This Thing Boomers Still Have In Their Kitchen Says More Than They Realize

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Every generation has its own way of preserving those recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. Before the internet gave us online recipes, digital meal planners, and TikTok culinary tutorials, the generation known as "boomers" used a recipe box to hold detailed instructions for the recipes your grandma probably made every week. What's a recipe box?

These boxes were made of wood, plastic, or metal and large enough to hold hundreds of either 3X5-inch or 4x6-inch index cards, often with smudge prints from handling while cooking or baking. The organized home cook would even have dividers, separating recipes into categories to make it easier to find great grandmother's Christmas Eve dinner recipes or the coveted family recipe for mac and cheese. As recipes and measurements became more formalized and standardized, thanks to the likes of Fannie Farmer, it became commonplace to write them down. 

In the 1920s, certain magazine subscriptions came with recipe cards. These cards were often stored in a shoebox until Betty Crocker came along and created the game changer. Circa 1920, the boxed cake maker created what is known as the "Gold Medal Box," which was neither gold nor metal. It was made out of wood with a yellow appearance and sold for 70 cents. For boomers, the recipe box represents not just decades of recipes being handed down, but also core memories and a continuity from one generation to the next of cooking, gathering, and breaking bread with loved ones.

While tablets and smart fridges have made pulling up recipes a breeze, the digital world doesn't always offer that sense of culinary connection that is unique to every family. Whether it's making a pineapple upside-down cake from a recipe given to you by a great aunt's neighbor, or one of those quirky vintage salads you may have forgotten about from the '50s, '60s, or '70s, these recipe boxes filled with handwritten cards serve as a link to a family's history.

Today, if you want to live the culinary life of a boomer, or simply preserve the instructions for making family-favorite dishes in written form, you can buy a recipe box and handwrite those treasured recipes your mom or aunt has squirreled away. For just under $11, you can purchase a simple plastic index card holder on Amazon to keep your recipes organized. Or, get fancy and buy a metal and wood recipe box to display on your countertop. It may seem outdated, but the love that has been handed down with each recipe card is a little memory that will never go out of style.