In 2023, TikTok and Instagram influencer Rosie Grant made the trip to North Louisiana in search of a grave—O’Neal Bogan “Peony” Watson’s grave to be exact. Watson had died in 2005, and when her family was deciding on her epitaph, a friend suggested they display her famous peach cobbler recipe.
Grant, who'd gone viral exploring the niche tradition of recipes published on grave markers across the U.S., had found a photograph of Watson’s grave online. She got off the plane in New Orleans, gathered the ingredients at a local grocery (flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, salt, milk, and peaches), and prepared the recipe in the Tulane University dorm room where she was staying. Then she took the cobbler on a four-hour drive to the New Ebenezer Cemetery in Castor, Louisiana. Standing before Watson’s grave, she took her first bite.
This month, Grant’s cookbook, To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes, will include the recipe, along with thirty-nine others sourced from gravestones across the country. You can find the book at harpercollins.com and follow Grant’s videos @ghostly.archive on Instagram and @ghostlyarchive on TikTok.
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