At home in Washington, DC, Charlie McBride often makes his mother’s recipe for peach cobbler. As he pours the garnish over the fruit, he remembers how his mother, aunts and grandmother sat under a tree in Louisiana and told stories. while peeling the peaches to be able to them for the winter.

McBride loved the family recipe so much that when his mother, O’Neal Bogan Watson, died in 2005he had it engraved on his tombstone of the New Ebenezer cemetery, in Castor (Louisiana), a town of 230 inhabitants. His mother’s instructions were simple: bake the cake at 350 degrees “until done”.

“It’s a really good recipe,” says McBride, 78, a public policy consultant.

in cemeteries, from Alaska to Israel, families remember their loved ones with the most precious recipes of the deceased carved in stone. those dishes-mainly sweets– they are a way for family members to remember sweet moments and bring some joy to visitors who discover them among the most traditional monuments.

“We only have one chance to cause one last impressionsays Douglas Keister, photographer and author who has written several books on cemeteries, including “Stories in the Rock: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography” (Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography).

(For his own monument, Keister designs a bench with the inscription “The Keisters go here”.)

A phenomenon on TikTok

Headstone recipes are a relatively new phenomenon in the long history of cemetery iconography, he said. But they have found a fervent following online.

On her TikTok channel, @ghostlyarchive, Rosie Grant share the recipes of the tombstone which have received hundreds of thousands of visits from a loyal public fascinated by the intersection between cemeteries and cuisine.

“The cemeteries are an open-air museumsays Grant, 32, who lives in Washington DC

Recent advances in gravestone technology, such as lasers that can be engraved directly on the stone, made it easier to leave a more personalized memory, Keister said. Some include QR codes leading to memorial websites.

“We use cemetery memorials as an art form,” said Jonathan Modlich, owner of Modlich Monument Co. of Columbus, Ohio, and president of Monument Builders of North America. “Our job as monument builders is to capture a piece of history that can be told to future generations.”

Years before Martha’s death Kathryn Kirkham Andrews, her recipe for he cons (fudge) was added to the tombstone she would share with her husband, Wade Huff Andrews. The recipe drew so many onlookers to Logan City Cemetery in Utah that the area where its parcel was located has become known as “the section of the dark chocolate”.

She and her husband had read a book about funny epitaphs and decided to make her tombstone a reflection of her life. She wanted to commemorate her life with several images on the side of the tombstone, including that of the B-24 Liberator bomber which flown in World War II and that he named Salt Lake Katie in honor of his wife.

She chose the recipe he cons which often led to church or club meetings and other gatherings.

“When he did it he consthat was sure to get out the door, ”said his daughter, Janice Johnson, 75, of Syracuse, Utah.

When Wade Andrews died in 2000, the company they had hired to create the monument made a mistake by carving the recipe with too much vanilla. To a generation of visitors to the cemetery the he cons they probably had too much liquid left over until the mistake was corrected following Martha Andrews’ death in 2019.

For Richard Dawson, 71, of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, family vacation memories are best evoked by savoring the German biscuits that her mother, Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson, did. They were also a favorite in Richard Dawson’s office, but when a colleague asked for the recipe, her mother said she wouldn’t give it.

Dawson had the recipe engraved on his tombstone. “At one point, I thought he maybe he was sorry he cheated on her,” he said. “But I think you are happy with it. all the attention you have received the tombstone “.

“Cooking with the dead”

Allison C. Meier discovered Naomi Dawson’s recipe a few years ago while walking through Green-Wood Cemetery, in the New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, looking for unusual gravestones for a drive. The open book shape of her tombstone caught her attention and she, approaching, was surprised to see a recipe instead of a religious symbol.

The discovery prompted Meier to write a fanzine during the pandemic about the recipes from the tombstone he found. she titled it “Cooking with the dead”.

“Recipes are a really nice way to remember people,” said Meier, 37, who lives in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. “Follow in their footsteps and combine ingredients the same way they do.”

In Alaska

In Nome, Alaska, Bonnie June Johnson was known for her rigorous leadership of the City Motor Vehicle Division and for the sweetness of your oatmeal cookies unbaked, said his daughter, Julie Johnson Szczech, 52, of Fairbanks, Alaska.

The recipe was engraved in 2007 on Johnson’s gravestone in Nome City Cemetery, along with a carved image of a pot of fresh cream. (He’s collected dozens of them.) The recipe calls for shelf-stable ingredients, such as instant oatmeal and Swiss Miss cocoa, which are relatively easy to find in a state where such foods often aren’t.

The man who shoveled the snow from Johnson’s yard also did a “more than good job of getting those cookies,” his daughter said.

Even in Israel

The recipe for walnuts biscuits by Ida Kleinman, everyone’s favorite, it is registered in Hebrew on his headstone in the Rehovot cemetery (Israel). Kleinman, born in Romania and married to a Holocaust survivorstuff the dough with peanuts, strawberry jam and lokumsaid his son, Yossi Kleinman, 65, of Rehovot.

When he visits the tomb his parents share, he likes to sit and watch passersby. “I just want people to notice the stone,” he said, adding that he saw some people write the recipe.

One of the first examples of this kind was the tombstone that Maxine Kathleen Poppe Menster placed in 1994 in the community cemetery of Cascade (Iowa), with a recipe for german christmas cookies of his great-grandparents. When she was little, her parents hung cookies on the Christmas tree, said her daughter Jane Menster, 66, of Bernard, Iowa.

When she made cookies each December, Maxine Menster assigned the family various jobs in the kitchen: she rolled out the dough, her mother cooked the cookies, and her children decorated them with sprinkles.

“A cemetery doesn’t have to be a sad place,” her daughter said. “Can be a place of great memories. It can lead people to talk about the good memories instead of the last memory. “

c.2022 The New York Times Company

Translation: Elisa Carnelli

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