They did like them. I made dozens more the same night for that school
Translating a Santorini specialty: Santorini Tomato Fritters (GREEK: Ντοματοκεφτέδες)
By Thei Zervaki
Related article: 7 Greek cheeses you should know
For this project, I selected the recipe for Santorini Tomato Fritters from the Greek cookbook «Του ανέμου και της αρμύρας» which literally means “Of the Wind and of the Salt.” However, I would translate the title Made with Wind and Salt. Its subtitle reads Products and Cooking Techniques of Cyclades Islands, which reflects the book’s focus on local ingredients and traditional culinary techniques. Published in 2015, «Του ανέμου και της αρμύρας» was co-authored by three established Greek food and wine writers, Nana Darioti, Thalia Tsichlakis, and Andreas N. Androulidakis, and was supported by several organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce of the Cyclades and the European Regional Development Fund. Each chapter is dedicated to a different island, combining geographical and culinary background with one to three recipes. It is illustrated with photographs of both landscapes and finished dishes and contains fifty recipes.
AUG 18: TRANSLATION IN COMMUNITY
Smashed Between the Plantain: Connecting to the Past and Future
By Chris Cole and Caitlin Arens
Few foods are more deeply connected to Chicago’s Puerto Rican community than the jibarito, a steak sandwich layered with cheese, garlic aioli, lettuce, tomato, and onions between two flattened and fried green plantains. Born in Humboldt Park, the sandwich has become more than a neighborhood staple. It is a reminder that recipes evolve as communities move, adapt, and redefine tradition. The jibarito was developed by Juan C. Figueroa as an homage to a sandwich he read about in a Puerto Rican newspaper while dreaming up ideas for growing the business at his restaurant, Borinquen, that uses plantains as bread. While Borinquen no longer operates in Humboldt Park, the legacy lives on in the ways it has been adapted since. Nearly three decades later, that legacy continues not through imitation, but through reinterpretation as a new generation of chefs build on the sandwich’s history while bringing their own cultural experiences.
Flavors in Exile: The Cuban and the Frita
By Christopher Fink and Elizabeth Nix
Two strangers approach on the streets of Hialeah, Florida and nod in recognition of a shared and complex past. Their birth story differs, but each represents a shifting culture, culinary traditions, and resilience during exile. One has grown very popular and their fame is so pervasive that, although not originating there, they are recognized in La Patria, the fatherland. The other, born on the streets of Havana, is less well-known and no longer recognized in La Patria, but has won the hearts of locals across south Florida. The story above is not about two people, but rather two foods – the Cuban Sandwich and the Frita. These foods illustrate the complex migratory patterns and relationship between the United States (U.S.) and Cuba, which is expertly described by Dr. Ada Ferrer in the book Cuba: An American History, a highly recommended book that highlights the forces that have shaped the story of these two foods.
Tournez / Turn Page: Language, Memory, and Two Franco-American Recipe Scrapbooks
By Rachel E. Church and Anna Faherty
Among the artifacts preserved in the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine is a curious set of two meticulously prepared recipe scrapbooks. These books contain both Franco-American and other popular recipes from the time period in which they were created. However, what makes these books particularly interesting is that one is entirely of French language magazine clippings and one of English language. They appear clean and unused and the creator rarely wrote in the margins except to tell us when to turn the page over – in English for the English book, and in French for the French book.
Carping about Gefilte Fish: Love, Labor and the Evolution of a Demanding Recipe in the Jewish-American Kitchen
By Tamar Gonen Brown
Although gefilte fish plays a central role in Jewish culinary tradition, many American Jews have grown up unfamiliar with the homemade recipe. Traditionally made with de-boned carp, ground and mixed with matzoh meal or breadcrumbs, onions, eggs and seasoning, then poached in a broth made from the fish bones, gefilte fish was once an intricate and labor-intensive dish that offered Jewish home cooks an opportunity to display their virtuosity. Beginning in the 1950s, it was marketed to American Jewish homemakers as a convenient jarred product, and today many who know the dish are familiar with it only as a packaged food. Asya Vaisman Shulman writes in Pakn Treger, or “Book Peddler,” the magazine of the Yiddish Book Center, that “access to variety of prepared foods and a growing disengagement from tradition caused a rapid decline in gefilte fish preparation in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century.”
I Love Kewpie ♥️ Some Reflections on Mayonnaise in Postwar Japan
By Motoko Lezec and Kana Jenkins
At the University of Maryland’s Gordon W. Prange Collection, we are lucky enough to hold a set of souvenir dining menus served aboard trans-Pacific liners before World War II. These came to us as part of recently acquired additional materials from the Japan-America Student Conference (JASC), a non-profit educational and cultural exchange program for college students from the United States and Japan. With the beautifully designed menus as a starting point we will introduce several culinary publications from Japan’s Occupation era (1945-1952) focusing on one unlikely condiment: mayonnaise.
AUG 25: FAMILY & TRANSLATION
Rice with Soda
By Chong Ntxoo Moua
When I was growing up, every now and then, there would be a bowl of red tinged rice in the refrigerator. These were the leftovers of my father’s rice with red soda or punch. He was the only family member I recall who ate rice with soda. Rice is an integral part of Hmong life–from birth to being an ancestor in the spiritual realm. One of the first solid foods Hmong mothers introduce to their babies is rice. The soft, puffy pillows of cooked rice and its gentle aroma teach babies that rice is love and rice is home. For families like mine, who practice Hmong animist beliefs, rice is often offered in ritual ceremonies to ancestors.
Between Kitchens: My Yiayia’s Finikia and the Culture We Inherit
By Stephanie Sorosiak
A few weeks ago I sat with my mom amongst a pile of oil-stained pieces of paper. They were from my grandmother’s recipe box, and to our dismay, mostly written illegibly. My yiayia referred to these when making her most popular dishes, but to us it was a jumbled mix of misspelled and slang words. As we struggled to decipher one thing from another, I realized that my yiayia didn’t document these recipes for anyone else. This cooking space was entirely hers.
Chocolatey Kichidi: An Adoptee’s Portal to the Past
By Janaea Eads
If you are what you eat, I am dhal and rice and fried chicken with gravy. Adopted by the daughter of Punjabi immigrant parents and the born-and-raised-in-Kansas son of a World War II veteran, I developed a complex American identity with a love of Indian food and dancing to Bollywood songs, along with mucking out horse stalls and driving a pick-up truck. Because of the many transitions in my life, my memories of life preadoption are hazy. At three years old, I was abandoned at a train station in Pune, India, and brought to a nearby orphanage where I lived for two years. After meeting my adoptive parents in 1999, I moved from a flat in India to Maryland after an arduous five-month journey to complete the adoption process. Since moving to Maryland, I’ve gone to college on Long Island, moved to Kansas, taught high schoolers on a Pacific island, moved to Massachusetts, got married, and bought a house in Massachusetts, where I now live with my husband and dog. Every step of the way, I needed to reinvent myself, building on an unknown foundation.
Marton Family Crescents: Adapting Vanillekipferls with Walnuts
By Jacquelyn D. Deppe (Marton)
Vanille-Kipferl ohne Ei, found in Die Süddeutsche Küche by Edle von Katharina Prato Scheiger (1903), is one of the earliest published mentions of vanillekipferls – small, crescent-shaped biscuits or cookies, traditionally made with almonds and vanilla sugar during Christmas time. Although these cookies originated in Vienna, Austria, they have since become a part of German, Swiss, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian culture.
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