Food and Family

This is one of my favorite pictures. I never got to meet my Great Grandma Hulda Niemi Altonen, but

from her pictures and stories passed down about her, I feel like I have met her.  I love this picture for 

the apron - yes,  I said the apron. Why you may ask, well, I love to cook.  And I LOVE family recipes that are passed down from generation to generation. Not only stories are good for genealogy, but I feel food is important part of who we are as well.  

Food gets people talking. When it's something good, people want to make it.  Now, because I didn't know my great grandma, I didn't get her direct recipes, but she passed down some Finnish food to her son and daughter who passed it down.  Pannukaku, which is a oven pancake is a favorite of ours!  I had an old craft book which had crafts and recipes.  I found a Finnish Cardamon Bread in it. I made it, and my Dad said it was just like his grandmas!  This is what I love!  Food reminds us of family.  

I know when we have family reunions with my Mom's side, all the cousins talk about a Christmas fruit salad that my Great Grandma Lauderback use to make.  So the recipe got shared to all! Great memories for them all.

Other family members enjoy special dinners.  My favorite meal on Christmas day is my Dad's Lasagna! Through the generations, we've all put our own spin on it, but it is great any way it's made!  Ofcourse this was passed down from the "old country" when great grandparents came from Italy.  

Since I love to cook, I make stuff that are my favorites, and hopefully in generations to come, my kids will make my desserts and my carnitas!  I make alot of cookies and hope they get made year to year.  Just as Great Grandma Moore always made banana bread with chocolate frosting! It was always SO yummy!! You could count on that every holiday!

One option to pass all the wonderful recipes you might have gathered is to put them in a genealogy cookbook.  There is a site called Createmycookbook, course there are many to pick from, but I found this one to be so easy to use and reasonable!  I uploaded genealogy photos that corresponded with who made the recipes or passed them down generation to generation.  Then I picked all the favorite recipes from all sides of the family.  When I was done, I had several printed, at a reasonable price, and gave them as gifts!  Everyone loved them!  So if you have a lot of recipes and want to make sure those "stories" get passed on, create a book and gift it to the next generation!