How Gravestones Became the Most Unexpected Cookbooks on Earth

If you’ve ever thought about what might go on your tombstone (don’t worry, we’re going somewhere delicious with this), you probably pictured your name, dates, maybe a quote. But what if your final words weren’t words at all — what if they were a recipe?

Gravestone Recipe Cookbook - To Die For Photo From: Jill Petracek and Food&Wine

That’s the idea behind Rosie Grant’s debut book, To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes, which gathers 40 dishes from around the world that are literally carved in stone. Some headstones include full recipes; others tease just a title, daring you to fill in the blanks.

Each one tells a story — of taste, memory, and love that refuses to fade.

When Rest in Peace Meets Rest in Pie

Grant has spent the past four years tracking down gravestone recipes, connecting with the families behind them, cooking each dish, and bringing it to the cemetery to share beside the person who created it.

Her videos documenting these heartfelt visits — equal parts tender and quirky — have earned her over 200,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok.

Photo From: Harper Collins and Food&Wine

But her “graveyard gourmet” journey started by accident. While studying library science at the University of Maryland, she interned at the Congressional Cemetery in D.C., where she discovered her first edible epitaph: Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson’s Spritz Cookies, engraved on a headstone in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

Curious (and in peak pandemic baking mode), she decided to make them — and the internet couldn’t get enough. As Grant told Food & Wine:

“I got so many messages from people who had their own food and memory stories, especially stories of people who had had a loved one pass away and how they were using food to remember them. It was honestly so beautiful and heartbreaking but also lovely at the same time.”

A Taste of Legacy

After finding a new recipe, Grant reaches out to family members — often through Facebook, Instagram, or cemetery staff — to ask for permission and hear the stories behind the dish.

These recipes are modern enough that loved ones can still share their memories. Some graves, like Naomi’s, only list ingredients. Others, like Beverly Lofland’s, simply read, “She made the best meatloaf.” For those, Grant relies on family recollections to bring the dish — and its maker — back to life.

Sometimes her efforts take extra heart (and stamina). Once, she carried homemade ice cream through a downpour to a remote cemetery in Maine, saying, “It was downpouring… The ice cream that I'd put together, it was melting, and I was just like, ‘What am I doing?’”

But for Grant, that’s the point — to honor the lives behind these recipes. “Every time you make that person’s recipe, you’re tasting the things that they had in life,” she says. “It just brings that person’s memory back so fully.”

From Spritz Cookies to Spaghetti Casserole

Inside To Die For, you’ll find a mix of sweets and comfort food: pies, cookies, cobblers, fudge, ice cream, and breads — plus savory gems like Beverly’s meatloaf, Karen Nelson’s Spaghetti Chicken Casserole, and Whanitta Sheetz’s Fried Ripe Tomatoes.

About half of these recipes were chosen by family members, and the other half by the deceased themselves — preplanned culinary epitaphs for cooks who wanted to make sure their legacy came with a side of flavor.

What Recipe Would You Leave Behind?

Grant’s cookbook reminds us that food isn’t just nourishment — it’s memory. It’s what keeps us connected long after the last bite.

So maybe it’s time to ask yourself: what dish defines you? Maybe it’s your mac and cheese, your grandma’s pie, or something totally original. You don’t have to carve it in granite just yet — but as Grant’s work proves, the flavors we share might just be the most lasting thing we leave behind.