Cookbooks, Community & A Whole Lotta Heart

If you’ve ever browsed your mom’s or grandma’s cookbook shelf, chances are you’ve seen a few (or a dozen) church or community cookbooks. You know the ones—those spiral-bound gems with yellowed pages, hand-drawn clip art, and names like “Favorite Recipes of the Shady Hill Ladies Auxiliary.” They’re not just recipe collections. They’re little time capsules.

Lately, we’ve been getting more and more of these beauties in the shop, and I couldn’t resist writing about them. They’ve always been around in our family, but flipping through them lately hit me with a wave of cozy nostalgia.

My first memory of these kinds of cookbooks was when my mom helped put together The New Hope United Methodist Church Cookbook back in the early 2000s. It came from my family church. I was around 8-ish and totally fascinated. I remember flipping through the finished book, hunting for my family’s names next to the recipes. It felt like a treasure hunt, but instead of gold, it was banana bread and chicken casserole.

Now here we are, 25-ish years later, sitting around the table with my mom and cousin, doing the same thing. We’re flipping through The New Hope Cookbook and a stack of others, pointing out names we know, remembering who made what, and getting misty-eyed over the ones who aren’t with us anymore.

These cookbooks are more than food—they’re community. They were your go-to when you needed a tried-and-true potluck dish or something special for Sunday supper. No Pinterest scrolling..You went straight to the church cookbook and found Marlene Brown’s Eggplant Parmesan or Gail Baker’s Cornbread Dressing.

And the best part? They’re full of character. Torn covers, flour-dusted pages, little notes in the margins like “too salty, add less next time” or “Dad’s favorite.” Doodles, grocery lists tucked inside, maybe even a phone number scribbled down from 20 years ago. These books are full of life and love.

I like to think of them as mini history books. Especially in small towns, these cookbooks captured who was cooking, what they were cooking, and what mattered to them. They were created with care, with intention—someone chose that recipe out of everything they knew to share with the community.

We live in a fast-paced world, but these cookbooks remind us to slow down. They whisper, “Call your aunt for that Jell-O salad recipe,” and “Make the dressing from scratch—it’s worth it.” They remind us of shared meals, laughter in church kitchens, and handwritten recipes passed from one heart to another.

So if you’ve got one tucked away—or if you spot one at an antique or vintage store —pick it up. Give it a flip. I guarantee you’ll find more than just a recipe… you’ll find a story.