In an Age of AI Recipes, My Grandmother’s Recipe Box Feels Radical

The last time I returned a card to my wooden recipe box, I wondered: How many folks still have a recipe box? Does anyone still ask that one friend to write out the details of her soft molasses cookies, the ones she brings to every holiday cookie exchange, or beg an aunt for her secret potato salad recipe? Who tucks handwritten recipes away behind dog-eared tabs with penciled names announcing Pies, Casseroles, Cookies, Breads?

It’s no longer common to write out recipes. Instead of sharing ingredients scribbled on notecards or scraps of paper, we tag someone in a recipe post on social media. Recipe links can be sent in a text, shared as screenshots, or added to an online repository.

So what’s the point of having a bulky recipe box (or three) on the counter? For me, it’s a quiet revolt.

Why I Think Recipe Boxes Are an Act of Rebellion

When I hold my recipe box, or my grandmother’s recipe box, and I feel the weight of the cards and clippings inside, I consider the era we’re in now. More often than not, the recipes served to us on our screens aren’t chosen by real people, but by algorithms that think they know us. Now, some recipes are AI-created, made by bots that scrape recipes from across the internet, blend them all together, and serve them to us like a strange meatloaf. 

It’s bad enough that AI recipes are reliably unreliable and often not disclosed as AI. What’s even worse is that they’re stripped of the context and humanity of the original recipes.

My quiet rebellion in this algorithmic era is pen, paper, and a box. I write down and save favorite recipes in my recipe box on the counter, just like my grandmother used to do. That little box holds and protects my family’s treasured recipes. It also holds things that are even more precious, things that I don’t want AI to scrape away.  

My Grandmother’s Recipe Box Holds More Than Just Recipes

Inside that battered box are recipes from our closest family and friends, including those no longer with us. The cards are penned in handwriting unique to each of them: my great-great-aunt Lizzie’s cookie recipe is written in swirls of old-fashioned, practiced cursive, while my grandmother’s recipe for Christmastime peanut butter balls is written in neat lines of upright lettering. 

Handwriting captures personalities, in tips and asides scrawled in the margins, or in notes included with recipes sent in the mail. Some handwritten recipes are meticulous and lovingly detailed; others are written with only the barest of information on measurements and steps. But there is love in this style too, a show of confidence in the abilities of the person receiving the recipe, and a trust that they’ll decipher the culinary shorthand.

And there are memories in the boxes. Memories of moments where a dish was first tasted, like the from-scratch pie crust that my grandmother rolled out every year at holiday time, or the simple chocolate cake we dug into for Christmas dessert. When I look through my grandmothers’ recipe boxes, I know that if they took the time to write down a recipe, it means that dish was so delicious, so appreciated, that it’s worth making again. 

How Recipe Boxes Hold Us

Many, many years from now, I don’t imagine anyone will sift through my text messages or social media posts to track down my favorite recipes. However, I’d like to think that my family will happily pull my recipe box off of the counter.

I imagine my kids, my grandkids, maybe even my great-great-grandkids, opening that recipe box and digging through the cards. What will they find? What stories will they share? Perhaps they’ll look through it together in search of my soft pumpkin cookies recipe, or for that blueberry French toast casserole I make on Christmas mornings. 

I know they won’t mind deciphering my handwriting and culinary shorthand as they read through the recipes. As they hold the cards, spattered with melted butter or drips of chocolate, they’ll know these are recipes I loved enough to write down, keep close, and make for them again and again. And one day, I hope they’ll bring my recipes home and add them to their own recipe box.