When I was a kid I loved getting to stay overnight with my Haley grandparents in Batesville, Arkansas. The bedroom where my sister and I slept was right next to the kitchen. In fact, our bed couldn’t have been more than 10 feet through the bedroom door from my grandmother’s old gas range.

That detail becomes significant when I tell you why I loved staying there overnight. I loved my grandparents of course and enjoyed visiting with them, but more importantly there was my love for the made-from-scratch biscuits that I could smell baking from my warm bed just 10 feet or so away!

A Family Story of Love & Biscuits

Our grandparents were early risers, but we still rolled out of bed at hours that were alarmingly early for kids our age on a Saturday or summer morning. This was because we didn’t want to miss savoring those biscuits warm from the oven. In my mind, I can still taste their soft deliciousness and feel the honey that I had put inside dripping down my hand.

As we began to get older all of us Haley cousins started pestering our grandmother for her recipe. My cousins Claudia and Marsha even went so far as to ask her to show them how she made the biscuits. During that demonstration, the real truth came out. She didn’t have a recipe – well, at least not written down. She had made those biscuits for so many years that the whole process was just a routine for her.

I loved hearing the story of that biscuit-making demonstration because it was really quite funny. When asked how much salt or baking powder should go into the dough, she said something like, “just a pinch” or “throw in enough.” But my favorite line of that day was when she was asked how long the biscuits should stay in the oven to which she replied, “Until they are done.”

As far as I know, none of us has been able to recreate Alice Haley’s legendary biscuits because we can’t bake them in her old gas range with its unpredictable temperatures. But every time I eat a soft, warm biscuit with honey or jam dripping out I think of my “Nanny Alice” and how she worked her biscuit magic in that kitchen around 6:00 every morning. To the absolute delight of her grandchildren!

Grandmothers & Heirloom Recipes

Our family had two difficult losses in 2020 and 2021. Both of my kids’ grandmothers passed away. The first, my own sweet mom, died in the summer of 2020. Their other grandmother died the day before Thanksgiving 2021 after a year of illness and some time in hospice. 

As we all work through the grieving process in the absence of two incredible women, we have been left with their possessions. When you lose the last person who has been living in your “family” home, then the next days and months will be filled with going through everything that is left there. For me, that has already occurred and I’m happy to be past it. 

For my kids and their dad’s family who suffered their own deep loss, they spent a few months working through the process of sorting, giving away, throwing away and all the other million details involved with getting a house ready to sell. It’s emotionally painful and physically exhausting. 

Still, in the midst of all of that heartbreaking work, have been the discoveries of some very special reminders of those two special ladies. The reminders I’m speaking of were found in two kitchens – one in Arkansas and the other in Missouri. These tiny slips of paper contain the written ingredients and directions for the pies, cookies, peanut brittle, nut bars, turkey and dressing, sweet potato casseroles, candies, and so much more. In one word – recipes! Unlike my Nanny Alice and her biscuits, these ladies wrote their recipes down or cut them out of magazines and we are all grateful.

Recipes and cookbooks hold so much of a family’s history on their tiny card stock rectangles or in their pages. A family’s story can be told through its favorite foods! For these two women who also gave so lovingly of their time to their churches, you can bet that they each had signature dishes that were loved not only by their families but also by their fellow church members.

Recipes Tell A Family’s Story

I didn’t realize it until recently, but recipes are just as important to a family’s legacy as our photographs are. I can’t look at my mom’s recipe for “monkey” bread without thinking of her in the kitchen pulling that Bundt pan out of the oven. Or getting up for breakfast while the kids and I were at her house for a visit and enjoying those warm, doughy bits of soft bread covered with cinnamon, sugar and pecans. (See the recipe above.)

I also cherish the recipe for Overnight Salad that my mother-in-law wrote out just for me. It was a side dish that she served a lot at family holiday meals and is oh so good. This paper sheet wasn’t found in her kitchen during the sorting after her death but had been in my recipe file for probably 30+ years. I will treasure it forever and share it with the rest of her family. Not only is it in her handwriting, but the memo sheet reminds me of when she was a bookkeeper for Holmes Pool Companies. Just another bit of her family’s history recorded right there.

Celebrate The Past And Preserve For The Future

If you are the fortunate recipient of some of your family’s original recipe cards and cookbooks, I hope that you are curating them in a way that they can be easily shared with other family members. I know I’m not the only one in my family to have memories of my mom’s “monkey” bread, so I will be making sure that everyone has a copy of that recipe if they want it.

Unlike scanning and copying photographs, making a copy of a recipe can be as simple as writing it down or taking a quick photo of a recipe card. 

Now, who’s hungry? I know I am after writing these stories!