When schools close for the summer, or for the Christmas holidays, kids are often left with little to do. Here’s a project that can involve everyone in the family, from great-grandparents to the youngest children. Adults can help little ones, or they can turn the entire cookbook venture over to older children who have developed organizational skills.
Start with a Plan
First, decide what the cookbook will cover. Do you want to include one recipe from every family member, or do you want to limit it to a particular ethnicity? Do you want to use recipes from old family cookbooks? Are you willing to write to family members who don’t live locally and wait for their responses?
Interview Older Family Members
Ask for copies of favorite recipes, especially those handed down from earlier generations. (For family members who don’t live locally, call or send a letter explaining what you plan to do with the recipes.) Ask questions about the recipe – was the dish prepared for a holiday meal, for example, or was it always served with another dish? Is it a particular favorite, and if so, why? Questions like this can lead to stories about how the family prepared and ate food before the advent of boxed meals and fast food. Include those stories in the book.
If older family members aren’t available, use regional cookbooks to find new recipes to try. Check your local library or bookstore for cookbooks that describe the cuisine from countries where your ancestors lived. Regional American cookbooks, too, are good for finding dishes your ancestors may have eaten. Regional cookbooks often describe traditions surrounding certain dishes, along with the original name of the dish. Add this information to the family cookbook, too.
Collect Photos and Illustrations
Find or take photos of family members who provide recipes for the book, and pictures of the family cooking and eating the dishes in the book. These photos will make the book even more special in the years to come.
Stickers, rubber stamps, illustrations cut from magazines, and all sorts of small items can also be used to decorate the pages of the cookbook. Pictures of old-fashioned kitchen utensils can add a whimsical touch, and colorful maps can show where some of the recipes originated.
Design the Family Cookbook
When you have all the recipes and as many photos and illustrations as you like, it’s time to put the cookbook together. Cookbooks can be arranged by type or food, or by family groupings, or in whatever way you like. There could be a section for each set of grandparents and their children, for example, or simply a page for each person who provided a recipe. Make sure you have a plan that makes sense to you.
Creating the actual family cookbook can be done in a variety of ways. The simplest is probably to make a scrapbook with the originals and then photocopy as many copies as needed. Be sure to make an interesting cover page, and create a table of contents for the recipes.
You can also design the cookbook on a computer, printing the recipes in interesting fonts, and scanning in the photos. Either way, a copy shop can provide heavy stock for covers, along with a spiral or glued binding for a long-lasting book.
Distribute the Family Cookbook
Everyone who contributed a recipe should certainly be given a copy of the family cookbook, and plenty of others are likely to want copies, too. With pictures of all the family members, as well as their favorite recipes, the family heritage cookbook can become a unique heirloom to be handed down for generations.
For other family history projects that children and older relatives can work on together, see Fun Family History Projects for Children and Families, Teaching Tweens and Teens Genealogy and Family History Skills, and Make Your Own Custom Christmas Cards Using Old Photos and Images. Find further resources in Books and Websites for Kids Family History Activities.
Katharine Garstka - Katharine Garstka specializes in genealogical research and in historical and genealogical writing.
Join the Conversation