A Family History In Recipes

My Mom received a recipe box from my Great Grandmother, my Dad's Grandmother, a few years back. I'm pretty sure the box belonged to her grandmother though it's possible it was just her mother, but suffice to say, that means it's pretty darn old. 

Writing on the inside of the recipe box

I've yet to go through the box, but have been meaning to since we got it because a lot of the recipes are very old and ones that my Dad ate as a kid growing up visiting his grandparents. The age of the recipes means that a lot of them are deteriorating and I've wanted to transcribe them somehow before they're lost to age.

My Dad passing meant that this goal was all at once prioritized in my mind and put off because well, emotions. The time has finally come however, to start the process, and I figured that instead of letting the recipes sit, lonely in a text edit document on my computer that I would share them with the world. Food, after all, is meant to be shared, and what better way to honor the people I come from than to share the things they found important enough to save. 

Food, in my mind has always been a way to connect to the people around you and to the past. I'm one of those silly people who feels connected to the world when I bake. When my fingers are covered in flour while making biscuits, or I've got cake batter somehow in my hair I get the feeling of being connected to the millions of women who have done these things, made these foods, before me. Food has a culture, and a history, and it's my opinion that each family has it's own variation of that connected to it. So I figure what better way to use this blog that I started forever and a half ago and never managed to find exactly what I wanted to fill it with than to use it to connect with that? 

So here starts the chronicling of recipes. As a way to keep track of them, as a way to connect with my family and it's past, and in some weird way as a way to connect with my Dad, who was as much of a lover of food as any person could be. 

I'll be putting up the recipes, as well as pictures of each of them here on this blog. Sometimes I'll even be making them and sharing my thoughts on them. I'm sure some will be delicious, and some will seem weird as a lot of older recipes seem to us here in 2016, but they'll all be a tiny peek into the past.