Family Food: Preserve Your Family’s Unique Cuisine
Inherited family recipes connect us to our past, while treating our tastebuds and making us feel at ‘home’. Save them and pass them on.
Explore these journal ideas about family food to celebrate everything food and drink related in your family. Relive memorable meals, swap tips and tricks in the kitchen and encourage healthy eating. But most importantly, ensure that your favourite family recipes are safely preserved so future family get to enjoy them too.

Special Drinks
What special drinks would you recommend to others?
- Handmade syrups that the children love?
- Cocktails for social gatherings?
- Bottles you buy to mark special occasions?

Diet Tips
Any thoughts or tips on a balanced diet?
- What are the important elements of a balanced diet?
- What super foods do you recommend, and how do you incorporate them into your diet?
- What tips can you offer for meals?
- What tips can you offer on purchasing ingredients?
- Do you recommend any supplements?
- What should family avoid eating?

Special Meals
What do you eat at special family occasions?
- What are those timeless home-cooked family meals that you will never grow tired of?
- Do you have memories of family meals as a child that you loved?
- What is the ultimate ‘home-cooked’ meal?

Birthday Cakes
Can you create an ongoing story of birthday cake photos throughout the years?
- Imagine collecting photos of family members with their cakes each year.
- As a parent, make the ‘birthday cake photo’ a family ritual!

Memorable Mealtimes
What memorable social occasions have you had at mealtime?
- Look back through old photos to be reminded of special meals you’ve enjoyed.
- It might be a breakfast you enjoyed on holiday with a view to die for.
- What special events or moments happened at a meal table?

Perfect Meals
What would your perfect breakfast, lunch, and dinner look like?
- If you could have just one more breakfast, lunch and dinner, what would you choose?
- It can’t hurt to let others know…

Family Recipe Book
If your family wrote a recipe book, what recipes would you include?
- A lot of comments online show that many families regret not learning from the cooks in their family how to create their favourite family meals.
- It’s all too tempting to sit back and enjoy their delicious food without learning how to prepare it. But doing so comes with a sad reality that you’ll struggle to recreate that meal in the future.
- Talk with your family to identify the most important meals and learn how to make them while you can.
- Learning to cook them will make the meals even more special. When you cook them in the future, you’ll look back on these times fondly.
- Preserve the details with recipes, photos and videos.

Signature Dishes
Which dishes are different family members famous for making?
- Which dishes are you most proud of that are appreciated by your family?
- Which dishes of your parents of siblings do you love the most?
- Perhaps you don’t have a signature dish. So what would you like to get better at so it becomes your signature dish?

Regular Meals
What do you regularly eat now that might be nice to be reminded of in years to come?
- Meal time isn’t always about fancy dishes. What are the simple dishes that represent your regular week?
- It might be the number 8 dish from your local Chinese takeaway or your favourite diavola pizza!
- Imagine being able to see the meals your parents frequently made you as a child. And even cook them yourself, if the recipe is available!
- As a parent, you can offer this to your children by recording the regular meals in your home.

Family Cooking Time
What is your family cooking experience like?
- Is cooking a one-person affair?
- Do you share cooking with your partner or parents?
- Do your children help out?
- Preparing food can be just as rewarding as eating it. How does your family prepare their meals?

Eating Out
Where are your favourite places to eat?
- A regular restaurant that you frequent?
- A place where special events from your past took place?
- Perhaps the first time eating out with your partner or when you were first introduced to a new type of cuisine…

Sweet Tooth
What deserts do the family go crazy for?
- From summer deserts with handpicked fruit to winter wonders that leave everyone feeling they’ve over indulged!
- If you get to request one desert from your family’s expert, which will it be?
View the Ultimate Guide with 70 journal questions that will bring back a flood of family stories and memories!
Family Food Journal Ideas FAQ’s
What is ‘family food’ referring to?
‘Family food’ refers to the meals and culture of consumption within your family. It encompasses the foods that you enjoy, as well as the cultural and social aspects surrounding food within the family.
What are ‘journal ideas’ about?
Sometimes it can be hard to get started writing a story. ‘Journal ideas’ help by providing creative ideas as inspiration. Simirity’s journal ideas have been designed to ignite discussions in your family and inspire you to ask questions about your family’s past.
How can I use journal ideas with my family?
These journal ideas work in multiple ways to bring your family closer together:
- For individual reflection: Use them as personal writing prompts to capture your own memories and thoughts.
- For family conversations: Share journal ideas during family dinners, car rides, or video calls. Ask “How would you answer this one?” to spark meaningful discussions that go beyond daily small talk.
- For preserving family stories: When an idea resonates with a family member, encourage them to share their response in a way that captures it permanently.
The Simirity family journal app includes 100’s of journal ideas with features designed to make family storytelling simple and meaningful. Our Story Requests feature lets you easily share specific prompts with family members, while voice recordings and photo narrations help capture responses in the most natural way possible. Explore our demo account to see how families are transforming everyday moments into lasting memories.