How a TikTok archivist is celebrating the memories of strangers, one recipe at a time

CTV National News: Baking that honours the dead A California librarian is baking recipes she finds etched on strangers’ gravestones. Richard Madan has more on her unusual passion project.

WASHINGTON — Digital librarian Rosie Grant is finding inspiration through very unusual hobby: baking recipes from gravestones in cemeteries across America.

"Death is such a taboo topic," she said in a video call with CTV National News Washington Bureau Correspondent. "It's scary to think about our own mortality, but there's this beautiful celebration of a who a person was."

For the past year, Grant has been baking cookies, pies, meatloaf, or any other recipe she finds etched in gravestones, and shares it on her popular TikTok account, called @ghostlyarchive. It was initially started as a school project while studying library science at the University of Maryland. Many of her videos have gone viral attracting millions of views.

"Food has this incredible connection to these memories, these good times," she said.

For the past year, Grant has been searching for gravestones with recipes etched on them. One discovery took her to Logan, Utah, where beloved grandma, Kay Andrews' famous fudge is engraved on a giant tablet.

Her viral video caught the attention of Andrews' daughter, Janice. She told CTV News her mother often made her fudge for the whole community before her death 3 years ago at 97 years of age. And her late mother wanted to share her recipe as a permanent reminder of her generosity and sense of humour.

"She loved chocolate," said Janice Andrews from her home in Syracuse, Utah, adding her late mother would be laughing at the online fame.

"Nobody puts a fudge recipe on a headstone unless they're pretty funny," she said.

So far, Grant has made more than 11 gravestone recipes. She ends each TikTok with "another recipe to die for".

"I wish I could host a dinner party with all of them" she said.