Food and family meals are a key ingredient in any family history – just think about the memories remembered by a taste of Dad’s famous BBQ sauce or the mouth-warming aroma of Grandma’s freshly baked apple pie. Mmmh, delicious! Why not celebrate those unforgettable dishes, and the family traditions surrounding them, by creating a personalised recipe book for your family?

Ask all family members and old friends and neighbours to contribute their favourite recipes to your family recipe book, and then share it at a family gathering such as Christmas, Gran’s birthday, an anniversary…. or, make it a special wedding, graduation or leaving home gift. Here are some tips:

• Send requests for recipes and information about the book you are collating. Ask each donor for the memories they associate with each dish, eg. how they came by the recipe and when it was served. Set a deadline to encourage donors to get back to you.
• Add some fun to your recipe book by gathering extra information, and a photo of the donor, such as the culture it reflects or how it originated. Remember to translate old measurements in old family favourite.
• For an easy, cleanable recipe book, purchase a plastic coated folder and place each recipe inside a plastic sleeve, as drips and spots can be wiped off with a damp cloth.
• Another idea is to create the book using a digital photo-book service such as Snapfish, Shutterfly or MyCanvas. Depending on the size and type, books cost around $25.
• If you plan to make a large number of books, consider a self-publisher such as HeritageCookbook.com.
• Don’t forget to add a contents page to make recipe location easier and add a page from you, describing why you collated this book.

What is your favourite family recipe? Why does it hold such significance? Is it only made at certain time of the year? I’d love to hear your thoughts about this topic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 8:26 am and is filed under Annie's Heart to Heart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.