Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumI love old cookbooks
I found a gem this weekenda cookbook put together by the Margaret McCandless Society sometime before 1920. Its filled with hand-written notes and slips of paper with recipes written on them. Its amazing how much cookery has changed in a century. So many ingredients that were taken for granted back then are just puzzling todaypickled pork and walnut catsup anyone? And some of the flavors definitely strike me as oddtheres a black bean soup that includes two tablespoons of cinnamon and a tablespoon of cloves.
FSogol
(46,645 posts)Greek immigrants left their own mark on foods.
spinbaby
(15,206 posts)The cinnamon in Cincinnati chili is fairly subtle, but the amounts of cinnamon and cloves in this recipe are definitely assertive, to say the leastthree tablespoons of spice in a recipe that starts with four cups of beans. The amount of other seasonings in are fairly modesta carrot, a parsnip, a tablespoon of tomato catsup, a bunch of celery.
rokar
(25 posts)I'm from Texas. Visited relatives in Ohio a couple of years ago. They raved about their "chili", so I tried some. It's (slightly) spicy spaghetti.
Ocelot II
(121,222 posts)It's not quite as archaic as the one mentioned in the OP, but it's a relic anyhow. And I have my grandmother's recipe for julekake, which she probably got from her mother and must be at least 120 years old, and it's pretty imprecise by modern standards. I always have to guess about amounts so each batch tends to be a bit diffeent.
Diamond_Dog
(34,990 posts)My mother hated to cook so we never had cookbooks in the house. I do have a hand written recipe in my Grandmothers handwriting for her homemade pierogi.
Ocelot II
(121,222 posts)It's a yeast bread, has a kind of sticky dough that's hard to work with, has cardamom and raisins. It's a traditional seasonal recipe, we always had it at Christmas. You can even buy it at some grocery stores around Christmas but it's not the same!
ratchiweenie
(7,937 posts)My mother was an amazing baker and all the recipes had her hand written notes about ingredient amounts and adjusted bake times, etc. I am just sick over it. My husband got me an old Searchlight but of course, without my mom's notes, it's just nice not spectacular. I wish she was still around to help me re-write her successes.
Marthe48
(19,177 posts)and I see julekake every time I drop the google search box I bet I learned of it here!
Quakerfriend
(5,659 posts)cookbook from the early 1800s.
Most of the recipes contain some combination of
butter, cream, sugar & whiskey!
All are written in pen & ink.
spinbaby
(15,206 posts)In this cookbook, theyre mostly good about including amounts of ingredients, but often dont include any instructions on how to put them together.
Entire cake recipe:
1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, whites of two eggs, 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup sweet milk, flavor to taste.
Quakerfriend
(5,659 posts)I seem to recall that it did list ingredients.
Im not sure about directions.
Next time I visit my sister, I take some pictures to share with you!
Major Nikon
(36,911 posts)If you look at my previous post on mushroom catsup, it will give you an idea of what catsup was 100 years ago and beyond which is completely different than what we think of tomato catsup today.
In the time before refrigeration, ingredients like pickled pork would have been very common.
The availability of spices wasn't the same as it is now. Certainly salt and pepper were available, along with cinnamon and cloves, but many of the other things we take for granted now just weren't around in middle America.
spinbaby
(15,206 posts)This book includes instructions for keeping cooked food fresh under a layer of congealed fatsomething we no longer need to think about.
Ive been going through the recipes considering which ones I want to trymaybe one of the biscuit recipes, which all seem to contain much less fat than todays biscuit recipes. I probably wont try the cough syrup recipe, though, not having morphine on hand.
Major Nikon
(36,911 posts)The recipes which have you melting smaller amounts of fat and adding to the liquid ingredients produced a more cake like biscuit. Baking soda was widely available in the 19th century and later baking powder. Some early versions of baking powder were just cream of tartar and baking soda, kept apart until ready to use. Later versions combined the two with other ingredients designed to slow the reaction down until the powder was incorporated. As these changes were made, recipes also changed as people were trying new things with them which weren't previously possible.
The evolution of American biscuits as we know them today came largely from the South and as you'd expect the history includes a lot of innovation from African Americans both as slaves and continued beyond slavery. King Arthur Flour has a good read on the subject.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/01/30/history-of-american-biscuits
2naSalit
(93,088 posts)I sold almost all of them when I moved to Montana. But kept one favorite published in 1942. I thought I had lost it when sort of while I was homeless. I had several publication of this large cookbook as they published a knew one every year it seemed. I gave a copy to my mom for a birthday decades ago. The last time I visited my mom before the pandemic that killed her, she was too old and feeble to cook and I asked if I could have the copy I had given her and she was glad to give it back along with another more widely known and sought after one from the same era. So after carting these two large books through the airports, A week after I got home a friend called and told me they had my original copy so now I have two of the same publication of the one book.
The one I still use is:
(Both my copies are 1942 ed.)
My mom offered two copies of the more popular:
(Both of mine are 1946 ed.)
I have an old canning pamphlet from Ball Jars and some others from Kerr and Mason.
I use them for certain mental block days or for my killer pie crust that everyone likes and assorted dishes that are still really good in these times.
ETA: Used to have a 1913 copy of Fanny Farmer's Boston School of Cooking book but I sold it for a handsome price when I was selling everything I owned.
Marthe48
(19,177 posts)I gave it to my older daughter. At a sale a few years later, I picked up a WWII edition, with an addendum of recipes using alternatives to rationed food items.
I still have dozens of cookbooks, all ages. When we went to auctions, I always seemed to end up with the stash of recipes from the kitchen drawer. What treasures
2naSalit
(93,088 posts)That I sold but they all had an interesting Appendix in the back, like the wartime cookery section in the back of the 1942 edition. The others had plans for several styles of root cellars, another had diagrams for butchering various farm and wild game animals. It was the wartime cookery section that prompted me to buy the first one.
The very best pie crust recipe in the world is in that book, the southern flaky crust recipe is what I use.
Marthe48
(19,177 posts)I use the bread and roll recipes from that book, although after all these years, I have bread dough memorized Wonder if the authors ever dreamed they'd created a gold standard cookbook?
2naSalit
(93,088 posts)My other most favorite recipe in that book is the rolled oat bread, I think I alter it a bit but it comes out just like the rolled oat bread my mom made often when I was really young. She stopped some practices with the arrival of each new child. Couldn't blame her for that. I still make the bread but haven't for a while due to lack of a decent and workable kitchen.
It's kind of funny how following my last visit to my mom's I ended up with two copies of both books. There's a well used copy and a pretty clean, could even sell, copy that stays on the shelf.
Marthe48
(19,177 posts)I loved that detail in your post. Sure hope your kitchen situation changes. Some of my kitchens have been primitive, but we got by
TygrBright
(20,987 posts)What were they thinking? How did they eat this bilge? Good questions, but you won't find them answered here. This is a simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and horrid recipes. It's a wonder anyone in the 40s, 50s and 60s gained any weight; it's a miracle that people didn't put down their issue of Life magazine with a slight queasy list to their gut, and decide to sup on a nice bowl of shredded wheat and nothing else. It wasn't that the food was inedible; it was merely dull. Everything was geared for a timid palate fearful of spice. It wasn't non- nutritious - no, between the limp boiled vegetables, fat-choked meat cylinders and pink-whipped-jello dessert, you were bound to find a few calories that would drag you into the next day. It's that the pictures are so hideously unappealing.
Where have all these images slumbered, lo these many decades? In small faded books, shoved in the back of some Mom's pantry. They're collector's items now - but of course, eventually, everything is a collector item. I find them in antique stores, stacked carelessly, forgotten and overpriced, or carefully stowed in plastic envelopes, pristine, awaiting the collector's discerning eye. There's a market for these books.
But why? It's possible that many of the people who buy these books regard them as prime sourcebooks, texts from the Golden Age of Butter. Maybe some appreciate the camp value, but whatever snickering amusement you get from the pictures and text passes quickly. I can't see anyone pulling out their collection on a winter's night and amusing themselves with 50 year old cookie recipes.
Perhaps the main reason people buy these books is the Mom factor. At least that's my excuse. They're everyday relics of another time, my parents' time, and this gives them a poignancy they do not deserve, and do nothing to earn. But I love them anyway.
You have to read the commentary on these... and plenty more:
Hours of cookbook fun!
helpfully,
Bright
Ocelot II
(121,222 posts)and he's always pretty funny. But this compilation is beyond regular funny. It's ROFLMAO funny.
Old Crank
(4,795 posts)a few of the group made cook books. You know the type. Made from recipes from people who had a book made as a fund raiser. Some fun things in those. They were an interesting read on occasion. Especially with regional differences.
Had to give them up when I moved to Germany.
Mr.Bill
(24,828 posts)by the ladies of a Buddhist Temple in Palo Alto, California. Apparently this is a common fund raiser at such temples. It's just a bunch of recipes provided by the individual ladies. I worked at the print shop that printed 1,000 of them. They sold for $10, they cost about $2 each to print. Much of the recipes are Asian, but there are other things also. I refer to it often, especially the Asian stuff. I printed it around 1980.
Marthe48
(19,177 posts)I picked up a spiral notebook at a sale a few years ago. When I looked at it, I saw that it had belonged to one of the local undertaker's wife. There are handwritten recipes from different families. Reads like a who's who of our town. Even more fun, mixed in with the recipes are eulogies and appropriate poems to honor your deceased loved one. :/
The oldest cook books I have belonged to my maternal grandmother, and one of my paternal great aunts. They are around 1900.
There was a lot to running a house back then: making your own cleaning products, dying your cloth to make clothes, dressing fish and game, running a sanitary and healthful sick room. One of the cooksbooks I have describes how to tell if you have a slow or quick oven. You put a piece of paper in, and if it doesn't burst into flame right away, you have a slow oven. If it bursts into flame immediately, you have a quick oven. Wow.
I was looking at a 1940s era cookbook I have. Was curious to see if there were any recipes for pizza. Nope.
Retrograde
(10,699 posts)I have half a dozen versions ranging from a reprint of the original 1896 one through the current edition. My favorite is the 1918 one, complete with instructions from Herbert Hoover on how to save wheat for our troops and use other grains instead - it's also the last one I have that instructs you how to blacken your stove (water in the coal and wood would rust the iron parts if they weren't carefully cleaned and coated with a protective "blacking" every day), and how to kindle a fire first thing in the morning to get your stove started