Inheritance :: the quiche dish

Inheritance :: possession by transmission from past generations

Chambers Concise Dictionary

I've not inherited many pieces of cooking equipment, so the few items I have mean a great deal to me.  Cooking equipment is essentially straightforward and practical - but it is also intensely emotional.

This is a ceramic quiche dish from the 1970s.  The decade in which a quiche appeared at every summer lunch party and Christening around the land.  This one was my mother's second best quiche dish and she passed it on to me about ten years ago when she and my father moved house.  There was a great deal of clutter busting done by my parents at that time.  My mother decided that she didn't need two ceramic quiche dishes in her life and passed this one on to me.

I love this dish.  Principally because it ties me to my childhood and all the delicious quiches that my mother cooked in it.  My mother cooked a great many quiches when I was small.  You can read about her very tasty tuna and tomato one here. 

I like to cook quiches too.  Often just with whatever vegetables and herbs I have languishing in the fridge, and need using up.  The one above, which I made earlier in the week, was made with leeks, courgettes and dill - and was a roaring success.  Quiches taste even better the day after (at room temperature though, not straight from the fridge) and make an energising lunch along with a big pile of lettuce leaves and a sharp, vinegary dressing.

I also love this dish because it is so of its era - brown and speckly like wholemeal bread, with very dated-looking illustrations in green and yellow and the classic 1970s recipe for Quiche Lorraine printed inside.  The dish will get passed on to O when I am no longer making quiches, and maybe someday she'll share with her children some of her favourite quiche recipes - including that tuna and tomato one which her Grandmother and Mother liked to make each summer.