That's a great idea. As a birthday gift, I once gave my daughter-in-law a large oak recipe box stuffed with handwritten cards. I found it at an antique store.

I have my mother's recipe box--and I have my own. Thanks for sharing this, Raven!

I have all of my mother's and many of my grandmother's. I am going to do some of these. I love sitting with the boxes and books, mom stuffed hers in this really old cookbook and I have the book still full just where she put them.
Searchlight recipe book by household magazine, that is the book. It's from 1946.

Here is a link that might be useful: Searchlight recipe book

I will never have my grandmother's recipes. I will never have my mothers either. However, thoughts of their recipes bring pleasant memories, and I have found many of the recipes or very similar versions on the internet. I think I will enjoy this website evry much. Thanks, Raven!

Raven, I have that book ;) I'm not sure why because my Mom didn't (and doesn't) cook unless absolutely given no choice, but I have her copy of Searchlight, copyright 1946, Topeka Kansas. The year my sister was born in McPherson Kansas ;)

It's been in a hall linen closet since we moved, no longer in my kitchen. A little bit tattered and I never use it (did I ever use it, I don't know) but I keep it just the same.....even though anything related to kitchen isn't particularly dear to my mother. I have a few handwritten recipes from women that I treasure for the handwriting as much as anything else, none are my own Mom's ;)

This post was edited by morz8 on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 0:33

My mother kept most of her recipes in her head, as did her mother. She had one cookbook and it was called The Way to a Man's Heart. It was compiled by the Settlement organization, and it is a really thorough cookbook. I noticed that a friend had a copy of it on her bookshelf about 25-30 years ago and commented on it. She told me to take it. She had bought it at a jumble sale just because it looked old and never used it. I was able to make the potato soup that my mother used to make from that book.

My parents died when I was a girl, and my father's sister would not let us have anything from the house. Everything was sold. Luckily, this aunt did save some of mom's good tableware, so my sisters and I shared that years later when she had it taken from storage.

After finding this cookbook, I found another for my younger sister on Amazon and bought it for her.

Nifty approach for a good idea. I could participate with a few. Needs better explanation. Found recipes under the index link(?) Odd that the title SALT has the most at 600+. (because of an ingredient, rather than the title of the recipe?)
Still making use of two 1936 cookbooks. Fun to read, great ideas, and delicious. (no fat-free yogurt!) Ha.
edit: One of them is the Household Searchlight Cookbook from Household Magazine. Is that year still copyright? The other big one has no cover, and can't find a name.

This post was edited by OldFixer on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 11:26

My mom wasn't an inspired cook and she never wrote down recipes either nor did she click them from newspapers or magazines. The only recipe I remember her copying was for one rum cake that she had to 'feed' and served over the holidays.

I've been saving recipes for years and keep them on 5 x 8 index cards. I have a beautiful walnut index box that's over 60 years old and it can hold 600 index cards. I'm always amazed when I see one of those index boxes with recipes on small 3 x 5 cards.

My DD always loved helping me bake and would page through my recipe box looking for special desserts to make. When she moved into her own apartment she mentioned that she needed to copy down some of my recipes. I kept checking eBay and finally found an identical box and gave it to her for Christmas filled with some of her favorites.

Since I have moved both to ND and to my new apt, I haven't done much cooking. My DD does a lot and so do my GD's . I do have some old recipes someplace from my mom. She did some cooking but did collect recipes
The only question about this site I have, it really does not define who is collecting (no names either personal or company) and where they are located. I think it is great idea, but am apprehensive in sending anything to anything on the internet I cannot find out this type of information about. But that is my thing.'
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Interesting. If my Mom saved any recipes or had a recipe box, my older sister must have gotten them. Most of the things Mom cooked were just the things she had in her head, the usual and nothing fancy.
I have a Searchlight cookbook I bought at a thrift shop, dated 1940.
Mom had a big White House cookbook that nearly got ruined when we moved and it got left behind and was outside in a cabinet. Tried to rescue it when we returned several years later and it must be stored out in a shed somewhere as I haven't seen it in years.

My mom taught Home Ec for years but cooked at home out of her head. No recipes to speak of that were saved. She just recently moved and handed me an envelope of cut-out of the newspapers recipes but nothing interesting.

I do have her grade 8 Home Ec recipe book from 1942 ssued by the Dept. of Education called Foods, Nutrition and Home Management Manual. It has all the basic recipes but also tells you how to set a table. take care of your kitchen equipment and how to do laundry.

at my wedding shower, each guest wrote a recipe card for me and they were presented in a recipe box.

I added to it over the years, some were in my grandmother's and aunt's handwriting.

Unfortunately, it got left behind when I moved. When I realized it, I was devastated!

My mother was also an uninspired cook. Her recipes usually came from the newspaper or a product label, and involved "Take a package of this, add to it a can of this kind of soup and sprinkle cheese on it", etc. Nothing you'd consider a real recipe of ingredients, but most were simple combinations of prepared foods. That's how it was raising boomers, no time to do much beyond that basics.

She had a few original recipes that I know and use periodically. We all learned to cook on our own later on. She did the basic things fine but I'd never want to repeat (or even remember) the concoctions she prepared,

My best food memories from childhood involved going to what at the time were considered ethnic or non-mainstream types of restaurants (Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Seafood, street food) and I continue to enjoy doing that.

I have a recipe file that I started (homework assignment) when I took Home Ec in high school in the early 60's. I have added my favorite recipes to it, and made a note to my daughter that I keep inside it also. My mother had a cookbook that I cooked out of when I was in school, and my best friend made some of the recipes with me. It was a Quaker cookbook from the Quaker Yearly Meeting in 1954, Somehow or another, it disappeared but I was delighted to find it on Amazon, and bought a copy. I miss that it doesn't have my mother's hand written recipes in it, and I miss the batter splattered pages from my own attempts. Our next door neighbors when I was growing up were a couple who were like grandparents to me. The lady of the house had taken cooking lessons while her husband was away overseas during WWII. She had kept a notebook that had every meal she had prepared since that time. When my parents went out of town, I stayed with them. I am sure Mrs. Laycock was a gourmet cook, but to my tastes, her food was almost inedible. I would give anything for her notebooks and recipe files now. My best friend's mother was a great cook. She made the best shrimp creole I have ever eaten. When I got married, and my husband was a shrimper, I set out to try and duplicate her recipe. Why I didn't just go ask her....I don't know. Anyway, it was years before I figured out that the taste I was having a hard time duplicating was the bacon grease she used in the roux. Still, I don't think mine was ever as good as hers....but, I can make a super pot of gumbo!

I asked my best friend about her mother's recipe file. I know she must have had one...but she said no....she had never come across one in her mother's things. I would love to have her recipes for just about anything. My mother was a good cook, but when I was in high school I worked in a little cafe owned by two sisters, who were originally from Nebraska. One did the main cooking and her sister did the pies and cakes. Back then, everything was made from scratch. Every day of the week was a different "plate lunch", They did things a little differently than my mother, and I learned a lot about cooking from them. I am not a fancy cook but I think there is something to be said about being able to cook rather ordinary things well. Like making a great roast....roast is just that. Roasted meat cooked on a rack. Not boiled or steamed beef...which many people pass off as "roast".

Last year I went to a yard sale and bought a cookbook that had belonged to an old lady, who like my former neighbor, when I was a kid, kept a record of not only recipes she liked but the menus she served when she entertained....everything from dinner parties to her bridge club. The menus date back to 1940. I love it! The cookbook was a Betty Crocker cookbook, loose leaf...like a notebook, and she had included her notebook in there.

I am sure I am going to enjoy that...

I'm from a large family, and my mother always did the cooking, but I don't member ever seeing a recipe or recipe box anywhere. Everything was made from scratch of course, and I remember one of her most often used words was a "smidgen" and that could be whatever amount it needed to be.

When I became the cook for my family, I always did everything like Mama did, and that has been the way I want my meals to be . . .just like Mama's. Now that my grands are doing the holiday meals, some come close and some don't. But so be it.

Thanks for the links.

Sue

I think I was very lucky to be born in Louisiana and in a Cajun family because every single person was a great cook, including all the men. My daddy was an awesome cook. I love that trait in Cajun men, they usually have their special dishes that they love to cook. All of dad's recipes were in his head though so nothing lives on. I watched of course but that was so long ago. I sure wish I had some of those recipes.
When I got married and moved away my mother copied many of her recipes for me to take with me, I did not have a lot of cooking experience. Of course like all girls my age I had taken the requisite Home Ec courses and Ms. Hazel Benoit did her best to teach us how to be good cooks. I still have many of Ms Hazel's recipes. I think it must be in our Cajun genes to just know how to cook because I got it! lol
Our church would put out a local cookbook that all the local ladies would contribute recipes to, that is still to this day my absolute favorite cookbook. I have used so many of those recipes from ladies I knew very well. That cookbook has lots of spatters on it from my efforts. I love to get those kinds of cookbooks, from very local especially rural areas by churches and organizations. I have a few Junior League ones too.
There is a very nice one from the Junior League from Lake Charles it is called Pirate's Pantry. I know it is still available, but I can not tell you how many people I visit that have that book front and center in their kitchens lol.
Pirate's Pantry: Treasured Recipes of Southwest Louisiana

on that same Amazon page lower it shows other similar cookbooks, I have a lot of those too including the River Road ones. And the best of the best Louisiana cookbooks. I find some good ones like that at Cracker Barrel in their store area.

Marilyn great stories and will be good to see you soon!

Just found out about another similar site called recipecurio

Here is a link that might be useful: Recipecurio

I'm blushing--why, thank you!

I'm Adam, the guy who does the scanning/obsessing at Yesterdish... figured I'd introduce myself, anyhow! I don't try to be mysterious or anything, it's just...

I see a lot of recipe blogs that are really personality-driven, y'know? To the point where they're barely even about food. It's more like, "Look how awesome *I* am, I'm going to pick up the kids and then I'm going to make dinner and then I'm going to have a party and my life is fabulous and you should look at everything I do all the time."

Which is fine, I guess, if it's what people want to do, but I'm telling other peoples' stories, and I worried about getting in the way of that by being too, "here's my life, aren't I talented?" (Plus, I tend to think those blogs strain to simplify life in the way reality television flattens out complex narratives into something that fits a 20-minute story arc. And when we're talking about food--more than anything else, except maybe history itself--we need to complicate our understanding.)

But the short version of my story: I'm originally from Ohio, live in Virginia, and when I'm not scanning recipes, I do media law stuff for a nonprofit. http://huffingtonpost.com/adam-goldstein

The tags evolved out of trial and error--I realized that if I tagged basically every ingredient but water, then the comparison algorithm that finds related recipes worked better. Especially when you're talking about things like sauces--there may be no difference between a sweet and savory sauce than the substitution of salt for sugar. (It's rare, but it happens.) It does look a bit odd on the tag index page, I grant you ;)

If anyone has ideas on what I can do better, let me know!

Here is a link that might be useful: Yesterdish

Hi Adam!
How nice of you to drop by and let us know a little more about the site and you!
I think your idea is wonderful and I do have several cards and notes I am planning to scan and send to you. I didn't see any pins in the map for Louisiana so I will be sure to get that pin on the map! I also have some recipes from mother in law those would be Oklahoma. And I am Texas.

Please come back any time. And I really hope you are successful in your mission. How long have you been doing it?

I'm the one who mentioned the vast variety of recipes of all kinds, not by "topic", but under "Salt" (the leader with 600+ entries). Why is that?