I love old cookbooks.This one, tattered, worn, spotted with age and careless drippings, has lived at my father-in-law's house for over forty years - it was a gift sent to my mother-in-law from people back home in Newfoundland in the sixties. Published by one of the flour companies (Five Roses, Cinderella, Cream of the West, Purity, and so on.) as a way to seal brand loyalty, this one is skewed to the hard-scrabble Newfoundland heritage of making everything out of nothing and being proud of what you had.
We own a re-print of another flour company cookbook (Purity, an example recipe here) and Bear's face always lights up when we cook things from it - it feels like home to him.
B is busy gearing up to begin his Christmas baking (what? Huh, you thought I was the one who baked? Ummm, no.) and I have little doubt that several of the yummy things listed on these pages will appear.
7 comments:
The "You are a Christmas Cake" is pretty neat.
Here in my house, I do the cookies, but it's Pete who does the Yule Log, which takes hours.
These days you don't see recipes with "Economy" in te title. And I think that's a shame... I love old cookbooks like that, I have a couple and they look like yours, coverd in drips and stains and ears all dogged.
I deliberately leave my cookbooks open right on the counter where I'm cooking so they get splashed with oil or sauce or whatever, so that when I hand them down to my kids they'll think I was a prolific chef.
I love old cookbooks too.
In the UK you can pick up old one, really old ones, for a song.
Last year I bought a turn of the century Mrs. Beetson jam cookbook. It had all kinds of jame recipes -- and not much had changed! So cool!
I'm with you on the old cookbook front. My sister lucked out and got the oldest family cookbook which has a helpful hint for helping a lightening stricken victim. Yup. Coffin I'd say, but I'm so sure what they reccomend. One of my favourite's in my house is my mom's mac-tacked bright orange one from the 70's. Wonderful!
My Mom has the old Five Roses cook book and still uses it all the time. She gave a copy, it was reprinted, it is great, has all the same recipes. But they didn't do the spiral bound thing, and it drives me nuts!
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