TikTok Is Fascinated By A Viral Morbid Recipe-Hunting Method
Where do you look for new recipes? If you're hoping to find some kitchen inspiration, you might scroll through food websites, turn to some of the best cookbooks of all time, or ask your family and friends for meal recommendations. But one person has a whole new way of tracking down recipes that's a little surprising — and a tad spooky.
Rosie Grant runs the TikTok account @ghostlyarchive, and she's recently gotten some social media attention for her one-of-a-kind recipe-hunting method. She's made several videos in which she goes to graveyards and then whips up the recipes that she finds on people's headstones. Over the course of this unique quarantine hobby, Grant has made fudge, cookies, a peach cobbler recipe, and more. In an interview with NPR, the TikToker explained that this has been a fun and unique way to connect with others and even grow "more comfortable with the idea" of death. Along the way, she's also gotten word from some of the relatives of the people whose recipes she has shared.
For example, Grant posted a TikTok about Connie Galberd's date and nut bread and received a comment from a user who claimed to be a "Galberd granddaughter," reading, "It helps to line the entire can with parchment paper. Otherwise my family has started using mini loaf pans." Plenty of other users, even those who have no connection to the deceased, seem fascinated by Grant's videos.
What TikTok has to say about trying recipes from gravestones
One of Grant's TikTok videos shows a few of the gravestone recipes that she's tried out so far, and commenters have shared sweet reflections of what they think about her hobby. If there's anyone in your family who guards their top-secret recipe like treasure, you might relate to this comment, which said, "This gives a whole new meaning to 'taking this recipe to my grave.'"
Another person was moved by Grant's recipe-hunting method as way to preserve a loved one's legacy, saying, "This is surprisingly wholesome. Like bringing a part of them back to life." It's clear that people are really enjoying these videos, as one person tagged the Food Network and History Channel accounts and said, "Give this girl a series!! I'd watch every episode in a heartbeat!!"
A few other TikTokers shared what recipes and food items they would put on their own gravestones, which include well known fast food items like a double quarter pounder with cheese and a Starbucks iced caramel macchiato with a few customizations. Wondering which gravestone goodie to try first? Grant told NPR that her favorite recipe was for spritz cookies, which she found on Naomi Miller-Dawson's headstone in Brooklyn and was the first treat from her series.