Recipe Book
When I was in college, my mother put together a recipe book for me made from 3×5″ cards. Somewhere in my final move away from home state, that book got lost.
Above, is the cover of the recipe book that replaced it.
My mother inscribed it as follows:
It is an unprepossessing thing: a notebook, spiral-bound with heavy cardboard covers and lined pages in-between, on which are written several family recipes. This one, I have NOT lost in any of my moves. I have had it since 2004, and some of the recipes within it are recipes that were perfected 100 years prior — in 1904 or before.
Like this one:
There are little notes on many of the recipes my mother included in this book. “Good luck!” is a stand-alone message on the recipe for applesauce cake — I have NEVER been able to get it right! — and more detailed messages on a few, like the one above.
As to that: I remember my great-grandmother well. She used to come to our house in the winter time — when her son (my mom’s dad) would bring her “down from the farm” for the holidays — and she would bake Christmas cookies with my mom and me. I watched her make these cookies — just called “cookies” in my recipe book, you might notice; no fancy names — as a child.
Some of the recipes I’ve previously posted on this blog have come from this book. In fact, most of them have. Some of them have been posted during the A-to-Z, like my mom’s monster cookies and my use-up-what’s-in-the-cupboards modification of applesauce spice drops. Others have been dispersed throughout various holiday seasons. All of them are delicious. 🙂
I love my hand-written recipe book. I’ve added my own recipes to it over the years, and I suspect it will continue to evolve; still, it’s like a nostalgic little slice of “home” that I keep with me in my own home, and because it’s from my mom, it’s very special.
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Do you have hand-written recipes or a recipe book that has been passed down to you?
Or perhaps you have created recipes that you will hand down to others in your famly?
Do tell — I’d love to hear!
For the A-to-Z Challenge this year, I am asking (and answering!) get-to-know-you type questions. If you are new to the A-to-Z, please click the badge directly above to learn what it’s about or to access a list of participants. To see my previously-posed 2022 ponderings, please see here.
You have reminded me to retrieve my grandmothers handwritten recipe book from the cupboard. I don’t cook sweet things very often because then I just eat them. However I might give them a go now you have made me think of them.
I have a soft spot for home-baked sweets like cookies and fruit breads. But I haven’t made anything lately, because as you say — I just eat them! *laugh*
I sometimes get recipes from my mum and save them in Google docs .. she has some handwritten recipes I believe, written randomly in some books but having one dedicated book for all those great recipes is very easy and helpful. I will talk to my mom today to start writing down the recipes. Thank yu
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It’s a lovely way to preserve some family food history. 🙂
WOnderful! I loved your Moms handwriting!! Yes, I have some handwritten recipes and I like my notebook more than online recipes. Great post!
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Thanks. 🙂
I do use online recipes and regular printed cookbooks, but this is definitely the collection I gravitate to the most.
I, too, have some hand-written recipes. My grandmother was a stellar baker, but as I suspect is true of many women of her generation and background, she didn’t use precise measurements. She could both “eyeball” what was called for and/or accommodate a recipe based on how much of each needed ingredient she had on hand. She was renowned for one of her cakes, and early my mother sat with her numerous times while she made it and copied down the recipe and measurements, and then sort of “averaged” everything, so there was an actual written recipe to follow. It really is delicious, but it’s also extremely complicated and time-consuming. I still make it on occasion though. I confess I think about making it more often, but when I pull out the recipe I remember the difficulty and tend to reconsider. 🙂
I used to know someone who measured by “handfulls.” He learned that way and was very accurate. One handful was one cup, essentially. (He had large hands.) He also used pinches and dashes and spritzes as measurements. 🙂
I love this post, Feve! Yes, I have 1 particular cookbook that all the “church ladies” put together back in the 70’s or 80’s, which my mom was part of and I still use her recipes out of that one. Although I have them memorized, so I don’t need to read the grease stained recipes.
I have a handwritten one with my writing, my sister’s writing, and my mom’s writing that we put together during the week before my wedding day. I’d never even been grocery shopping on my own …..that first time with Storm was a biiiiig trip. lol
I remember over 20 years ago trying to pin my grandmother down on a recipe…….it was amazing to me that she thought we would just somehow magically know what she put in things. So, she narrowed it down……and then would say things like, “Add a little bit of flour, and a little bit of sugar…….” Me laughing, “Can you be more specific than that, Grandma? Yours is so unique, can’t you tell me?” I got the feeling it was more about embarrassment for her and less about willing to share. My sister and cousins somehow managed to get her most treasured recipes probably by being there in the kitchen, watching and helping her cook so they knew the proportions and ingredients.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane…….. I love cooking stuff! Hugs, Windy
There is something about church ladies… They always seem to “do” a recipe book. *laugh*
And potlucks! Goodness, so many potlucks! 🙂
I think those “know it by heart” kinds of recipes that grandmas never wrote down but cooked/baked so perfectly are such a special thing. Impossible to imitate, and forever a delicious memory.
Yes, I do have a little book that my mom made for me with handwritten recipes. But somehow the pages got torn out, and I just have them loose. I made both my daughter’s a book (spiral) of all our favorites and they use them all the time. It’s such a treasure to have handwritten recipes, and also letters. 🙂
I agree! 🙂
(And handwriting, as a skill, is being lost to technology. Which makes handwritten letters and recipes even more valuable to those of us lucky enough to have them.)
My husband uses his grandmother’s recipe for the egg bread that goes into our basket for Russian Easter. Family recipes are so wonderful. The memories come back every time those dishes are made.
I love the idea of “egg bread” for an Easter basket filler.
I have a book that I started, bu5 it’s not the same as the ones I grew up with. My mum inherited my Nan’s handwritten book of loved recipes. And in time it will be handed on to me, along with Mum’s own book which has not one but TWO of my favourite cakes in. Neither of which are ever quite as good when using recipes from elsewhere.
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Mmm… CAKE. 🙂
My mum did the same thing when I was married and moved away – a small ring binder with typed recipes. I still have some of the pages but not the whole thing. However, I do have mum’s cookbook and that of her mother, both of which are handwritten. I used some in my A to Z last year.
I remember your food/recipes A-to-Z. 🙂
Having handwritten history in the form of foodstuffs is a special heirloom.
Yes. It really is something special, as if this handwritten book has a soul.