It’s unfortunate when family traditions die, especially when those traditions involve flavorful and delicious recipes that brought loved ones from previous generations together.
A lost family recipe may also be a disservice to foodies who are looking for their next culinary fix. This post will discuss how cookbook makers can preserve family recipes from previous generations for the purpose of their own book creation.
Make Digital Copies of Old Home & Family Recipes
Many of you have nostalgia inherited from your grandparents, which may be tucked away in a basement corner or in the attic somewhere. That may include a box of grandma’s old recipes written on cards. If it’s not her indelibly written recipe notes, you may have an old paperback cookbook that’s collecting dust with its pages turning yellow.
These are culinary goldmines you don’t want to lose!
The simple way to preserve these home and family recipes is to make digital copies of them. You can take pictures of them using your smartphone, tablet or a digital camera. Create folders on your computer or phone to label these recipes using apps such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
Record a Family Recipe on Video
We live in an era where almost nothing can escape the lens of a camera. Of course, there are downsides to this but one of the upsides is that we can preserve our most treasured experiences and ideas. That includes a family recipe.
Whether you’re capturing grandma’s wisdom or creating a new recipe from scratch, you can record the process from start to finish. That may include everything from sorting the ingredients to providing step-by-step instructions on how to prepare it. You can record these videos on your phone or a camera and edit them later, or you can live stream them if you prefer a more spontaneous feel.
What you do with the video afterwards is up to you. It can go up on a YouTube channel or you can save it on your devices and share it mainly with your closest friends and family members.
Preserve a Family Recipe Using Social Media
Maybe you’re a bit of a show-off when it comes to cooking, a stickler for humblebrags. If that’s you, then social media platforms can be a great way to keep home and family recipes preserved. Using social media to collect recipes can do double duty:
- It allows you to show off your dishes to the world
- Your pictures will serve as a digital catalog that will only disappear if you decide to take them down
One of the best platforms to use for this is Pinterest. You can create pins and pinboards that allow you to post family recipe collections that will be visible for others to see. Pinterest also happens to be a popular destination for other foodies who are looking for culinary inspiration, so you might get quite a few people who repin your creations.
You also can use Instagram to upload your recipes as well, as long as you have high-quality photos and caption-friendly descriptions.
Create a Homemade Recipe Book to Preserve Traditional Dishes
Now we’ve arrived at our favorite method of preserving a family recipe – the creation of a homemade recipe book. All the methods mentioned above are perfectly feasible ways of keeping home and family recipes alive, but the cookbook has some clear advantages.
For one, a cookbook allows you to keep multiple recipes in one “location” – the book itself. Additionally, the cookbook format lets you tie these recipes together with themes, designs, storytelling and other elements that create a more immersive experience.
And it’s never been easier to create a homemade recipe book! For example, Heritage Cookbook can do the heavy lifting of putting the cookbook together for you. All you need to do is:
- Sign-up for an account
- Choose your bookbinding and design
- Create your book by typing or cutting and pasting your recipes, photos and stories
- Confirm your order and wait for delivery
You don’t need to run off to a fancy publishing house to make it. We take care of the production and printing work for you!
Pass Home & Family Recipes Down to Future Generations
Many of us are eager to learn about our ancestry and preserve it. We may take DNA tests to unravel our ethnic origins or we may wear traditional garb to show our pride for where we’ve come from.
But preserving home and family recipes is just as important to maintain the family heritage. The dishes that have been passed down from your ancestors should stay with you and be saved for your kids and their kids.
Pride aside, preserving a family recipe can introduce you, your relatives and your friends to flavors and aromas you never knew could be so enjoyable. Why deprive your tastebuds of such culinary bliss because of a lost recipe? It would be a crime!
And if the next generation isn’t into printed books, why not get them an ebook version of your recipe collection? It’s a new way to speak to the next generation in a language they’re sure to understand!