50 Questions to Ask Your Grandma (or Anyone) About Her Recipes

Ask someone for a recipe and you'll get a list of ingredients. Ask them about the recipe and you'll get their mother's kitchen, a wartime substitution, a wedding, a feud, and the reason there's cinnamon in the meat sauce.

The second conversation is the one families lose. Not because nobody cares — because nobody knows quite what to ask, and "tell me about the old days" is too big a door to walk through. Specific questions work better. Here are fifty, grouped so you can pick a handful that fit the person and the dish.

A tip before you start: ask permission to record the conversation, then put the phone down and let it run. You're collecting a voice, not just answers.

Where the dish came from

1. Who taught you to make this?
2. Did they teach you on purpose, or did you learn by watching?
3. How old were you the first time you made it yourself?
4. Whose recipe was it before theirs, as far as you know?
5. Did it come from another country, town, or family?
6. Has it changed since you learned it — and what did you change?
7. Was there ever a written version, or has it always been by feel?
8. Is there anyone else who makes it? Do they make it right?

How it's actually made

9. Walk me through it — what do you do first?
10. What do the measurements really mean? How much is "some"?
11. What's the step people always get wrong?
12. How do you know when it's done? What do you look, smell, or listen for?
13. What ingredient can you absolutely not substitute?
14. What do you use now that you couldn't get back then — or the reverse?
15. What pan, pot, or tool do you always use for it? Where did it come from?
16. What happens if you rush it?
17. Is there a version for big crowds? How does it change?
18. What do you do with the leftovers — is that its own tradition?

When it gets cooked

19. What occasion is this dish for?
20. What's on the table next to it?
21. Who always asked for it?
22. Was it everyday food or special-occasion food — and did that ever switch?
23. What time of year does it belong to?
24. Is there a dish you always make at the same time?
25. Who gets the first taste, and who gets the burnt corner?

The people in it

26. Who loved this dish the most?
27. Who refused to eat it?
28. Did you ever teach anyone else to make it? How did that go?
29. Who do you picture when you make it?
30. What did your parents cook that you never learned? Do you regret it?
31. Whose kitchen do you think of as the "real" home of this recipe?
32. Is there someone who should get this recipe next?

The stories around it

33. What's the biggest disaster you ever had making it?
34. Has it ever saved a day — fixed a fight, welcomed a neighbor, fed a crisis?
35. What's the furthest this dish has ever traveled?
36. Was there a time you couldn't afford to make it the right way? What did you do?
37. What smells or sounds does making it bring back?
38. What was your kitchen like when you first cooked it — describe the room.
39. Did anyone ever try to get the recipe out of you? Did you give them the real one?
40. Is there a secret in it you've never told anyone?

The bigger picture

41. What's the first thing you remember cooking, ever?
42. What dish were you famous for as a young cook?
43. What did a normal weeknight dinner look like when you were growing up?
44. What food from your childhood can you not find anymore?
45. What's the best meal you've ever eaten? Who cooked it?
46. What do you wish you'd asked your grandmother about her cooking?
47. Which of your recipes do you most want to outlive you?
48. What does it mean to you when someone asks for your recipe?
49. If you could cook one more meal for someone who's gone, what would you make?
50. What should the family never, ever change about this recipe?

Don't try to ask all fifty

Ten good questions over one pot of coffee beats fifty over a clipboard. If you want a shorter list tailored to the person you're actually sitting down with, our free question generator builds one you can print and bring to dinner.

And when you've got answers worth keeping — write them down somewhere that lasts. That's the whole reason Family Crumbs exists: the recipes and the stories behind them, collected from the whole family, printed into a hardcover book you can hand to the next cook in line.