I treat recipes like photographs–something to be preserved.

That’s what has been done with this innocent recipe for Jello cookies that was written in my great-grandmother’s handwriting. The digital image preserves it in it’s original form–better than a transcription which always has the potential for an error. The digital image also provides an example of her handwriting, which might be helpful for someone later in potentially identifying handwriting on the backs of photographs or other family ephemera.

For some of us, handwritten recipes (if we are lucky enough to have them) are the best and only places to get copies of someone’s handwriting.

The one thing missing from the commentary made on this image is who identified the handwriting. When known, that’s an important detail to add. How we come to know information helps us to analyze that information for its perceived accuracy.

I prefer to include this data right on the image itself. While most graphics software allows for the inclusion of metadata (details about a photograph) that information is not seen as a part of the image and can be lost when images are simply shared online and preserved by screen captures.