Family cookbooks

Cheesecake recipe from a family cookbook

Family cookbooks are books which contain a variety of recipes collected by specific families. Whilst these cookbooks are sometimes later published, the concept is of a commonplace book where useful recipes are retained and passed on to later generations.[1]

The recipes can be developed by the family or collated from other sources – and may be so familiar to the family that the origin is forgotten or not acknowledged.[1]

Family cookbooks as memory

Whilst the primary function of a family cookbook is as a scrapbook to collect recipes for various types of meals and cooking techniques, an important function is also to provide context and promote familial memory.[2]

Scholars use these kinds of collected manuscripts to give insights into family history in the era when they were written, such as about gender roles, household environments, and women's emancipation.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Mayyasi, Alex (2018). "The Dirty Secret of 'Secret Family Recipes'". Atlas Obscura: Gastro Obscura. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  2. ^ Sava, Eleonora (8 July 2021). "Family Cookbooks – Objects of Family Memory". Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory. 7 (1): 98–115. doi:10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.06. eISSN 2457-8827.
  3. ^ Lakhtikova, Anastasia (2017). "Emancipation and Domesticity: Decoding Personal Manuscript Cookbooks from the Soviet Union". Gastronomica. 17 (4): 111–126. doi:10.1525/gfc.2017.17.4.111. eISSN 1533-8622. ISSN 1529-3262.

See also