Review: To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes by Rosie Grant

To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes by Rosie Grant, HarperCollins - Harvest, 2025, 155 p.

Tik-tokker and author Rosie Grant defines a gravestone recipe as “someone’s recipe etched into their final resting place.” Her book contains forty of these recipes, accompanied by fascinating stories about the lives of amateur cooks and bakers, now departed, as well as historical information about food, celebrations, and cemeteries. Most of the recipes included in the book come from headstones erected after 2000. This connection between cemeteries and food seems to have re-emerged in this century with the newer practice of including the deceased’s favourite recipe on their gravestone.

The recipes come from home cooks who loved to celebrate and share their culinary talents with friends and family. The stories about these individuals are touching and fitting remembrances of people who touched the lives of others through their generosity via food. From a genealogy standpoint, I would have loved to see the author include the birth and death dates in every biography. Some dates appear in gravestone images and in the text, but not consistently.

The author provides some genuinely interesting bits of historical information. Having visited hundreds of cemeteries across North America, I’m not squeamish at all about them, but I was surprised to learn that Victorians liked to picnic in rural cemeteries. It makes sense. Cemeteries are peaceful, idyllic and park-like, so, why not share a meal there?

I’m going to try some of these recipes because if someone thought to etch them in stone, they must be good. I recommend this book to genealogists who love using the oven. Most of the recipes are of baked goods, the type often shared at family and community celebrations. Will I ask to have a recipe included on my gravestone? Probably not, but I knows other who have “signature bakes” that would be worthy of such a permanent placement.

Recommended, for a fun and unusual read.

 

Review: The Way They Were: Dressed in 1860-65: A Photographic Reference by Donna J. Abraham

 The Way They Were: Dressed in 1860-65: A Photographic Reference by Donna J. Abraham, Abraham’s Lady LLC, 2008, 160 p.

I write about the photographs I find in antique stores and thrift shops on my Substack blog, Family Photo Reunion (https://familyphotoreunion.substack.com) so when I see a reference book I believe will assist me in dating pre-1927 photographs, I usually buy it. Donna Abraham’s book immediately appealed to me. Specific to cdv photographs, it covers a small window of time and only one photographic format. The back cover book blurb explains the author's intent. These images were compiled to assist costume designers, historians and students, so my specific usage (dating images) is somewhat outside the intended purpose for this book. But more on that later.

In her introduction, Abraham explains the book is “a photographic reference and companion to other documents already written about the 1860-1865 time period.” That is a crucial point. There are few words in this book. It is very much a collection of black and white photographs, helpfully organized into chapters by subject: 1) Fashions for Children 2) Fashions for Women 3) Groups 4) Fashions for Men and 5) Close-Ups.

Each chapter begins with a brief discussion about the fashion trends of the time, including fabric choices, dress style, hairstyles, common accessories and other notable details. The “Fashions for Women” chapter is understandably the longest chapter in the book, covering the many aspects of women’s fashion: fabrics, fabric patterns, dress trims, hairstyles, hats and caps, outer wear, wraps, and specialty dresses such as mourning dresses, wedding or ball gowns. Men’s styles did not change as quickly or as dramatically as women’s fashions, though there are certainly key trends to watch for.

Will this book help the genealogist who wants to learn to identify and date photographs? I believe so. I use it quite often to compare the contents with my own photographs to find similar fashion points. Abraham gives only sparse commentary on the evolution of style in this book, so it is up to the reader to observe and to note similarities and differences in the photographs. It is likely the author didn’t intend her audience to use the book in this way, but the photographs also provide genealogists with other bits of useful information, outside fashion. It also reveals how photographers commonly posed their subjects, the style of card stock available to photographers, and how to identify the types of props and settings used during this period. The book would have been more helpful if the author could have noted the specific year of each photo, if known, to show the progression of fashion over the five years. Still, photo detectives will find this collection of nearly six hundred cdv images a useful visual record of fashion and photography from the first half of the 1860s.