How to preserve
family recipes.

Because it holds things a typed copy can’t: the handwriting, the crossings-out, the note in the margin, the splash of butter that shows which recipe got used most. Once it is scanned, you can cook from a copy and let the original rest.

The New York State Archives names acidity, light, and widely fluctuating temperature and humidity as the greatest threats to family papers. A kitchen supplies plenty of the last two. Recipes cut from newspapers are the most fragile: the same archive warns that highly acidic clippings often become yellow and brittle quickly, and suggests separating them from other papers and copying them onto acid-free paper.

Write the modern measure beside the original rather than replacing it, so “8 oz plain flour” becomes “8 oz (about 225 g) plain flour”. The old figure is part of the record and lets someone check your sums. Then cook it once and correct anything that came out wrong.

The pint is the trap. A British pint is about a fifth bigger than an American one, so a pint of milk in a British recipe is more than two American cups. Which? notes that fan ovens typically cook about 20°C lower than conventional ovens, which is why each gas mark has two Celsius figures. When a card only says “a moderate oven” or “a knob of butter”, ask the cook, or start in the middle of the range and watch it closely the first time.

Cook it together, with a recorder running. Emory University psychologist Robyn Fivush, who studies family stories, says cooking together is “a perfect time” to tell them, with lines as small as “When I was a little girl, my mother taught me how to cook this dish.” These questions work at the stove:

Photograph the dish and the cook’s hands at work, and record them explaining one step in their own words.

Ask the family first: some recipes are secrets. If a recipe came from a cookbook or a magazine, credit it and don’t copy its wording.

On the law, the US Copyright Office says “a mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law”, but a recipe with substantial explanation or directions, or a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, may be. That is US law. Rules differ between countries, so check before you publish anything you didn’t write yourself.

Our guide to what to write in a memory book has more on short, specific captions.

Make an album, say “Nan’s recipes”, and upload a photo of each card. Each photo can have a name, a date such as “Christmas 1978”, a story thread where the family add what they remember, and voice notes, recorded or uploaded, so the card and the cook’s voice stay together. Albums are unlimited on every plan, including Free: see how albums work.

In the free iPhone and Android app, a recipe can also be a memory in your private family feed, with up to 10 photos and a voice note. When an aunt remembers it differently (“she always added an extra egg”), she can add her version to the same memory, and the two sit side by side.

To share a recipe with everyone, Our Stories, Ancestorii’s free public feed on the website, has a Food & Recipes topic, and a story can carry up to 10 photos, a video and a voice note. When the collection is ready, a printed Memory Book makes it an A4 landscape hardcover, from £44.99 plus delivery. The book holds photos and short captions, not audio, so put each recipe in as a photo of the card or your typed copy, with its story in the caption.