Just in time for spooky season, we came across one of the quirkiest TikTok accounts we've ever seen. Rosemary Grant of @ghostlyarchives on TikTok has been using her account to share, get this … recipes she finds on gravestones. Yes, you read that right. We had no clue gravestone recipes were ever even a thing, but evidently they are.
"You know, the stone, you basically walk upon it and it's like an open cookbook," Rosemary told Good Morning America, about the first gravestone recipe she came across. "And then when I googled to find out more about her grave, other graves had popped up."
Rosemary has found several gravestone recipes so far.
"There are as far as I know of, 10 different gravestones, in the US at least, that have recipes written on them," Rosemary explained. "They're all fairly recent graves, like in the last 20ish years."
They are a way to memorialize the women, many of whom are moms.
"And I think when a lot of us — me included — first think about a gravestone, they think about your name, death date, like really basic information, maybe like mother, father, son. And I think more recently, the world has opened up about how people want to be memorialized," she said.
She sometimes brings the completed treats along to enjoy graveside.
"From my understanding, they were all women, all grandmothers, great-grandmothers. They were very family-oriented. This was like the one recipe that they made at the family gathering," she told GMA. And what better way to honor these women than by whipping up their recipe and visiting their graves to enjoy them outdoors.
"On the flipside, I do think of cemetery's as being very much for the living," Rosemary said.
It's been an eye-opening experience.
Making these recipes and the entire process involved in creating the TikTok videos, which have been viewed millions of times collectively, has been a learning experience for Rosemary.
"This whole process has really showed me the flip side of like, the importance of celebration, and how do I want to be remembered," she said. "I'm starting to have conversations with my family members of like, how do they want to be celebrated? And so, there's like a beautiful side to it of like, life is precious."
She plans to make pilgrimages to all of the graves.
"My plan is to visit all of them," Rosemary said. "So in the TikTok comments, some people have like, hinted that there are other ones out there. Someone mentioned a carrot cake recipe," she said. "I've never been able to find this anywhere, so I feel like there's a lot more discovering to happen."
