Picked up a stained community cookbook and it took me back to church potlucks

Nowadays everything's online, but flipping through those handwritten cards felt like holding a piece of history.

3 comments

3 Comments

My grandma's spaghetti sauce card has 3 stains I could never replicate, unlike @riley_ellis's aunt's perfect lemon bars. My cooking just adds NEW stains to the kitchen walls.

riley_ellis1mo ago

Oh man, I know exactly what you mean. My aunt's handwriting on her lemon bar recipe card always gets me. There's just something about the stains and notes that you can't get from a website.

ninal911mo ago

I saw a news story last year about a museum show on old community cookbooks. The person running it said the stains and handwritten notes were the best part because they proved people actually cooked from them. That's why holding those cards feels like a real link to the past, not just reading a recipe online.