Make the Most of Your Family Recipes and Traditions

Food is about more than just sustaining life. It’s about offering comfort, making memories, and creating traditions that last from one generation to the next. The recipes you use over and over again define your family’s cultural and culinary values. But how can you make sure those recipes get passed down? Below are a few ideas to help your family’s food traditions endure.

Make meals together.

The next generation can’t appreciate family recipes if they don’t have the skills to recreate them. Children usually love to cook, especially their favorite foods. Let young children help wash produce, spread condiments and sauces, or stir the batter for a batch of cookies. Older children can learn basic cooking techniques like how to make a sauce or sauté vegetables. Designate one night each week as “cooking school night,” and make it both a game and a way for you to spend meaningful time together as a family.

Create and keep traditions. 

Sure, it’s fun to try new recipes, but the reason certain dishes become traditions is that they’ve stood the test of time. Add some spice to a holiday meal by including one or two updated dishes, but don’t dismiss the old favorites. Grandma’s pecan pie is too good to reinvent.

Write a family recipe book. 

This is the time to hunt down classic recipes like Aunt June’s apple turnovers or Uncle Max’s secret barbecue sauce. Reach out to family members from far and wide, and ask them to email a favorite family recipe. Don’t forget to include the kids! Have them write down or recite the steps to making their favorite recipe and submit a hand-drawn picture or photo. Compile it all in a book, and then bind the book yourself or consider having a specialty service (like Simply Cookbooks) do the work for you

Pinterest it up.

Pinterest has changed the way we share recipes forever. One click and you can add favorite recipes with photos! Create a board just for favorite family recipes, and share the board with the people you love the most.

Plan a potluck recipe share.

Plan a potluck with your extended and immediate family, and ask everyone to bring a homemade family dish, along with recipe cards to hand out to loved ones. As you sample the food, enjoy reminiscing with relatives over the stories surrounding these dishes, and prepare to go home with a full stomach and a bevy of new recipes to try.

Try one of these ideas, and you’ll be well on your way to preserving and passing down your family’s delicious recipes – and memories – to the next generation.

Speaking of traditions, Musselman’s has a longstanding commitment to supporting healthy, happy families. One way we do this is by partnering with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) to raise awareness about breast cancer, the second leading cause of death in women (and moms) in the United States.

This year, our goal was to donate $65,000 to NBCF. You helped us reach our goal by looking for Musselman’s “pink-ribbon” packaged apple sauce and apple juice products in stores. Every time you purchased a “pink-ribbon” product, we made a donation to NBCF. Find out more here.