No matter where you’re from, you likely have family recipes that have stood the test of time. Sadly though, as aunts and grandparents grow older, sometimes these recipes get lost or long forgotten. For Food Network Star, Kardea Brown, family recipes are everything. Brown was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Growing up in her grandmother’s kitchen, she learned to make traditional Gullah-Geechee meals as her ancestors did. Gullah-Geechie describes the African Americans of West African descent who have largely been able to preserve family recipes, cuisine, culture, and language through the years.
The “Delicious Miss Brown,” star has been able to preserve family recipes and share them with the world in ways many of us only dream of. So, for the rest of us, how do we ensure our traditional family recipes aren’t forgotten? How do we pass them on to our kids? Here are four ways to preserve family recipes through the years to ensure they stand the test of time.
Create a family cookbook
One of the best ways to preserve family recipes is to create a family cookbook. This can be done as formally or as casually as you like either with an e-book form or with a tangible, printed cookbook. An e-book version of your family cookbook may be the easiest, most economical, and fastest way to make a family cookbook. Google Docs is easy enough to use and there are cookbook templates available for free on Canva. For someone with a little bit of computer knowledge, creating a family cookbook shouldn’t be too difficult. It can come together fairly easily with these free online tools. If you want more in-depth, there are several ways to go about creating a family cookbook, this list from the Family Tree website can help get you started.
Document family recipes on video
One popular way to preserve family recipes is by creating YouTube videos. Many families over the years have recognized that once matriarch from the family passes, those secret family recipes go with them. Combat this unfortunate issue by encouraging your grandma’s and great-grandma’s to share their recipe secrets with the world. Everyone on YouTube loves a grandma so chances are, someone is looking for your exact recipe, and more than likely the channel will be popular, with several comments and subscribers.
An example of one such YouTube channel is Cooking with Clara, a sweet Italian grandmother who has since passed. She’s shared several of her recipes, including some of the meals she and her family would make during The Great Depression. Clara has a strong following, even years after her death, and her recipes and memory live on through the years. A family recipe YouTube channel is not only a great way to preserve family recipes, but it also serves as a way to keep the memories of loved ones alive, for years to come.
Start a blog highlighting popular family dishes
If you and your family prefer to be a little less front and center on video, consider taking your family recipes to a blog. With a recipe blog, you can easily preserve family recipes through the years. The added bonus is that you’ll be able to capture the stories behind the recipes. Include the entire family in creating the blog posts. They can add their thoughts and opinions on the recipes posted. Family members can share when they first had the recipe and what they like about it. They can even share recipe variations they’ve made for their own families, to appeal to a wider audience.
A family recipe blog is a good way to keep those passed down recipes alive in the family and simultaneously share them with the world. An added bonus is that if you have a tech-savvy family member, they can help build the site up. There are a few ways to monetize a blog including affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, or joining with an ad network. Of course, this is all optional, but definitely, an added bonus of starting a family recipe blog.
Involve kids in the cooking process at a young age
Foster a love of food and cooking from the start by involving the young children of the family in helping create family meals. Especially during the holidays when everyone is together, get grandma and the grandkids in the kitchen cooking, laughing, and sharing stories. (This also works well if you’re making YouTube recipe videos with the family.) Involving kids in the cooking process fosters that love of food and the memories of sharing these moments with the family will stick with them through the years.
Long gone are the days of Sunday dinners with the family. We’re just too busy or spread out across the country these days. However, one good thing that this global pandemic has done, is helped us find alternate ways of getting together. If you’re unable to have family meals together, consider a standing monthly Zoom family dinner where everyone gets online while in the kitchen, to create the same recipe together. This standing date could be done in conjunction with a family cookbook that’s distributed to everyone in e-book form. As the world changes and families grow older, finding new ways of connecting will be key, especially when we are looking to preserve family recipes through the years, so far apart from one another.
