I just love this idea of people capturing their family history through the medium of a cookbook. So many stories within families happen around the dinner table and families bond around food. I know my Grandma’s sausage rolls and yummy desserts are famous in our family, as is my Nana’s trifle and my Mum’s pavlova. To create a cookbook with all the family recipes in it, plus stories about the people who’s recipes they are would be fantastic. There are so many stories you could put in a book like this. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole broadcast myself, but Stefani Twyford had it on her facebook fanpage, so that’s endorsement enough for me.
I’m always looking for any way to capture the stories of the people of this world. I love video as the medium for doing it, but if a cookbook gets people sharing and preserving their history, I’m all for it. I’d certainly love to do it for my family. Another thing on the to do list … Might make a lovely Christmas present for Gram or Nana – or actually, probably for the younger members of the family. Oh, my mind is going now. Enjoy listening to the link, and I hope that it gives you some “food for thought” – couldn’t help using that pun : )
RE-BROADCAST Hella Buchheim has developed a CD-Rom called A Plate Full of Memories that helps people create their own personalized family cookbooks.
Itsmylifedvds's Blog 
November 3, 2009 at 2:19 pm |
I did just this for Christmas this past season for our adult sons and families. I used an online available product that had cute recipe card style templates. Our family hails from Italy – everyone still there and our sons of course, love the traditional dishes they grew up with. THe particular program allowed me to print out the pages – I chose this over a printed and bound version for a couple of reasons other than cost (it is not cheap to print out full color pages!) I wanted the pages inside plastic archival sleeves – long term protection and easy clean up while cooking if something splatters! Also the cookbook is a work in progress and I plan to add many pages as time goes on. Each recipe is accompanied by photographs of someone in the family (inlcuding those who have passed on) making the dish – and there are family photos of everyone enjoying the dish! Naturally there are also closeups of each dish and in the case of more complicated recipes, a step by step photography session! Needless to say – this was one of the favorite gifts!!
November 4, 2009 at 2:51 pm |
I am currently working on a cookbook for my family. I come from Italy, and struggle to get my recipes the way I was used to, and worry about my children and future grandchildren not being able to pass the culinary traditions on once I am gone, so this cookbook is going to be my way of helping them remember.
It is taking me some time because I am not used to cook using measuring cups and spoons, I do “a little bit of this and a little bit of that”, I am trying to make do with the ingredients I find here and I am taking pictures every time I cook a different dish.
I am publishing my cookbook in a spiral bound format, and I already have many family and friends wanting a copy, so I hope to finish it by Christmas, it will be a nice surprise for them.
Most importantly, I will publish a copy for each of my boys, hoping that their future wives will be nice enough to try the recipes and serve Italian food to my grandchildren.
Here is my first tentative for the cover:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/p4SQteTJ30nHO9Tw6g24xw?feat=directlink
And one of the recipe pages
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CKtBFeQp1A1TP0j-Z_FTOw?feat=directlink