50 Times People Found Out The Truth About Their Family Cooking Secrets

This made me think of this thing I read a long time ago.

A woman makes a ham for a holiday every year, and she always cuts the end off before baking it. Husband asks why, she says that's the way it's always been done, it's a recipe passed down in her family and she's never questioned it. She asks Mom, who asks Great Grandma, and turns out Great Grandma just couldn't fit the hams into her pan.

Idk the takeaway from this exactly but there it is lol

My family's cookbook is a thick scrapbook that was kept next to the family Bible that had the family tree in it.

Handwritten notes in German from the before WW I. Typed pages. Cutouts from magazines. Notes added from whoever felt a note was needed (Can't get suet? Don't make this).

It's a story book. Every recipe has a tale. One is literally, "Your omma and oppa won this recipe in a bridge game". Is it true? I like to think so, but it doesn't matter.

I don't have the book. I'm not really part of that family any more. But I have index cards of important recipes with instructions on the front, and stories on the back. Every card is a memory from when things seemed better. Christmas dinners. Potlucks. Nights making preserves. Laughter around a cutting board and a mixing bowl. Every card is a potential new memory. I've copied cards for friends, stories and all, and hope they're out in the world making new stories

In Romania we make a cake that's just fluffy cake batter dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut flakes/chopped walnuts, we call it tavalit. It's one of the dishes of my childhood and everybody made it because it's cheap, easy and finger licking delicious. I made it, brought it at a potluck at work in the Netherlands and a colleague from New Zealand jumped up "Lamingtons, oh my god I love these, do you have family in New Zealand?". Wat... I still don't know where the recipe originated, pretty sure neither in Romania nor in New Zealand, but it was so surprising to see a dish revered in countries so far apart by distance and culture and we both thought it was our own.

Received my grandmothers recipe box. I was so excited… it was almost exclusively the clippings from the back of quick-cook foods.

I introduced a new 'secret' at an elderly care facility I used to work at as a cook while I was there. They got GFS (gordon food service) bulk items, which I actually really like to use, good quality. They would use cake mix for many deserts, but the cakes always came out very dry. When I came in, I noticed after the first couple times. Usually to make enough cake we used 4 bags of mix, so I dropped it to 3 bags of cake mix and 1 bag of pudding mix. Exact same cook time, no other changes, and the residents starting going nuts and complimenting us on the new cake recipe.

I got a small raise out of it.

I was doing genealogy research and I was able to trace the exact village my ancestors came from by researching a family recipe.

I had always assumed it was a "back of the box" 1960s thing, but it had a funny name and nobody knew why it was called that. Turns out, it's a special holiday food in that region and each "village" has their own twist on it. I recognized a lot of other dishes my grandma would make too, and had no idea they were passed down in the family.

I begged my grandmother for her banana pudding recipe and 30 years later, people still beg me to make it. I've had drug dealers trade me drugs for it (back in the day lol). I discovered about 10 years in, its the f**king recipe off of the Nilla wafer box.

The recipe on the back of the tollhouse chocolate chip bag, follow it to the letter. Everyone thinks I have the best of the best chocolate chip cookies.

Lol, my wife came back from Norway in love with this MAGIC spice and we searched everywhere, finally found some, had it shipped international.

It's MSG.

My grandma's recipe has been passed down for generations and we have the original text to prove it! And it's just as sad and bland as it ever was.

If I cook anything that requires breadcrumbs, I use chicken flavored StoveTop stuffing. I also use them as mini croutons in my salad.

When making banana bread, I use overripe bananas. Nothing unusual, right? Nope. But what takes it to the next level is I first freeze the bananas—for days, for weeks— and then thaw when it's time to bake. I read somewhere that freezing bananas make them sweeter. Try it. You'll be pleasantly surprised

Your cake needs salt. So do your cookies. Stop leaving it out.

After my grandmother passed, there was some fight back and forth over her pecan pie recipe. Turns out it was on the back of the Karo syrup bottle the whole time.

My grandmother is from Italy. People are always like “you must make such great Italian fooooooddd!” And like yeah, I guess. But the “family” sauce recipe is super basic. Anyone could do it. What makes it good is just making it a billion times and letting it simmer all day.

People are amazed that I can make gnocchi, but it’s really not hard at all. There’s just some practice involved in getting the right texture to them.

These days with the internet, anyone can make super authentic food from any culture. We no longer have to rely on special handed down recipes, methods, and tools.

My secret fudge recipe that's been under lock and key for decades is literally just melting chocolate chips and dumping condensed sweetend milk in. Everyone in my fam thinks I'm this pro fudge maker

And if you inherit your grandmas cookbooks you will learn that Betty Crocker and Fannie Farmer apparently were your ancestors because that’s where the family recipes are published!

Lol, I just found out this year the recipe for my husband's grandmother's FAMOUS fudge that he grew up eating and the whole family raves about comes straight off the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk can. These people beg her to make it every Christmas and they gobble it up, but apparently none of them ever bothered to ask for the recipe. I emailed her to ask so I could bring it to my own family's Christmas dinner, and she was like "Oh, yeah, it's the one from the can label, it's not a secret. They just assumed and nobody asked." And you know what? I haven't told any of them, either.

My amazing chocolate cake is from the recipe on the back of the hershey's cocoa mix box. People love it every time, though!

I got my grandmother's cookbooks when she died (all handwritten recipes). That's when I learned that her famous baked beans start with a can of baked beans.