How we Organize our Recipes

My 92-year-old grandmother passed away last year, and we are gradually working our way through her things and deciding what to keep any what to throw away. I will say that she never struck me as the type to be in the kitchen for hours on end preparing dinner for the family. She did successfully raise three boys, and they managed to be feed rather well, so it only seemed fitting that she had an insane number of recipes that she had collected through the years.

Many of the recipes go all the way back to the 1930’s, and some are even so faded that they are no longer legible. It was a sign of the times that this was how they ate, what they celebrated with, and the many foods that they shared with others in the community. This is how her recipe organization took place, and we will continue to use recipes from all of those cards.

There were many small, tiny cutouts from old magazines, clippings from old food boxes, and index cards that presumably had been copied from someone else in the community. Many of the note cards had the little label that states, From the Kitchen of _______________. They were all a product of their time.

Back in that time periods they didn’t have Pinterest, or the internet, or text messages that you could easily grab a recipe from. You made it. Then you made it again, and again, and again, until you got right or moved onto something else. That was the benefits of being in a small community of people. You wrote your favorite recipes down on little notecards and passed them around the community. You held onto that recipe for dear life, because if it got away from you, it was hell to get back.

We collected up all of the little recipe boxes, and clippings, and all the other handwritten cards and begin to slowly sift through them. This is how we organize our recipes into binders that included:

Main Dishes, Desserts, Breads, Dips, Salads, Appetizers.

We organized them down as far we possibly could so that we are able to find most anything that we needed. Part of this process was somewhat bitter-sweet. There were many other recipes from other family members that are no longer here. Having a little something from them that is handwritten is what I would call “preserving family history.” Many of the cards had been rolled into a typewriter, and included products that are no longer made. There is just something special about that time, or any other time in past where you were able to open a little window of time to see how they lived. It’s rather special to be able to organize the recipes so that we can continue using them and pass the down to the next generations.

Take the time…

I would encourage anyone that enjoys spending time in the kitchen to take a few small minutes here and there to write these things down. Make small little note cards for all of the recipes that you feed you family, or your children. Handwritten things down and knowing that you have a solid hard copy of a family favorite can be much more reassuring that throwing it up online. I think we can all agree that some things posted in the depths of the internet can east disappear or go missing at any time.

Happy Clipping!