Family bonds and sweet potato pie

WNYC News

Food has a way of bringing back memories. This holiday season WNYC'S Community Partnerships desk is asking resident in our area to share stories about recipes that are special to them. We talked with New York City resident Joe Irving. He works as a kitchen assistant at Hot Break Kitchen, a nonprofit dedicated to training women, immigrants, and people of color for jobs in the food industry.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

I am 42 years old. I am from New York City. My family is originally from a small town in Mississippi called Itta Bena. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about recipes and my family coming together is always my mom's famous sweet potato pie.

Making sweet potato pies was actually the first thing that I learned how to do growing up. That recipe brings everyone together. We have it at almost all of our family functions and everybody requested. It was passed down from my grandmother to my mom, and it is definitely a connection for a lot of my family members who are no longer here.

It takes me back to a place of innocence and joy where life was a little more simpler. The one thing that comes to my mind is always Christmas and my grandmother and my mom being in the kitchen early getting dinner started, and we smell the sweet smells of the potatoes and the pie crust being made and butter being melted and brown sugars and white sugars and eggs and condensed milk and all the things being set out on the counter.

It's an organic moment. It's a moment of nostalgia. My grandmother passed some years ago and it is a joy that, you know, we have those recipes. It's a legacy of who I am and, you know, my culture and where my family comes from in the Delta. So, whether I have aunts that are in Mississippi or cousins that are in California or in the Midwest or Chicago, we know that it's certain things that are going to be on our table that connects us.