THESE RECIPES FROM THE GRAVE STILL HAVE LIFE

IN HER NEW COOKBOOK, 'TO DIE FOR: A COOKBOOK OF GRAVESTONE RECIPES,' ROSIE GRANT DIVES INTO THE WORLD OF TOMBSTONES ETCHED WITH LOVED ONES' FAVORITE DISHES

- BY STEPHANIE BREIJO

ROSIE GRANT has always been familiar with death. Parents who led ghost tours, coupled with cutting through a cemetery on her route home from high school, helped her feel relatively comfortable with the topic. What she wasn't so familiar with were the recipes that found new life in death.

In her new cookbook, “To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes,” the L.A.-based archivist and social media personality dives into the world of tombstones etched with recipes that the deceased loved in life: a fan-favorite Texas sheet cake from a beautician, snickerdoodle cookies that helped feed California firefighters, guava cobbler that scented a Florida neighborhood.

Grant is now sharing these recipes and the stories of those who made them in life. “I think there's a lot of taboo around death, which is understandable,” she said. “It’s a scary concept that we will die, but I think what I like about gravestone recipes is, to me, it’s very life-affirming.... It’s such a celebration of this person's life, and it embodies them hosting people. It’s not just like, ‘She liked baking,’ or ‘Cooking was her love,’ or whatever. It’s literally the ingredients to continue something forward of theirs, which also feels so for-the-living.”

Grant stumbled upon the practice during a pandemic-spurred internship at the historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. With libraries, archives and other institutions physically closed during COVID-19, Grant — then in a library-sciences masters program — was having trouble finding somewhere to intern.