Photo: lotusutol/Flickr

Donna Kirk

Do you have a relative who cooks often? An aunt, grandfather or cousin whose dishes are the stuff of legend or the comfort you crave after a long week?

I bet lots of stories come to mind centered around your family’s recipes or dishes served during reunions, holidays and summer barbeques. Well, a new Boston-based business, Flavorful Memories, offers the chance for individuals to film their own one- or two-hour cooking show to gift to family members and friends for whatever occasion you like.

Flavorful Memories was created by Leslie Wittman, a resident of Bedford, MA. Leslie loves to connect with family and friends through shared memories centered on food. She developed her business thinking others might feel the same, and she wanted to provide the vehicle through which important recipes and culinary traditions could be preserved and shared. Through Flavorful Memories, Leslie also runs a blog where people can submit family stories related to food and or cooking.

Public Radio Kitchen was fascinated by this business idea on many fronts and contacted Leslie to hear more. Here’s what we learned…

In Leslie Wittman’s own words to Public Radio Kitchen:
My favorite part of developing a Flavorful Memories video is seeing a client’s excitement as they prepare a treasured recipe and listening to the story of what makes it an important part of their family’s life. People are so happy to be creating this gift and it’s fun for me to be a part of that. I love knowing that my clients are making something that their family and friends will cherish for years to come. And I get to witness the cooking of food that I have never seen, such as English Christmas pudding and South African bobotie.

I also enjoy the chance to peek into the varied family and cultural traditions that people have established over the years. Everyone does things a little differently, and it’s fascinating to hear the reasons traditions got started. For instance, every Thanksgiving morning for about 25 years one Newton woman has baked hundreds of popovers for her extended family. She gets up very early and does the baking before she gets dressed for the day. When we made her video, she was dressed in her bathrobe because that’s the way her daughters have always seen her doing making the popovers. Even though her daughters have witnessed this event all their lives, it was important for her to tell them the history behind it and how she was able to maintain continuity after her divorce. (There is a shortened version of this video on my website at www.flavorfulmemories.com/demo.htm, but it does not include the private stories that she wanted to share just with her daughters.)

Business is picking up rapidly as I continue to get the word out. People really are very attracted to the idea of preserving their family history and Flavorful Memories offers a unique way to do so. Along with doing business in the greater Boston area, I also have clients in the Philadelphia area and I am planning on developing the business nation-wide. The videos are used for so many reasons: gifts for weddings and for children going off to live on their own, a means to record a cultural recipe (like challah baking), birthday presents, family reunions and more. We also make videos to enhance fundraising cookbooks and can record cooking classes for churches, synagogues, and other institutions, as well as provide a great opportunity for cookbook authors to promote their books or develop a distinctive give-away for their fans.

One other thing I’d like to mention is that Flavorful Memories has a blog that can be accessed through our website at www.flavorfulmemories.com. There we are gathering and posting food memory stories from people throughout the country. It’s not only fun to read them but contributors have told me how much they have enjoyed thinking about and sharing those memories. We encourage the folks reading this article to submit their own stories and become part of the Flavorful Memories family.