designer statement
I am lost and in pain.
I don’t know where my real home is.
The only thing I have are recipesthat I used to eat.
Moving away from the place that you grew up in or the place that you consider home leads to emotional pains and homesickness. We start missing the comfort zone that made us feel secure and safe. We miss the old life as we move on to a new one. The only portal to connect us to our real home is eating and cooking the recipes we ate there. The food that we used to eat creates an emotional value that connects us to home.
A lot of people around the world miss their home country. The place where they were born. The place that they grew up in. Just imagine when you leave your own safe space for a long time, you will probably miss it too. You start questioning where your real home is and your only wish and desire is to go back to that safe space. We start feeling slow as time passes by. We start feeling lost as our vision of how the future looks are being obscured. As we have to keep moving around the world, our only hope is a thin thread that connects us to our home through the power of food and recipes that we used to eat.
“A touch of…”
Encapsulates the recipes that we used to make, eat or buy. The recipes that we have engraved into our hearts are reminiscent of connections to home. We are lost, we overthink, and we suffer. Separating our new lives as individuals from the lives we had back home leads to homesickness and other emotional pains, but cooking the recipes that we used to eat can return us to our real homes, even if only for a little while.
cookbook
A book of recipes focused on a community. This cookbook is made out of stories from friends, family, and classmates expressing the emotional value of home. Can be represented either physically or mentally. A place, an object, or a community.
I would like to give special attention to each person and their recipe by representing them with the country they resonate with. There will be recipes that are meaningful to each person no matter the country they represent. Cooking the recipes that we used to eat or buy can return us to our real homes, even if only for a little while.
recipe CARDs
An extension to the main book, these recipe cards are mirrors of each recipe in the cookbook. These cards are used as a shopping list, a card to take to the market, and a card that can be placed in the kitchen. The cookbook should not be taken to the kitchen, instead, it stays on a bookshelf to be displayed.
On the back of each recipe card, has a “lovely reminder for when you feel homesick” which are small tips or advice from each participant of this cookbook. It tells you how they have been dealing with homesickness or losing the sense of what a real home feels like.
Each illustration seen in this cookbook has been illustrated by me. These are replicas of what real photography of the recipe will look like. As we travel away, the taste will never match the flavor from home.
Resembling a bento box I positioned each part to have its specific section. For example, the bigger compartment, the main dish, and thus the cookbook and the cards.
The spices here are a small touch for the people who are receiving this special box. Condiments that are hard to find here in the US, will be here.
A total of 6 spoons are another representation of home. Not by its form but by its meaning of having multiple spoons which I can share these recipes with.