a little archivist's advice
Caring for old recipe cards
Tinfully keeps the words. The cards, the clippings, and the annotated cookbook are still the treasure, and they are more fragile than they look. This is the short version of what conservators recommend, adapted from a National Archives article by Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, who ran their conservation laboratory.
While you cook
- Cook from the photo or the printed cookbook, not the original. That alone prevents most damage.
- If the card has to come into the kitchen, slip it into a clear polyester sleeve first. Splashes and grease are the usual killers.
- Dry, clean hands. Keep the card flat rather than folding it back into the tin.
Where to keep them
- A preservation-quality binder with polyester page protectors, or archival folders in an archival box for a larger collection.
- Avoid the old magnetic photo albums. The adhesive pages yellow and stain paper over time.
- Cool, dry, dark, and away from the stove. Attics and basements swing too much in heat and damp.
- Newspaper clippings are the most fragile items in the tin. Photograph them first; they brown and crumble faster than cards.
What makes them worth keeping
The value is in the hand and the marginalia: the crossed-out quantity, the "too sweet" in the corner, the recipe on the back of an envelope. Keep every version, keep the annotated cookbook with its pages marked, and let the notes stand. Tinfully transcribes the words as written for the same reason, and marks what it could not read rather than guessing.
Handling an old cookbook
- Never force the spine flat to photograph it. Support both covers and shoot at an angle; the reading step copes with a little curve.
- Leave the slips of paper and the pressed flowers where they are, but photograph the page with them and then without.
Photographing for Tinfully
- Daylight from a window, card flat on a plain surface, phone straight above it. Avoid the flash; it glares on glossy ink.
- One card per photo. When a recipe goes on (over the back, onto another card, or the facing page of a cookbook), add the rest to the same recipe: This recipe continues, or Add a card on its Recipe cards.
- Tinfully finds the card's edges and straightens it. If it missed, Crop, on the card under Recipe cards, lets you drag the four corners; Turn fixes a sideways photo.
- Fill in who wrote it and when under the recipe's Details. The book prints them under the title, and the family can search by them.
Source: Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, "Preserving Family Recipes," Prologue magazine, National Archives, Fall 2016. Read the original. The advice above is a summary, not the article.