A woman from California has an unusual practice. She scours cemeteries to find and cook recipes left by the deceased — and etched on their tombstones.
Over the last five years, Rosie Grant, a librarian from Los Angeles, has collected 40 recipes this way. She says the food is "to die for."
The idea of cooking and sharing a last meal of sorts with those who have passed away came from an unlikely place: an internship she had at a cemetery in New York.
During her work there, she noticed a recipe for spritz cookies carved into a woman's headstone.
She went home and baked 12 of the treats — before returning to the grave and eating them. That started her mission of finding other gravestones with recipes.
"In the beginning, when I knew one recipe, I thought this would be a one-off," she told news agency SWNS.
Grant, 36, has now concocted recipes ranging from Texas sheet cake and no-bake cookies to guava cobbler.
The goal, she said, is to cook and share a last meal with those who have passed away.
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To date, she's created 40 recipes from beyond the grave, including meatloaf, peanut butter cookies, yeast cake and nut rolls.
In 2024, Grant headed to Alaska to make one of the recipes with the deceased's family.
They invited Grant to join them in Nome, Alaska, to craft the no-bake cookie from their departed loved one's headstone.
"The family [was] so gracious," Grant said. "I went to their kitchen. I cooked with [the woman's] daughter and great-granddaughter, and we took the cookies to the cemetery."
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Grant called it the most wonderful experience she's ever had.
These days, Grant doesn't get many of her recipes from researching gravestones herself. Instead, she is sent the recipes from family members who are hoping to keep a loved one's legacy alive.
"I will also be sent recipes from people visiting graves, and I will [play] detective to find out who the recipes belonged to," she said.
Grant then learns about the recipe, hunting down as much information as she can about the deceased.
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"If the recipe doesn't have a name, I will contact the cemetery or local association, where I can find their obituary," the librarian said. "When I find their next of kin, I will reach out to the family and explain what I am planning to do."
Then they chat on the phone to see if it's OK for Grant to make the recipe. She also asks a few questions about the deceased loved one.
"From there I will cook the recipe to try it and check with the family that it's accurate or if I was missing anything."
She loves the fact that the recipes are part of the personalization process of headstones.
"It is a tool to take forward that you get to do yourself, an invitation to remember this person and eat the food they enjoyed in their life," she said.
"I think I'll put mine on," Grant said of her own headstone one day.
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That way, her family "could think of the memory of us cooking it together," she said.
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