A Recipe Book or Box?

[fureverywhere]

How quaint...I remember both weddings I got a recipe box or book. I had two boxes. One from Avon with handwritten recipes. The other was a ledger book from my grandmother. Then a third box of recipes from heaven knows where. The handwriting of an aunt that passed on, a daughter long estranged.

But yeah I organized them again. Best buddie's Mom wrote me a recipe for her fruit tapioca. In the age of technology they won't recognize handwriting or even names...that is sad, that is your history.

 

[Aunt Bea]

I agree that the old handwritten recipes, covered in splatters, with notes along the margin are a great connection to the past and should be preserved. Instead of retyping your recipes try scanning the originals into your computer and saving pictures of the original.

 

[fureverywhere]

I might just leave them as they are. My youngest girl might save them someday. Otherwise they just might be tossed. Family and friends that this generation don't remember. My grandmother's ledger is so beautiful even almost a hundred years later. I'm the cancer sign of the zodiac, I adore antique stuff. The old recipes are fun in that they often had no set measurement or cooking time.

It was expected that you knew how to bake a pie or cook a chicken. The measurements might be a handful, a thimbleful, just enough milk and butter to make crumbs, season to taste...I remember my aunt's recipe for lemon sponge pie. It took a few years of experimenting to get it just the way she did. Now I've got the munchiesnthego:

 

[Ruth n Jersey]

I wish I had saved my Grandmas recipe book but instead I copied the recipes I wanted and tossed it. The box shown in the photo, my son made for me. I painted it to match my kitchen. The rooster plaque was on some other item I had once. He made a little frame for it on top. Inside I made the dividers. Behind the dividers are recipes we already like,in the envelope like the one pulled out, are recipes yet to be tried. I'm sure I'll never get to try them all but yet I can't stop saving them. My daughter has her recipes in a file on the computer. Every time she needs one she runs for her laptop. I can't seem to get over that but I keep my mouth shut. I saw her do that on Thanksgiving one time. I thought to myself, someday,when you really need a recipe the internet will be down and then you will call mamma for the recipe.

 

[Carla]

My mother gave me a Betty Crocker cookbook when I was first married. She had one and we always remember how beat up and full of splatters it had! Great book for basic recipes. I have a lot of cookbooks, inherited from my MIL. I have a couple very old books-one a cookbook/medical reference. Another, quite interesting, how to make your own liquor. They made large quantities and I guess, neighbors traded off with one another. That book is pre-Civil War. A lot of these cookbooks used a lot of fat/lard and I am sure it tasted good! But what I realize when reading these very old books is how much work it was! They didn't go down to the local ACME to pick up a chicken or a pound of hamburger! If you didn't plant it and preserve it, you didn't eat it! Bread, made from scratch as well as any noodles. Without refrigeration or freezers, you could only keep so much. So churn your own butter, milk the cow, sheesh, can we even imagine? We actually don't have to go to far back to when people did these things to survive. Rural areas used to do a lot of farming as recently as 50-60 yrs ago. My husband use to work the fields and pluck the chickens and knew how to can. They had to help out as kids, and if a neighbor needed help, they were sent there! Farm kids had to do their chores before they went to school, hence, they often smelled a little funky. How lucky we are today! We can pick up things for a recipe, be back in less than an hour and begin cooking!

 

[maggiemae]

I have a recipe box with many of my grandmother's recipes written on index cards. I refer back to many of them during the holiday season ( her pecan pie recipe is the best). My mother was a nurse and I have a cake recipe she wrote out and when she came to the part about removing from the oven and adding the glaze, she wrote "Stat" (which is a medical term for quickly). I have that recipe framed.

 

[fureverywhere]

I wish my mother in law had been into writing recipes. Typical Italian matriarch she made everything from scratch. All the recipes from her own Mom and in-laws. You didn't have to write it down. The sauce, the meatballs, the Christmas cookies, the beef and lamb stews, you knew all that stuff. Sadly when she passed the recipes went with her.

 

[Myquest55]

This all makes me think that I should sort through all my recipes and cull the ones from my grandmothers and mother. They should be saved in a book or packet with notes about who they were from and what we liked about them. I could keep it in the box with all the family history. I don't have any daughters to pass it to but my amazing daughter-in-law may just find it interesting. There is still time for grandchildren....

I started a book when I ventured out on my own, after college - using one of those black & white Composition Books that were stitched together, in 1978. I am into my second volume now - using a leather bound book I found on clearance at Office Depot. I have copied recipes, pasted them in from magazines, made notes and changes and marked the date every time I used one. My maternal grandmother did that with her recipes - marked the date whenever she made it. Kind of interesting to see the favorites.

 

[Redd]

Ruth, such a pretty recipe box and I like the idea of sub dividing tried and untried recipes.

I come from several generations of non cooks so I had to learn to cook or starve. Grandma gave me her unused Betty Crocker and I still have that today. Along with a file folder of untried recipes, some on Pinterest and other online sites. I manage.