What was your favorite dish a parent or grandparent made when you were growing up?
Was it one of those that grandma just made from memory, and it was perfect every time? Or one that your dad made by following a recipe? Family recipes can be magical as they trigger memories of people and events in our lives. Family recipes can also bridge generations and be one piece of our family legacy. A few months ago, I had the honor and the privilege of preserving some my family recipes.
Sure, in this digital age there are a lot of ways to look up or find those long-forgotten recipes. Although I still have mine, a metal recipe box, from the 70’s covered in wildflowers, physical recipe boxes are almost a thing of the past. With the boxes, we’re also losing the tangible mementos of the handwritten recipes.
According to the National Archives, www.archives.gov, family recipes are some of the most treasured items passed down. But if often used the heat and humidity of a kitchen, plus the food that may get splattered or spilled, will ruin those handwritten recipes. Preserving those recipes, sometimes food stains and all, preserve our memories and are a way to honor our ancestors and legacy.
When I first started looking into the project, I found that there are several online cookbook companies. Unfortunately, almost all will take the recipe and transcribe it into a type text and you lose the handwriting. Preserving the handwritten recipe was the point of the whole project. So, I treated it as I was making a hard copy photo album, but instead of family photos, they were photos of family recipes.
I scanned each recipe treating them just as if they were photos. I made sure to capture any notes not part of the recipe itself. Most were about 5×8 inches while others were written on traditional recipe cards. Yet, others just written out on scraps of paper. The result is a treasury of recipes, memories and a piece of our family legacy.