James

Late fifties, American. Twenty-five years on the restaurant line, then at fifty he walked away to write down home cooking while people still remember it. He travels to those who cook from memory rather than from a book: preserving, pickling, family recipes, old techniques. He asks more than he tells, and he listens to the end. What set him off was a lapse of his own — at thirty-two he never wrote his grandmother's recipes down.