Kimberly Powell of About Genealogy offers “Creating a Family Cookbook”, a good guide to creating a cookbook that represents the history of flavors and meals in your family to pass down to your descendants and share with other family members:
A wonderful gift for family and friends, a family recipe book is a wonderful way to combine favorite family dishes with memories of treasured family moments and members. But how to turn those family culinary favorites into an actual family cookbook?
Start by sending a letter to your relatives, asking everyone to send back one or more of their ‘specialties’ by a particular date. In the letter, be sure to encourage the submission of recipes that have been passed down from earlier generations, along with a story or photo of the family member best known for the recipe. Ask for memories of times spent cooking and/or eating together, as well as photos of holiday and other family get-togethers.
For best results, and to cut down on your workload, include a sample recipe format for submissions to follow. For example, you can ask family members list the ingredients in order, together with the quantities. A fill-in-the-blank recipe form can be useful here, because it helps remind people not to leave out important information like the cooking temperature, and you can also add spaces to encourage submitters to include a brief story about the recipe’s creator or a favorite family memory. You may also want to ask family members to explain why they chose the particular recipe.
With all the good cooks in your family, why not ask them to share family recipes as well as stories of memorable meals with the rest of the family. It’s a gift that will give forever.
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