In just about every family I know, there has occurred a similar situation, where a loved one has died and all of the recipes that person was responsible for, that became an integral part of that family's culture and traditions, were lost forever.
When a death occurs in a family, it is hard enough to deal with the loss of that person without adding the loss of family culture and tradition on top of it.
Sure Christmas will never be the same without Grandma, but now you don't even have her cookies to help keep her memory alive and feel like at least that part of her is still here.
I would like all moms, grandmas, and anyone else that has ever cooked any food for their family, from holiday dinners to Friday night pizza, to take a moment to think about what would happen to your recipes if anything ever happened to you. If you are a newly wed, and don't really have many yet, think about what could happen in the future when you have plenty.
Are all of your recipes written down and all in one place? Does your family know where to find them? What would happen if your house burned down, taking your paper copies of your recipes with it? Do you have any of Grandma's recipes that need to be protected so they can be handed down to future generations?
Consider publishing all your recipes to a blog, maybe including photos of the prepared items, or even better, photos of your family members enjoying them. Make sure every member of your family has the URL bookmarked.
You might want to create this recipe blog on a free service like Blogger, so there will be less risk of them being lost by being deleted by a hosting company, just in case something happens to you and the hosting bill doesn't get paid.
The bonus you will get for doing this, besides peace of mind, is that while you are still alive, all your recipes will be in one place, easy to share with family and friends, protected in case a fire or flood destroys your home, and you will be introducing others to creations that could possibly become part of their own family culture and traditions.
But more importantly, should anything happen to you, your family will still have that part of you kept alive. And it will be a big comfort to them to still be able to have that. It will be like you coming back every once in awhile to give them a big hug when they really need it most. All of the good memories that go along with the foods will be well preserved in their hearts & minds, when the taste is still on their tongues.
5 comments:
What a great idea! I should start one of these recipe blogs right away! My daughter is now grown and our family for many years consisted of my mother, my dad, myself and my daughter. After my father passed away,my mother lost all interest in cooking so I got all her cookbooks. She was the kind of cook that had to use the cookbook each and every time she made something, and follow the recipes to the letter. (Some of our favorite dishes were from her 1932 high school home ec textbook!)
My daughter is always calling and asking for the old recipes. This would solve her problems, definitely. Thanks for the awesome idea!
Definitely put them in a blog for your daughter!
Especially the favorites from that old textbook. That book has most likely been out of print for a very long time and if anything were to happen to it, you probably wouldn't be able to replace it. (or it would be very difficult and at great expense)
And don't worry about copyright. According to the US copyright law, individual recipies following the standard "list of ingredients & instructions" format are not protectable by copyright.
Don't copy any more than that and genericize the recipe so it doesn't use any specific brands of ingredients (the brand names are trademarked and you could get in trouble for using them).
And use your own photos of the food that you prepared yourself, instead of the ones given in the book. (the photos and illustrations in cookbooks are protected by copyright, even if the individual recipes aren't)
If you give an intro to each recipe with a short story or memory from your childhood, then to some extent the recipe would be able to be copyrighted by you...at least the story you have added to it will be, as well as your own photos. (that would qualify it as a creative literary & artistic work) The recipe itself still wouldn't be, though. Keep that in mind.
Something for you to read to get more info on recipes and copyright:
http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright-realworld/recipe-copyrighting.html
One of the grandmothers passed away in 1978. We are still trying to decipher some of the notebooks she left, written half in Polish, and half in English. And in many instances, within the same recipe ;-)
We still haven't quite figured out one of the pies she used to make because there are snippets of the recipe on one page, then another snippet on another page. We're coming close though. Maybe we'll do another test pie today!
Thanks for the ideas and warnings for posting my recipes. I have been thinking of this for years, just lacked the know how.
Great ideas and thanks for posting the tips about copyright. I had always thought that would be a problem and you just solved it.
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