Every year many heirloom recipes and cookbooks are lost. Due to lack of family interest, downsizing a home, or sadly, a family member’s death, these precious links to the past are being broken.
Yet heirloom recipes and cookbooks becoming increasingly valued and valuable. Collectors avidly search for them at estate sales and in old book stores and thrift shops.
But just what makes a basic everyday recipe become an heirloom recipe?
Test your recipes for heirloom status
I asked around the office, and we concluded that an heirloom recipe should have at least these five qualities:
Originality
An heirloom recipe most likely has an added proprietary ingredient or cooking technique that makes it a signature dish. An heirloom recipe has to be more than just a recipe my grandma clipped from a magazine.
Age
Typically more than one generation uses and enjoys an heirloom recipe. Family members love it so much that they pass it on to the next generation.
Taste
You may think it’s obvious but an heirloom recipe has to taste good! After all that’s what makes it stand the test of time.
Tradition
An heirloom recipe is part of the history of a special event, place, memory, or occasion. A pecan rum-raisin pie at Thanksgiving for example.
Personal
An heirloom recipe connects to one particular person in a family’s past – a patriarch or matriarch who was famous for making or enjoying a specific recipe.
In some ways, an heirloom recipe is like a genetic marker that can point a family in a unique personal direction.
Invisible role of heirloom recipes and cookbooks
Just as heirloom roses and other older plants in a garden often play an almost invisible role in a family’s history, heirloom recipes are subtle pointers to the rich history connecting family generations.
If you are lucky enough to own recipes from the past, cherish them and preserve them in a treasured family heirloom cookbook or recipe box. In a few years, they will become fascinating time capsules and a rich source of a family’s culture.
Happy Heirloom Cookbooking,
Erin
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