family history

When you set out to create your family cookbook, don't just focus on the family recipes. It's also about capturing the family stories and preserving the family memories. There are so many ways to weave stories about our family members into the family cookbook content.

Here are a few of the more obvious opportunities to capture and tell the family stories

• Biographies of family members
• If your family immigrated to America, how did they get here?
• Every family event offers a story (weddings, holidays, graduation, births, family reunions, family vacations, etc.)
• A family member's special skills and talents (sports, charity and philanthropy, dancing, photography, hobbies, careers, inventor, gardening, storytelling, etc.)

Family stories spring forth from some of these less obvious places

• Sentimental objects that remind you of a family member
• Letters from a family member can reveal a whole chapter of memories (romatic letters when Grandad was courting Grandmother)
• A family disagreement and the lessons learned (hopefully you can find some wisdom even in the family conflicts)
• A family member's military service and the pride and gratitude we hold for all that make this courageous contribution
• Life's embarassing moments (hopefully everyone is a good sport)

How many times have you heard the phrase  "from an old family recipe"? It tends to strike a powerful emotion. After all, we identify with great cooking that has stood the test of time. Particularly if it's a special dish or preparation that originates from the family kitchen several generations back, handed down over the years. If we can establish that we're cooking from an old family recipe it has to be authentic. The real deal for sure!

We certainly treasure our own family recipes that have been handed down from one generation to the next. We tend to honor home cooking as better, more wholesome food. Somehow, nothing else can quite measure up to the flavor and taste of that old family recipe.

And the old family recipe makes us feel connected to our family's prior generations. It gives us a sense of duration and permanence. Pretty good family endurance if you can say that you've been preparing a special dish in your family the same way for 150 years.

Sometimes an old family recipe is so good it becomes the basis for starting a company. A commercial food venture based on an old family recipe can leverage a powerful marketing message. For some, it may even come off as a ploy, trying to take advantage of our emotions. After all, if your family recipe is so good that my family will want to feast on your family's cooking, it must be some spectacular food. 

Every family has stories and memories worth preserving. And the family recipes make some of the best material for including in the family memoirs. Creating a family cookbook around the collection of family recipes is a wonderful way to share and safeguard the family recipes for future generations. When you think about it, many of our favorite family memories are associated with food.

All of us can identify with sentimental memories of our favorite dishes that mom prepared, funny food stories, food and cooking experiences that ended up in a disaster, the warmth and comfort of holiday meals and celebrations, and maybe even a frivolous food fight in the kitchen. The family cooking legacy provides the perfect central theme around which to write the family memoirs.

When you create the family cookbook, you can capture and write about the stories and memories behind all the great cooks in your family. A family cookbook that focuses on these memories and recipes is a beautiful way to preserve your family history. And create a terrific cookbook for all of your relatives in the process.

Unfortunately, far too often, we allow these recipes and stories to slip away as one generation passes to the next. Don't let this happen to your family. With just a little bit of effort, you can organize and capture your family history in the form of a family cookbook.And we'll make it easy for you to accomplish this worthwhile project at FamilyRecipeCentral.com