Family Food

If you are an American, there are somethings that you can always talk about: the weather and food. You need to stay away from the usual politics, sports and etc. due to their controversial nature. Everyone has something to say about both the weather and food. But for family historians, food takes on an entirely different dimension. Let's call that "traditional food." 

I married into a family that has a multi-generational heritage of food. My wife can recall what was served at almost every significant family gathering for the last fifty years or so. My wife, my daughters, dautghters-in-law and other assorted relatives even have a food blog called, "Family Heritage Recipes."

As usual, this post has a lot to do with family history. As genealogists or family historians, we often find that people are not all that interested in talking about "genealogy" per se. What they are interested in is their family and even more, the foods they remember from family gatherings. Talking about their memories is a sure-fire way to get into the topic of saving those same memories on the FamilySearch.org Memories website. If they decide to share a recipe or two, they can make them more significant by telling the story about their origin and significance to the family. 

Some families come from recent immigrants and the foods and traditions of the "old country" are still preserved in the collective family memory. It is time to broaden our understanding of genealogy to include these valuable, traditional stories and memories.