Family cookbooks

Family cookbooks are books which contain a variety of recipes collected by specific families. Whilst these cookbooks are sometimes later published, the concept is of a commonplace book where useful recipes are retained and passed on to later generations.^[1]

The recipes can be developed by the family or collated from other sources – and may be so familiar to the family that the origin is forgotten or not acknowledged.^[1]

Family cookbooks as memory

Whilst the primary function of a family cookbook is as a scrapbook to collect recipes for various types of meals and cooking techniques, an important function is also to provide context and promote familial memory.^[2]

Scholars use these kinds of collected manuscripts to give insights into family history in the era when they were written, such as about gender roles, household environments, and women's emancipation.^[3]

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