Oh, you are so right!
I stood by my Portuguese MIL's side as she cooked, and wrote the recipe down: one handful of this, three shakes of that, and so on, so I know that it was exactly as she prepared them that day. When my SIL came to live with us for a couple of years, I would make something (we eat a lot of Portuguese food), and she would say, oh, my mother doesn't make like this! Like everyone who moves far away, her recipes have changed, and mine (the far away person) have stayed exactly the same. Mostly.