They didn’t want to take it with them.
A woman has cooked 23 dishes from recipes discovered on headstones nationwide and has started delivering them to the graves of the individuals who inspired them.
While working on her master’s degree at the University of Maryland, 33-year-old Rosie Grant discovered a spritz cookie recipe inscribed into a gravestone. In August of 2021, she came upon a monument featuring a design to look like an open book; inscribed on the book was a cookie recipe. The headstone is at Brooklyn, New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery.
Grant, now a communications manager and librarian, prepared cookies using that recipe and took them to the cemetery to eat there.
The Los Angeles native investigated whether or not it was usual practice to engrave recipes on gravestones and discovered that this was, in fact, the case.
She has already visited cemeteries in Utah, Iowa, Alaska, Louisiana, Washington, and elsewhere in the United States to sample 23 dishes and sweets commemorated on tombstones.
Grant has taken it a step further by delivering homemade cuisine to six gravesites included in the featured recipes. From snickerdoodle cookies and blueberry pies to meatloaf and party dips, Grant said she’d want to visit all the graves with the cuisine they showcase.
Grant has over 193,000 followers on her @GhostlyArchive TikTok account, which she uses to document her somewhat paranormal baking exploits.
Grant stated that once she started writing about her travels online, many people wanted to talk to her about the recipes engraved on their loved ones’ headstones.
She said she used to feel uneasy around the concept of death, despite the beauty of cemeteries. But today, she’s starting to see things in a new light.
She said, “The recipes on gravestones are for the living.”
When asked whether she, too, would want a recipe inscribed on her tombstone, Grant said that she would like clam linguine to be the one she is remembered for. \
She has noticed, however, that the trend in tombstone recipes is mainly for cookies.
