Quite a few of my family traditions revolve around food. My grandmother and my mother always seem convinced that they are cooking for a whole army - there is always about 3 times more food cooked than we're actually ever going to eat. Some of the traditions that have developed in my family have come out of my sisters' and my favorite foods. We have family recipes like hamburger soup, goulash, and our famous Christmas sugar cookies (our decorations are legendary). One food tradition that is particularly interesting is our use of church cookbooks. We have cookbooks from my church and my grandmother's church, and by using those we are tapping into other family's food traditions. One recipe in particular is a recipe for baked beans that my younger sister and I have always loved. It was included in a church cookbook by one of my grandmother's friends back in New Jersey. My sister and I have never met the creator of the recipe, but we know her name was Mrs. Pyron, and those baked beans have come to be known as Mrs. Pyron's baked beans. Even though that recipe is not our own, we have become part of Mrs. Pyron's food traditions.