Creating a Culinary Family History
Family recipes can be a valuable way to capture family stories and pass on a delicious legacy to the next generation
I lifted the lid to stir my mom's chili simmering on the stove. The aroma of peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic carried me back to my childhood. And once again spurred the nagging question: Why doesn't my chili smell like this?

Now that my parents are in their 80s, it has become more urgent to answer this question. Far into the future, I want to be able to replicate those recipes and relive those memories.
Mom has a plastic recipe box with a slide-out drawer fixed to the underside of her kitchen cabinets. Nestled inside are recipes from their 65 years of marriage, passed down from previous generations, clipped from newspapers and honed from experience. They are priceless snapshots of the era.
Recipes from their 65 years of marriage, passed down from previous generations, clipped from newspapers and honed from experience.
When we were children, she and her friends met for a monthly girls' night that rotated between homes. They talked and laughed over Tom Collins, whiskey sours, coffee and appetizers like rumaki (water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and broiled) and mini-Reuben hors d'oeuvres (rye toasts covered with chopped bacon, cheese and onion and broiled). Desserts sometimes included a cake or homemade Danish.
We loved when it was Mom's turn to host because we got to enjoy some of these goodies before or after the gathering, although we were more likely to devour chips and French onion dip than the Reubens.
Growing up, I loved Mom's teriyaki kebabs, mini-cheesecakes and strawberry Bavarian. Many dishes had no recipe and are oh-so-hard to duplicate.
In the 60s, celebrity chefs like Julia Child and Graham Kerr were coming of age, and Mom liked to experiment with new recipes. Some dishes have faded into history because we want to eat healthier or our tastes have changed.
Glancing at some, like Graham Kerr's beef bourguignon, I can picture the five of us kids and my parents and grandmother gathered around the kitchen table eating the rich, savory stew. I can't help wondering how we kids reacted the first time she served it.
A Treasured Spiral Book
When I got married, my youngest sister gave me a spiral recipe book where she carefully copied a selection of Mom's recipes that withstood the test of time. Forty years later, the treasured book is in tatters, the pages held together with a rubber band. I (gingerly!) pull it out for old family favorites like Aunt Lucy's Ranch Beans for summer barbecues, Aunt Margaret's blueberry sheet cake for family reunions and Aunt Mary's goulash for weeknight dinners.
When I got married, my youngest sister gave me a spiral recipe book where she carefully copied a selection of Mom's recipes that withstood the test of time.
My late mother-in-law, who was older than my mother, created most meals from memory, based on what her mother did. But one year my sister-in-law gave us a color photocopy of her recipe book, a 29-cent black-and-white composition book where my mother-in-law painstakingly wrote dessert recipes from friends and family.
My sister-in-law slipped each photocopied page into its own clear plastic protector, with a copy of the marbled cover in the front sleeve.
A cloud of delectable memories floated from the pages, as I recognized many of her recipes: "Italian Cookies, Mom Style" and "Aunt Bessie's Pizzelles," which were Christmas favorites, and "Mom's Cornstarch Pudding," which she made when her kids were sick. Surprisingly, I found a few of the recipes I enjoyed from my relatives. Because our parents attended the same church, many of the recipes traveled in overlapping circles.
Some have only the most rudimentary instructions, like: "One box white cake mix, 2 cups blueberries, Cool Whip." I'm not quite sure how I would make that recipe, but it's intriguing.
For countless birthdays my mother-in-law made a chocolate cake with her signature fudgy frosting that I struggled to duplicate.
How to Pass Along Favorite Recipes
With a little digging, family recipes can be a valuable way to capture family stories and pass on a culinary legacy to the next generation.
Preserve Your Family Collection
I have binders with clear plastic page protectors containing recipes I've printed out, scribbled down over the phone or ripped from magazines. (That doesn't include the many recipes on my computer!) But no one would be able to make sense of them.
Pull out your best recipes and organize them in a binder, computer file or app. Focus on favorites that you prepare over and over or are associated with holidays, special celebrations and family events.
Consult Your Family Experts
Ask older relatives how to make old-style family dishes that may have been committed to memory or require special techniques. Better yet, ask for a demonstration and record a video or take notes. Every year before Christmas, my dad made Italian sausage from scratch, using a meat grinder that belonged to his mother. I fear the tradition will fade into the past unless one of us learns to make it.
Revel in the History
Old recipes remind me that Mom devoted a lot of time to preparing food — a contrast to today's five-ingredient, 20-minute dishes. At the same time, she cared for children, laundered and hung diapers to dry, cleaned, and canned and froze fresh fruit and vegetables.
Home cooks also stretched the dollar as far as they could, separating whole chickens into parts and incorporating economical ground beef into their meals.
As you browse old recipes, read between the lines. What can you learn about your family's history?
Continue Traditions
Every Christmas, my sister-in-law bakes an assortment of my mother-in-law's cookies and shares them with us. My husband relives Christmases past as he savors his mother's cucidati, fig-filled cookies drizzled with white icing and sprinkled with nonpareils.
One Christmas my sister and brother-in-law made a ravioli-like fried cookie that our paternal grandmother and parents made. They are filled with ground chocolate, chickpeas, orange peel, grape jelly and other ingredients. They were an express return to our childhood.
Dig through old family recipes and see what you can whip up.
Begin Now
Before memories and intentions fade further, begin gathering family recipes from the past and plan ways to share them. You and future generations will be grateful that you did.

Diane Donofrio Angelucci is a writer who covers health and lifestyle topics. She is passionate about food and family and looks forward to sharing treasured recipes with her three granddaughters. Read More