I have a copy of, "the NEW Fannie Farmer-Boston Cooking-School COOK BOOK", 1953. My father, in his retirement, took on the care of several Summer homes in Southern Maine. He would check on them during the winter, board up windows against storms, uncover rose gardens when the time was right, deal with emergencies...that kind of thing. During the Summer, when people were in residence, he was sort of a general, all around handyman. His largest client was old money...there was a beach named after the family, a road named after the family, and a huge home, loaded with antiques that had been the original furnishings. An elderly Black woman came up every summer from South Carolina to be their cook for the season. Little bittie thing, set in her ways and stubborn as heck, but since she'd been cooking for the family for decades, she knew what they liked and how to manage them. I had been separated from my father at age 5, and when I found him again in my early 30's, I went out to stay with him and my stepmother for a year to get to know them. He took me down to meet Marguerite. She was a kick, and we got along...several years later, when she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it up again the next season (or ever), she gave my father her Fannie Farmer for me. It still has a bunch of book marks in it, some with shopping lists, some with her name, some with cryptic notes I can't decipher, all in the same, slanted hand. I actually use the book quite a bit, but I don't disturb the bookmarks. I sometimes puzzle over the marked pages, wondering which recipe she had marked... I also have my mother's copy of "The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook",1952. It has a separate section of Passover recipes. There are no pork recipes, naturally. Generally, the cookies and bread recipes are good. As for unique...I have an Ethiopian cookbook...the only one I've been able to find. "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking-Society, Culture, Hospitality, & Traditions. I've only made a couple of dishes out of it. I love Ethiopian food, and when I found out how much Nit'ir Qibe (purified herb & spice butter) is used in most of the dishes I love, I realized why I love them. For example, in dishes made from 1 pound of ground beef, it is not unusual that they contain a cup of butter. A typical lentil dish pairs 2 cups of lentils with 2 cups of butter. No wonder I love it!

I was one of the people who mentioned Settlement Cookbook before. It is what my mother used and I grew up using. But mine is the "New Settlement Cookbook" 1952 edition. Much later than the one on this site. I checked the sponge cake recipes that I use at Passover and they seem to be the same in both. BTW, Amazon.com has modern reproductions of the 1903 edition by a couple of publishers. Feeding America is a great site. I discovered it when someone asked about a historic recipe for gingerbread (the thick cake type) for a school project and linked to it on that thread. It is interesting to click on the by date link and see the really old cookbooks. It will make you glad for modern cookbooks. My mom wasn't taught to cook as a child and told me that the relative who taught her after she was married would respond to questions about how much to put in a recipe with "As much as is enough." Many of the old recipes are like that - if you could understand the recipe you probably don't need it except perhaps to jog your memory. In addition to all our modern technological conveniences, recipe writing has improved a lot in the last 300 years. Check out the "House Servant's Directory" under 1824-1828. It flips from recipes on food to recipes for cleaning supplies and back without taking a breath - no apparent organization to it. It has a recipe to treat a wine that is too sour - by hanging horseradish root in the barrel for a while. Weird stuff in that book! From New England Cookery: A light cake to bake in small cups. Half a pound sugar, half a pound butter, rubbed into two pounds flour, one glass wine, one do. rose water, two do. emptins, a nutmeg, cinnamon and currants. What is emptins? What kind of measure is do.? How do you rub a butter sugar mixture into flour? Is it similar to cutting? (I've see "rub" before in old recipes.) Shrewsbury Cake. One pound butter, three quarters of a pound of sugar, a little mace, four eggs mixed and beat with your hand, till very light, put the composition to one pound flour, roll it into small cakes--bake with a light oven. N. B. In all cases where spices are named, it is supposed that they be pounded fine and sifted; sugar must be dried and rolled fine; flour dried in an oven; eggs well beat or whipped into a raging foam. "put" something "to" something is also common - I expect they mean to mix them together. Here is a link that might be useful: Settlement cookbook at Amazon

As usual, I find Rachelellen's post full of wisdom. It gives me some of the guidance I want. Cooking the same cuisine (not the same dishes) for one week straight would be no hardship at all for me. When I returned from a one week trip to Italy I cooked nothing but northern Italian food for at least three weeks. There was nothing monotonous about it. That experience has faded. I need another trip to Italy for a refresher course. I don't see the need to limit the experiment to a single cookbook, although that could be an effective way to do it, given the right book. Books I would recommend are: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni The Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy These books are similar in approach and format although about different cuisines and by different authors. They provide a solid foundation for cooking each cuisine. Again, I say that switching to another ethnic cuisine for an extended period of time is a fine idea. Those for whom that is their native cuisine eat it daily year after year don't they? Jim

Sylviatexas, yes, I have eaten mock apple pie that a friend's mother made for an after school treat when I went home with her after school one day about 1955. I had never had it, and if I had not been told, I would have thought it was a slice of apple pie. The Ritz crackers are halved, and the only thing that gives it away is that the edges of the "apples" are scalloped or look like they have been peeled with pinking shears. That was an interesting visit. When my friend introduced me to her mother, her mom gasped and asked if I was Jack ____'s daughter. I replied that I was, and she proceeded to tell me how he was so handsome and she had had a crush on him in their single days. At dinner that night I related this mom's report of my dad. He was tickled to hear that a girl he did not remember from his past remembered him. I have seen pictures of my dad from back then, and he looked like a slender Bert Lancaster.