. Preserving Family Recipes

[Karen]

Ok, so I've been kinda out of touch and just now catching up on reading posts. This one caught my eye fiercely. Several years ago, a man at our church had his wife walk out and leave him with a 13 yr old girl and a 11 yr ole boy, and none could cook. It was just a few weeks before Christmas. I bought a 49cent 3 ring notebook and had plenty of paper and ink for my printer. I made up a simple cook book of basics in easy understand wording. I covered everthing from a 1,2,3,4 cake and how to prepare the pan, to an easy pie crust. There were pages of how to use spices and on what,all with the info to always experiment, her taste could be different then other people. I explained how to use a peeler for potatoes and carrots and even discribed how to make cute roses out of cucumber peels. All toll there were around 125 pages of easy, tasty recipes. I even had pictures of a chef on every page. I added extra empty pages for her to put more recipes on, either hand written or cut out and taped in place.

At our Christmas program, my husband put a matched set of blue cookware under the tree with her daddy's name, and I handed her the wrapped notebook I had made. She, her father, and her brother sat on the pew and looked through what I had done. I didn't do it for thank yous or for anything in return, I did it because I always wished I had had something like that when I was teaching myself to cook. Instead I received hugs and tears,and a feeling I've seldom been blessed to feel. Several months later my hard headed daughter turned 18, and still refused to try and boil an egg, so I printed up another copy of my recipe book. She finally admitted to me (10 years later) that when she moved out she searched her stuff until she found her cookbook. Another part is my SIL heard about "my" book and asked for a copy on disk so she could print it for my niece. The only complaint was that I had done each page separatly, so you had to click on each page to print it, I've learned more about my computer and have since solved that problem. I've also added pure gold to "my" book, my grandmother died 7 years ago, my mother died 5 years ago. After my mom's death, I found my grandmothers cookbooks. Tucked very carefully in their pages were handwritten recipes, some I rub my tummy in memory of eating. I have been a lax woman and have done a great disservice to my new daughter-in-law. My son was married Jan 22nd, 3 weeks before he left for Iraq. I never even thought of making her a family cook book until I read your post. The good Lord must have been setting me up for that post, my husband was able to buy me ink cartridges and printer paper for the first time in 9 months to print her a cook book, and be able to enlarge some of their wedding pictures. So ladies, I tip my hat to you and the good Lord above for reminding me that there is something I can do for her while she waits for Alex to come home. Thank you.

[Cat]

 

God bless you for your generous spirit!

 

Make sure you put notes into the book, telling her which recipes are his favorites, and when you usually cooked them (for example... "This is a Thanksgiving favorite"). As she reads through it and tries the recipes, she'll be learning more about her dear husband's family.

 

Karen!!!

 

 

 

[Snowmom]

 

Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Karen.

 

I have so many hand written recipes from both my mom and old pine's mom, I should make up a book of just those recipes, I just haven't done it yet.

 

We did a family recipe book about 10 years ago, and we did put 'In Memory of' Mom, or someone else who had started the recipe. But, having a book of just one persons recipes would be great.

 

Again, thank you for sharing this with us.

 

 

 

[A mother a survivor]

What a great idea. I have been trying to get dh's family to submit recipes for a family cookbook (mine has one already) but I've only had a few people respond. It seems so hard to get participation. If only I can figure a way to motivate others!

[Crazy4Canning]

I love stuff like this.

 

I did a similar version a few years ago.

 

I painted a box and hand-wrote some recipe cards for my sister who was never much of a cook.

 

I didn't realize how much she used them until we moved in together and she INSISTED her box be seated next to mine on the kitchen shelf.

 

I love the photo idea. I should do something similar...

 

Blessings to you for sharing it with that family. You not only brought them the familiar, you reminded them that homemade food is still attainable even with mom gone.

 

[Karen]

To: A mother, a survivor and anyone else having a hard time getting family members to participate. It takes a little extra work but what I did was go to their house to "just visit" and over coffee or tea mentioned how much I loved the way they made a certain recipe could I please have it so I could try and make it just like they do. Flattery will get more returns everytime. Usually I came away with 3-4 recipes because a woman who likes to cook really likes to share. Good luck.

[ScrubbieLady]

I tried this with my sister-in-law who makes delicious vegetable soup. Except that I was visiting while she made soup. Which she had told me was just what she hand "in the frig". Well, that day, everything in the soup can directly from cans.

 

My Dad's late stepmother was a wonderful cook but one that thought you should not ask for or give a recipe to someone. There are a lot of things that she made that we all loved but no one knows how to make them. She wouldn't let anyone help her in the kitchen either so you didn't get the chance to watch her make it.

 

I want to do the family cookbook. It would help me find my recipes also. Of course, a lot of mine don't really have recipes with quantities. I just have a list of things(mostly in my mind) that I put in them. It would encourage me to really think about how I make things before I have a daughter-in-law that might want to make one of my son's favorites.

[AMarthaByHeart]

Last year, I went through my mom's, grandma's, and MIL recipes along with mine. It took more hours than I could imagine, but was one of the most rewarding things I have done. I put them all on the computer, printed them off, made notebooks of them to give to my sons and their wives for Christmas. What they did after receiving them was constantly looked at them "Remembering when....." My kids loved it better than any they had ever gotten. They still talk about it wanting to know how I am going to top it. I knew after our moms passed away that the recipes would be lost if I didn't try to preserve them. Now my brothers want copies. (I am holding out for bribes.) It did feel very gratifying to know that that was done. Now the grandkids are wanting copies. I think it will be a good wedding present or leaving home for the first time. I can just keep adding to it.

(Just remember to save it on a CD or zip drive. If your computer crashes them you will have a hard copy. I knew this but forgot. I remembered again the Hard way.)

[Momo]

It is great that your families appreciate this!