Why Organizing Family Recipes Matters and Why Your Secret Family Recipe Tastes Off
- Jen Vondenbrink
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
How relying on memory ruins your best meal memories and what you can do to preserve family recipes
Have you ever tried to recreate a dish you loved as a child, like your Mom’s tuna casserole, or your Grandmother’s “Sunday gravy” (tomato sauce), only to end up with a faint whisper of what the original dish tasted like? You know the main ingredients, but that magic 'something' is missing.
You didn't lose your cooking skill—you lost the map. Something my sister and I learned the hard way is that organizing family recipes is the only sure way to protect those culinary memories before they slip away.
My sister and I cook A LOT, so we are pretty good at finding missing ingredients. However, there is one recipe that has eluded us too: my Mom’s Christmas Meatballs
My Mom was an amazing cook. When she died, we inherited her cookbooks. We oohed and ahhhd over recipes from the past, and then my sister said, “We should make Mom’s meatballs this Christmas.” The search began.
We went through every notebook, cookbook, and scrap of paper we could find over months. Every once in a while, one of us would text the other with a newfound treasure trove of unread notes from my Mom, excited because, “It could be here.”
The result…nothing. She never wrote down her recipe. Although we have the memory, we can’t share it or pass it on.
Trying to recreate a recipe from a past experience is tricky because you remember what stands out for you, which may not include a tiny pinch of spice that is barely detectable, but made the dish, or in this case, meatballs perfect.
I’m sure my Mom didn’t think it was important to write down the recipe because she “just knew” what was in them. My sister and I didn’t think it was important to ask because she would always just bring the meatballs.
Let’s talk about why you should write down your recipes even if you don’t think it is important today. We’ll cover how your memory is a terrible chef, the fact that chefs always start with written recipes, and how having a recipe system will keep you organized.
Your Memory is a Terrible Chef
As powerful as our brains are, they aren’t the best at holding onto details. If in the moment, you don’t take the care to capture the specific steps, ingredients, etc., and think you will remember, you won’t.
Let’s take cooking a Thanksgiving dinner.
The Thanksgiving panic
For years, maybe decades, you’ve watched others make the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole. You bring the rolls.
There’s nothing wrong with this picture, until it is now your turn to cook Thanksgiving dinner.
Back in 2020, many of my friends and family were in this predicament because of COVID. They never cooked Thanksgiving dinner and didn’t know where to start.
Although I wasn’t the primary cook for Thanksgiving (again, thanks Mom and now my sister), I sat down and wrote out the recipes that had been in our heads for years. I put them together in my first mini cookbook/guide, Thanksgiving Recipes From Home.
Then I took it a step further. I realized what everyone was panicking about besides just the recipes was how to put it all together so everything came to the table cooked. So I added a timeline, shopping lists, and other tips to help them.
At first it was only 13 pages. Today it is over 20, as I refine and add to my tips. Today it has helped so many people get through what can be a stressful day much easier. The key - writing things down.
Even top chefs need cheat sheets
Do you ever wonder on cooking shows why chefs aren’t looking at recipes?
The reality is that they may have cheat sheets off to the side, but in many cases they are like Mom. They have cooked a dish so many times that they know it by heart.
What happens when they have a new chef in the kitchen? They pull out their old notes, have recipes or quantities posted above stations, or have to guide the new chefs through a recipe.
Michael Rhulman tells the story of Chef Michael Symon in his book Soul of a Chef, where a younger chef comes into the office and says to Chef Symon, “Give me the vinaigrette, bro,” and Michael repeats the recipe off the top of his head. The younger chef writes it down. When the chef returned and had Michael taste it, he recommended that the younger chef add a bit more oil to balance the flavor and thicken up the vinaigrette.
As Rhulman says, the younger chef just “stared dumbly at the bowl.” He didn’t know how much oil to add. He quickly turned to leave, saying, “I’ll figure it out,” and Symon shouted after him, 6-8 ounces should do it. Even though the younger chef wrote it down, he didn’t have the experience to fix it. Hopefully when he got back to his station, he jotted down the note for the future.
Here’s another example. Have you ever noticed that some quarterbacks have a thing on their wrist that they refer to in a huddle?
This is called a “wrist coach” or “play-call wristband.” Even though these athletes have run these plays a hundred times, in the heat of the moment, it is hard to recall the exact play that will help them win the game.
Using these notes and guidance from the coaches, the quarterback can quickly focus the team on the next play without missing a beat.
Key Takeaway: Professional cooks and athletes don't skip written systems because they are experienced; they gain experience because they rely on written systems.
Why Recipes Don’t Kill Creativity (they fuel it)
My aunt loves to cook as well and is a fantastic cook. It must be in the genes.
She doesn’t write things down because she thinks it hampers her creativity. I get that. Sometimes you just need to go with the flow. However, she admits it is hard for her to recreate a dish, and when she tries it, it never comes out the same as before. Sound familiar?
The Torte lesson: Basic rules give you confidence
A couple of summers ago, I visited, and we made one of our family’s favorite dishes, Torte. Years ago, I wrote down this recipe and use it as my base for the dish. She was amazed how simple it was because she’d tried to make Torte and it totally got out of control. So, she stopped making it. Now that she had the basics again, she felt more confident in making it in the future and passing it onto her kids.
Organizing Family Recipes - Building Your Personal Recipe System
Does this sound familiar? You have scraps of paper with notes, recipes you’ve gotten off the internet, or recipes ripped out of a magazine everywhere. They are stuck in other books, maybe you have a folder, or they are just jammed in a cabinet or drawer. And even though you are always searching for something new to make, you never look at them.
Guilty here until I got a system.
Notebooks or Binders? How to organize your recipe notes
Today, I use plain sketching notebooks. I write down recipes in there or paste recipes I collect in there. I use one page per recipe. When I make the recipe, I write down what I change. Do I have everything in these notebooks? Honestly no. There are some recipes I still wing (and will write down after this), but it is a great place of inspiration for me.
When I refine a recipe, I type it up and put it on my computer and, most likely, on Appetite for Life, so I can find it more easily (and so can you).
My sister uses three-ring binders with plastic sleeves (she is much more organized than I am). She has it broken down into different categories. One is for recipes she hasn’t tried. The other is for recipes that are tried and true. She makes notes on the recipes like - didn’t use mushrooms in this or someone in the family really liked the recipe.
When she is planning a family meal, holiday dinner, or party for friends, she has recipes at her fingertips that she knows will work, and others she wants to try. It is brilliant!
Here’s a summary of our two systems:
Recipe System | Best If | How It Works |
Sketchbook Method | You like to tweak recipes on the fly | Dedicate 1 page per recipe; paste or handwrite the base, then write revisions directly on the page. |
3-Ring Binder Method | You like to find things easily and collect a lot of recipes from different sources | Use plastic sleeves categorized into "Untried Inspiration" and "Tried & True Family Classics". |
Recipes help you pass down legacies
We never found Mom’s recipe for Christmas meatballs, and have decided to move on. Luckily, in our search, we did find my great-uncle Howard’s notes for meat ravioli! This is another family tradition that might have been lost if he hadn’t written things down. Honestly, the notes are just that, notes. They aren’t fancy, but they do make amazing ravioli, and isn’t that the point?
People will say that about your recipes too. Just remember to write things down, make notes of what you changed, and start building a system.
In time, you can be like the quarterback who doesn’t need his “wrist coach” or the chef who can recall a recipe (and its corrections) off the top of your head for some recipes. But remember, each of these professionals does have notes that they refer to constantly,
What You Can Do Today:
Choose ONE dish you make entirely off the top of your head.
Grab an index card or blank piece of paper.
Write down the rough proportions right now before you cook it next.
Refine the notes on the card the next time you stand over the stove.
Next Article: Ready to Cook Lobster, I’ll show you how.
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