I have all of my Mom's cookbooks. So many wonderful memories in them. My mom worked in a small factory and years ago the workers put out a cookbook. It is the best cookbook. I bought one. My girls would often tease me about putting their name in it to inherit it.. My MIL worked at the same place and also had one. I got hers when she passes away. Now all 3 of us have our own copies. Wonderful post!!

I love old cook books! Not because I like to cook, that's for sure. But, because, like you, I like to read them. I have my MIL's recipes, hand written, that her daughters were going to throw out after she died, because they have all of her recipes that they wanted already. I rescued them. Both of my kids will get copies. I have my great aunt's recipe box, unfortunately not her noodle recipe. We think that was in her head. My aunt never remembers seeing great aunt using a recipe for them. I have my grandmother's recipes, all hand written, on any scrap of paper she had, and recipes that were clipped from newspapers and magazines. And now, I have all of my mom's. Again, hand written, and clippings. Eventually, I will have them all scanned, and all typed, preserving both the treasures that are the hand written ones, and ones that are easily read.

Ever heard of Molassas Pie? I have the recipe, never heard of it!

In 1972 my sister Lizzie bought me my first cookbook, a big Good Housekeeping cookbook. My Mother's go to cookbook was a Five Roses cookbook and I still use that for some recipes for baking. I remember in that cookbook there was a page that showed various cuts of meat and I cut them out to use for a grade school project haha I still have that cookbook. I have a cookbook from Grandmother from the 1800's that is very interesting to read but I have to be careful because the pages are crumbling. All kinds of recipes including recipes to cure what ails you like drunkeness haha. I really like community cook books, some have stories in them. One of the vintage cookbook from the 1960's is called the Split Level house cookbook haha. I think at one time Dominion Stores gave out recipe cards and when you had them all you purchased a box with dividers to put them in. I never did like the series cookbooks or the microwave books, I am glad my Mom didn't like them either. Some people have shelves of those cookbooks. My favourite specialty cookbook I could look at for hours when I was a kid was my Aunt Elsie's Wilton cake book. I dreamed of becoming old enough to make those kinds of fancy cakes and decorate them. The only cake I remember my Aunt ever baking was the Smirnoff Rum cake so she must have had dreams of baking fancy cakes too. She used to promise me she would leave me that book in her will. haha don't know whatever happened to it but I sure never developed into a good cake baker or decorator. My attempt at decorating a cake was to stick candy coated chocolate Smarties in the frosting haha. I read cookbooks like novels, get a few ideas and don't use the recipes except the baking recipes. We sister gave her daughter a hand written recipe book where we all contributed our favourite recipes. I would have loved something like that. I still have some hand written recipes of my Aunts and my Mom. I love buying cookbooks from resale shops where someone left hand written notes of recipes or their favourite newspaper cut outs or tips.

This is the next book I want to buy, I have listened to Harold McGee on podcasts and he is really interesting and knowledgeable about the science of food and cooking. His new book is gong to be about the flavour of food.

Here is a link that might be useful: On Food and Cooking

I have some old books from my mom--one is the Farmers ---can't remember the complete name and it is at my house. I also have some really great recipes from Hawaii, where we live for 10 months. The gas company gave demos on how to cook different types of meals/foods and they always gave neat pamphlets with hints and recipes Even thought I don't cook much now since I moved, I hate to get rid of all my stuff I have collected over the years and none of my kids want any of them either.

I have an old one of my mother's from the 40's. I remember finding all the tablesetting diagrams in the front interesting and was so proud of myself when after successfully following a recipe for lemonade.

Interesting too are the little booklets published by the food companies. I have one from Jello which has many nice recipes. It's spiral bound, hardback, and I wonder if anyone else has it.

I am blessed with many of my grandmother's original recipes. All are in her handwriting which was lovely. I especially enjoy looking at the ones that are stained with food, or that she made changes to. Tami-Ohio, my grandmother has a recipe for vinegar pie! Never tried that one.

Now that my Mother has Dementia I also treasure her cookbooks and recipe cards.

I am blessed with many of my grandmother's original recipes. All are in her handwriting which was lovely. I especially enjoy looking at the ones that are stained with food, or that she made changes to. Tami-Ohio, my grandmother has a recipe for vinegar pie! Never tried that one.

Now that my Mother has Dementia I also treasure her cookbooks and recipe cards.

I was visiting with a friend many years ago and happened to spy a copy of the cookbook my mother had used, the only one she had had. She told me she had bought it at an estate sale and to take it home, and I did. Since then I found another on Ebay for my sister. My mom married in 1935, and this one is from about 1940, so it is probably a newer edition than hers. But it has all sorts of recipes in it. I love the title--The Way to a Man's Heart: The Settlement Cookbook.

My mom had died when I was a girl, and then my father died 7 years later. His cranky unmarried sister was in charge of liquidating the household, and we kids were not allowed to have anything. So I loved finding this rememberance of my mother.

'so proud of myself when after successfully following a recipe for lemonade.'

This made me smile;
it's so good to start a new skill with a guaranteed, sure-fire success, if it's cooking or sewing or driving or math or gardening (always start with beans; all beans grow).

That's what cheers us on to learning more.

sheila-
I'm glad you found the cookbook!

& we want those molasses & vinegar pie recipes!

Did anyone ever make or eat the "mock apple pie" that was made with Ritz crackers?

It was in a WWII cookbook somewhere.

Sylvia Texas, you are a woman after my own heart. I love cookbooks that aren't just recipes, but describe the lives and times when they were printed, or delve into why and how certain foods, and the plants and animals that go into them, evolved.

I posted recently about losing a recipe copied from a library book in 1992. It was all-inclusive - a history of foods, restaurants of the late 1800s-early 1900s, commercial fowl and game hunters that supplied these restaurants, menus for the seasons, and selected recipes.

I have found my copy of the recipe but it's driving me up the wall trying to remember the name of the book.

It was smaller, but very thick. The pages are about 7 1/4" wide and 9" tall. I know it has at least 29 chapters and my menu, Positively Ducky, begins on page 305.

I have a feeling the "quest" for this book will fill my remaining years on this Earth!

While searching for my copy of the recipe, I found so many wonderful hand-written recipes. One was from a sister-in-law outlining how she makes her wonderful dinner rolls. They never turn out as good for me! A sheet from a USAF memo pad where a co-worker at Little Rock AFB had written down his recipe for crab dip. The old-school "From the Desk of" and the AF emblem made me break down in tears, and remembering Tom, who was a talented cook, and his dear wife, who could not boil water, made me laugh. He'd often come in to work in the mornings with humorous tales of her attempts to fix dinner the evening before.

I have a number of old cookbooks, but the oldest is a book called "The Household Cyclopedia" which was published in 1871 and contains many things, including recipes. This book would have been current when my paternal grandparents were starting out. Here is a recipe I found there:
Daniel Webster's Chowder
Four tablespoons of onions, fried with pork; a quart of boiled potatoes, well mashed; 1 1/2 pounds of sea biscuit, broken; 1 tsp of thyme mixed with one of summer savory; 1/2 bottle of mushroom catsup; 1 bottle of Port or Claret; 1/4 of a nutmeg, grated, a few cloves, mace, and allspice; 6 pounds fish(sea bass or cod) cut into slices; 25 oysters, a little black pepper and a few slices of lemon. The whole put in a pot and covered with an inch of water, boiled for an hour and gently stirred.

Hungry anyone????

have 2 bookcases full...some collected, some from book club and last a complete "encyclopedia" from the grocery store, buy a book a week....

My Mom had the Betty Crocker cookbook. It was red and white checked. I can't recall if it was spiral bound. I saw one in a bookstore, but it was smaller. I think my Mom's was wide. This was about 1963. Does anyone know the cookbook I mean?

Aside from my mother's Betty Crocker cookbook (circa early 50's), I have saved (for over 50 years) cookbooks that church groups, PTAs and local organizations used to print as fund raisers. They would ask their members to contribute family recipes.

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.

I have at least a hundred cookbooks. I don't like diet cookbooks, slow cooker cookbooks....although I did have one that had some good looking recipes in it, but gave it to my daughter, or microwave cookbooks. I love the ones that have notes in the margins, are splattered with cake batter, and have recipes written at the end of chapters. I had one of my mother's cookbooks....a Quaker cookbook from 1954, that I had cooked out of when I was a kid. It came up missing....I am sure my sister carried it off. I found a copy on Amazon. Cost me $55 but getting a copy was like an old friend returning. It was from the Friends Yearly Meeting. One of the few cookbooks I have that I have cooked so many of the recipes. I am always tempted to grab one off the shelf...open to a random page and run my finger down the page without looking, pick a recipe and make it. (My luck it would be a recipe for tripe or something like that.) :))

I am so lucky to have my great grandma, my grandma's and my mom's cookbooks, which are hand written. I also have some vintage books, Women of Unifarm, the Encycolpedia of cooking, two different volumes, and a Mary Moore book. I don't think any of these are in print anymore.

One of my favorites is "For the Breast of Friends", a cookbook written by some ladies in Saskatchewan, who lost about 8 friends to breast cancer. They wrote in memory of these ladies and as a fund raiser for Breast Cancer. Fantastic recipes.

I love the old cookbooks, especially that were handed down from family. The books are very special, but what I like the best is that there are many recipes, saved on the pages of these books. I had and would like to replace the Betty Crocker my Mom gave me as a new bride. It was either that 1950 or 1956 big book of pictures I believe it was called. I see them often on ebay, but so far have not purchased one. I have seen there is a reproduction available from WalMart, but I believe it is special order.

I will try to remember to post the recipe for the molassas pie, and I will look to see what version of Betty Crocker's book mom had, tomorrow. It's bed time now. My eyes are so dry I can hardly focus on the computer screen. I am enjoying the comments here!

Did you say old time? Just for grins, I'll post a couple of recipes I found in my g-g-grandfather's papers. Its in his handwriting and dates to the 1830s.

Do Not Try This.
It is mentioned here for historical interest only.

1. Perry Davis Pain Killer

Alcohol 1 quart
Gumgoacum 1 oz
Gums myrrh and camphor
cayenne

Pulverize of each 1/2 oz.
Mix
Shake occasionally for a week to 10 days and filter or let settle for use.
************

2. Blood Syrup

Sarsaparilla root 1/2 lb
Yellow Dock root 3 oz
Burdock root 3 oz
Gumgoacum 1 oz
Iodine of Potassium 1 oz
5 cents worth of licorice
Alcohol 1 pint

Boil roots in 1 1/2 gal water to 3 quarts and mix.

Dose: 1 Gill

******************

I figure that if you drank this stuff and survived, you would have gotten better anyway.

This makes me feel so old. I guess I am at 73. lol My very first cookbook was a bisquick cook book. I was so proud of it. I have no idea why. My 2nd cook book is a better homes and garden from the early 60's. I was married in 1962. I have a copy of the Joy of cooking a gift from my mom and many many more that I have purchased. She also had a copy of the same cookbook. Mostly Southern living year books. most of mine are in the basement but I bet if I had to count them I have over 50 cook books. My mom taught my sisters and I how to make quick meals to feed our families. Thank you mom.
Mary