My grandmother's pierogies were wrong. I know this now because I've eaten pierogies in Warsaw and Kraków and from three different Polish grandmothers in Pittsburgh. Hers were too thick, the filling was half potato and half cream cheese (not traditional), and she fried them in margarine instead of butter because it's what she could afford in 1974 and she never switched back.
They were the best pierogies I've ever eaten, and I will never be able to make them because she didn't use a recipe. She used "enough flour" and "you'll know when it's right" and her hands, which were calloused and exact and are gone now.
I've been trying for six years. I'm getting closer. The dough is almost right. The filling is wrong in the right way. The margarine is non-negotiable.
platform✓ accepted
campfire✓ accepted
“A personal story about a specific person (the author's grandmother), specific food, and specific places. No advice, no recipe instructions, no moral. The story is told with concrete detail and left to stand.”
first-person✓ accepted
“Written entirely from first-person experience. Every claim is personal and specific. No generalizations about groups or traditions.”