Woman Goes Viral Making Recipes From Gravestones: Says It’s a Way to Continue ‘Sharing a Memory’

Woman Goes Viral Making Recipes From Gravestones: Says It’s a Way to Continue ‘Sharing a Memory’
(Courtesy of Rosie Grant)
10/25/2022
Updated:
10/25/2022

A student from Los Angeles, who was tasked with creating a social media account from scratch, decided to mix two of her interests into one unlikely video series: cooking and cemeteries. She first found a recipe on a gravestone and baked it, and then another. Before long, recreating people’s favorite recipes, which are inscribed on their graves, became a beautiful way to share their memories.

Rosie Grant is a digital librarian in Los Angeles, California. As a library science student at the University of Maryland in 2021, she decided to start a TikTok account about cemeteries to fulfill a class assignment. During this time, Grant was also interning at a cemetery as a part of her field study for the master’s program.

With pandemic restrictions ongoing, she was also learning how to cook to pass the time.

Rosie Grant with Kay's gravestone recipe. (Courtesy of Rosie Grant)
Rosie Grant with Kay's gravestone recipe. (Courtesy of Rosie Grant)

So when she found her first recipe, written on the gravestone of Naomi Miller Dawson in Brooklyn, New York, she decided to give it a try.

“It wasn’t just that she liked cookies, it was the actual recipe,” Grant told The Epoch Times. “I think it’s beautiful. When you think of an old gravestone with just a name or a deed, and a quote or a symbol or something, it doesn’t say a whole lot about the person. A recipe says so much, and it’s such a gift to other people. It’s a way that you can continue sharing a memory of someone.”

But Grant needed help getting Naomi’s recipe right. After sharing her “Spritz cookie” baking session on TikTok, viewers posted advice for the budding baker. Grant later took a batch of Naomi’s cookies back to the grave to pay her respects.
Connie's Date and Nut Bread recipe. (Courtesy of Rosie Grant)
Connie's Date and Nut Bread recipe. (Courtesy of Rosie Grant)

“I didn’t know what a Spritz cookie press was,” Grant said. “A lot of people commented, ‘This is how you’re supposed to make Spritz cookies,’ which was so helpful. Other people have commented how their families would make a recipe, or what their family recipe is, like, ‘My grandmother used to make it with cinnamon,’ or ‘My aunt used to make this every single year.’”

Initially, Grant was just posting different parts of the cemetery on her account as she was learning about it. However, she didn’t know that sharing her interest in gravestone recipes on social media would have such an overwhelming response.

“People are commenting on what would be on their gravestone recipe,” she said. “It’s been a really cool thing just to see people’s reactions.”

Rosie Grant makes cookies. (Courtesy of Rosie Grant)
Rosie Grant makes cookies. (Courtesy of Rosie Grant)

Grant has tried 11 gravestone recipes so far, nine from gravestones in the United States and two from Israel. All the recipes are taken from the graves of women. The recipes have ranged from fudge, to cookies, to a surprising no-bake recipe.

Many omit instructions so Grant has to figure it out as she goes, with tips from her followers, but she concedes that all have tasted “really good” so far. Besides the Spritz cookies, Grant said her other favorite is a snickerdoodle cookie recipe, taken from the grave of a woman named Annabelle in California.

(Courtesy of Rosie Grant)
(Courtesy of Rosie Grant)

Through sharing her recipe recreations, Grant has been able to face her anxiety about death. “It’s not that we’re happy about death,” she said, “but we’re just thinking about these harder topics, like, ‘I’m gonna die someday.’ That’s tough, it’s a really scary topic for me, so I think my goal is to make it a little bit more comfortable. Recipes and food, it’s such a lively topic, and it’s an easier way to think about tougher topics.”

Grant, who has started an Instagram page to document her journey, “just wants to keep exploring” as she feels like she’s barely scratched the surface of gravestone recipes. At the time of writing, she has just found a new one that she can’t wait to try.

Watch the video:

(Courtesy of Rosie Grant)
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Louise Chambers is a writer, born and raised in London, England. She covers inspiring news and human interest stories.
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