Narrative Visual Perspective in English Introduction
In the English Narrative Unit, we were challenged to create a lyrical essay about an experience or thing important to us. Lyrical essays are creative essays that break the introduction, three paragraphs, and conclusion mold of regular essays and instead focus on conveying a feeling through word that can’t be done through poetry or other means of writing.
Final Lyrical Essay – Żur
What specifically makes a dish so good you can’t get enough?
I don’t know, but my grandma does. She holds a secret, something I can’t quite grasp:
¾ liter lukewarm water
2 spoonfuls of whole grain wheat
2 spoonfuls of wheat bran
6 spoonfuls of various oat flakes
1 glass of water
1 secret
For starters, I’ve tried to make her soup more times than I can count, and can almost officially say it can’t be replicated.
Maybe it’s my grandma’s hands, so worn and steady from making this recipe for years, her movements automatic and precise.
Maybe it’s the fact I never can get a full recipe, quantities constituting of ‘just enough of this’ and ‘not too much of that’ while having to be crudely converted into spoonfuls for a written recipe that I can follow. What constitutes as a spoonful anyways? Flat? Heaping? I finish and just when I think I find the answer I remember the taste of my grandma’s traditional soup and realize the spoonful in my mouth is…
Lacking.
After watching my grandma make it for years and years I’ve come to a realization.
I can’t replicate my grandma’s soup because it is purely hers. I can’t go to the exact stores she goes to, pick out the exact grains she would, and can’t measure my soup with her hands. Her soup is hers in the very sense that only she can make it.
Over time, I hope I can make a recipe of my own, one so ingrained in my mind I don’t have to use measurements of any kind. I want to be like grandma, but be me as well.
And even if my soup doesn’t taste as good yet, I’m fine with that…
I’m doing this for me.
Lyrical Essay Production – Żur Animation
In addition to the original Lyrical Essay we wrote, we were challenged to create a Digital Media production focused around our topic. I chose to do a short looping animation of żurek soup steaming in a minimalistic and appealing style.
Progress photo
