September 22nd, 2023

Hi friends,

Reflecting on another turn around the sun. Marking my 32nd birthday (on Yom Kippur, oddly enough) mindful of a year of immense change and a plethora of new recipes I’ve been yearning to share. As long as this year has stretched, it’s felt finite in moments, the weight of decision making pulling on my libra heart. But I’m grateful for the ebbs and flow of what another year has brought me and always ideating on what’s next.

In my morbid curiosity I’m pondering our mortal culinary legacies–what food rituals best sum up our limited time here? For myself, recipes have always served as a window into our individual histories. If nothing else, I hope to leave y’all with the best vegan matzo ball soup you’ve ever sunk a spoon into. If not, you can bet I’ll be haunting some stock pots.

We have an incredible conversation with Rosie Grant of @ghostly.archive–gravestone recipe documentarian, and I can’t wait to share. Scroll on, and reply back with your legacy recipe.

To another year, and always,

Stay hungry,Hawnuh Lee | Founder, Closed Loop Cooking

Cook book magic // @hawnuhlee

The dish >>

• Cautiously optimistic about the new Climate Corp initiative.

• Another legacy recipe–use it up, vegan almond pulp cookies. 

• Everything you need to know about nooch. (Nutritional yeast baby.)

• Botany field book treasures.

• Dancing Indigenous wild rice harvest.

• Climate activist affirmations. Much needed.

• I love a giant kitchen island crudite board.

• PDX folks > check out this recycling event for those hard to recycle items.

Legacy recipes: on death + food with Rosie Grant of Ghostly Archives

interview by Hawnuh Lee

Rosie Grant is doing the documentarian work few of us dare explore. Her work researching and sharing gravestone recipes @ghostly.archives captures sentiments from tombstones across the country, and beyond the grave. As I reflect on another year passed, I'm drawn to this archival project and what we can learn from our culinary predecessors. Rosie generously spoke to her experience this week and we can all take note from her haunts. Rosie's original viral #gravetok.

Hi Rosie, can you introduce yourself and Ghostly Archives to those who might not know your mission?

Ghostly Archives is a project where I find, cook, and feature recipes found on gravestones. I explore the connection between food and death and how food and someone's recipe helps us connect with and memorialize someone we've lost. 

You first made spritz cookies from the headstone of Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson in Brooklyn, NY. What inspired you to follow her recipe?

It came about from my 3 pastimes during the pandemic: learning how to cook, visiting cemeteries, and going on Tiktok. I was interning in the archives of Congressional Cemetery and learning about different ways people decide to be memorialized, and posting about what I learned on Tiktok. I was new to the death industry and loved how modern gravestones have so many different personalized features. I'd first read about Naomi's spritz cookie recipe on Atlas Obscura and was curious what the cookies tasted like, especially since I started learning how to cook at the start of the pandemic. 

Are you a self taught baker? Would you consider anyone a mentor in your baking journey?

One could say I'm learning to cook from the dead. Growing up I loved food, but wasn't much of a cook. In week one of the pandemic I got a subscription to New York Times Cooking and started working through recipes. It was the first time in my life I had more time at home than I knew what to do with. I also watched a lot of Youtube and Tiktok cooking videos. With every new gravestone recipe I've learned a lot. Naomi's spritz cookies I made incorrectly the first several times. I would post a video of how I made them and people in the comments would give me helpful instructions on how to properly make them, things like "My grandmother used to make these. You need a cookie press for spritz cookies" or "My family makes these every holiday. Refrigerate the dough before putting it into the press."

In the process of trying to recreate these, I've bought 3 cookie presses, 2 ice cream makers, a lot of baking supplies, and watched hours of videos to try and make each correctly. It's gotten easier each time. 

Can you speak more about food legacies and what you hope to instill with this project?

There is so much history and legacy wrapped up in a family recipe. Every time a loved one revisits the recipe they are surrounded by more than stories of the person. They smell the familiar smells, see and touch the food, and taste the dish they’d enjoyed with that person. All your senses drop into the memory of them, and you’re surrounded by the person and a food they loved to share with others. And of course it's particularly special to see a family recipe etched on a gravestone, but beyond that I hope it encourages people to have discussions with their family about what recipes are important to them. Who are the cooks of your family and what are your family food traditions? It's important to cook them together, write them down, savor the memories. I get messaged or a comment almost daily of people sharing their food memories, things like: "I wish I'd gotten my dad's recipe before he passed away" or "when I miss my grandma I make her chicken soup she made for me as a kid." A lot of us, me included, have taken for granted our family food legacies, and this project has been a reminder to talk about this with my family and help preserve our recipes and food traditions. 

What has surprised you most in Ghostly Archives?

I didn't think much about the connection between food and death when I first started, now it's hard to unsee that. Food and death are our two constants: we all have to eat and we'll all pass away someday. Food also helps us in the grieving process, whether it's through comfort food or making the food we once enjoyed with someone we've lost. Through learning about gravestone recipes, food also makes death a little easier to talk about. Particularly in the US death is a pretty taboo topic. I personally am uncomfortable with the idea of it and growing up didn't want to think or talk about it. But a recipe on a gravestone makes it so much easier to broach this topic. It's a more comfortable way for my loved ones and I to have conversations about how do we want to be memorialized? How do we want to be remembered?

How has this project cultivated community and connection for you?

The #gravetok community has been particularly wonderful. It's a group of cemetery creators and taphophiles who dedicate a lot of time to educating and preserving cemeteries, whether it's through gravestone cleaning, death education, or telling the stories of the people buried in cemeteries around the world. There has also been a very kind community in those who have shared stories about the loved ones they've lost and how food played a role in helping them grieve and connect to their memories. I am very grateful to every person who has reached out to connect and share their memories. 

Has your time in cemeteries influenced your own relationship to food?

It has, in the way that food connects to everything. I always loved food and eating, even if I didn't reflect on food legacies until starting this project. I was never uncomfortable in cemeteries, I always found them peaceful places. So the connection between the two was surprising at first, but ultimately a lesson in how cemeteries preserve information; they're an archive reflecting our past, be it the names of those we've lost or even a family recipe engraved in stone. In seeing recipes on gravestones it's made me realize the importance food and the people who cook for us, spend time at meals with us, and create those food memories with us. 

Are there upcoming gravestones you're planning to visit?

Yes, I'm hoping to locate and learn more information about a peanut butter cookie recipe on a Maine gravestone. I'm working with the Maine historical society to try and find information of who this recipe belongs to. 

Can you tell us what your gravestone recipe will be?

I make a clam linguine I'm very proud of; it includes white wine and parsley and it's my go-to at dinner parties. I know I'd love to be buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC; it's a beautiful cemetery that does a lot of work to preserve the memorials and stories of those interred there.   

Any words of wisdom you can impart having been through this experience?

Interview your families about your food history - there is no time like the present! I created a post with a list of questions to ask them if you need a place to start. I also made a list of death, food & grief resources for anyone interested in learning more.  

Thank you Rosie! Your work is timeless and beautifully inspired. If this has you thinking about your legacy recipe, reply back. <3

Love this newsletter? We do too. Share the love with a friend y’all <3

CLC might make a small commission from links in this newsletter. So we can keep crafting rad content for free!

>> New here? <<

Have an idea we should feature in the newsletter? Want to work with us? Drop a line at [email protected]. We can’t wait to see what y’all cook up next! #closedloopcooking