Anyone else like really old cookbooks?

versicorange

versicorange

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I've started buying old cookbooks when I can find them cheap, and my favorite thing I've picked up is a translation of Elena Molokhovets' A Gift for Young Housewives. It's a Russian cookbook that was published in the 1800s and early 1900s.

It's hard for me to work with cookbooks that old, but the differences are interesting. One of the more annoying things about working with A Gift for Young Housewives has been that none of the measurements are units I'm familiar with; I have to reference a table at the front of the book.

Does anyone else have this interest? Or any recommendations for good old cookbooks?
 
I have my grandmother's old recipe book. It is one she put together and I have slowly been copying out some of the recipe here. I too have the same issues with measurements, complicated forget by the UK's own system which I then usually translate into metric for everyone. Her recipes start around the end of WWII.

I keep having to look up what a gill is in a fluid measurement.

What measurements are you having issues with?
 
Yes - both my wife and myself find old cookbooks fascinating. We have several and also collections of recipes [more modern book but old recipes] from as far back as the fifteenth century. Some of them are a little odd by modern standards - boiling a complete bullocks head for several hours might be a little tricky on a modern cooker. The herbs are easy enough to interpret but things like the amount of loaf sugar or a sugar cone are more difficult.
 
I have a lot of old cook books and some are family heirlooms ,from the time when girls in the U.K. went into service in big houses
A comprehensive old cook book is great, we don't re invent the wheel now we just polish it, some of the new ingredients of today were around before,
 
Yes I do.
The American Institute of Culinary Cooking has to be one of the oldest ones around. This cookbook was out long before any of todays modern food prep appliances came along! Our mom had it in hard cover, I got it in paperback. The Joy of Cooking is another one. Got that one in hard cover. :wink:
 
I love how important making things with Jell-O seems to be in the older 60's 70's cookbooks. I love the smell of an old cookbook. I have a pretty old Amish cookbook I love to read every now & again.
 
Luckily, I was able to obtain back some of the old cookbooks, such as the '73 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook and the Family Circle cookbook, that I once sadly & hastily gave them away! Got them from amazon.com. :wink:
 
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ALWAYS keep a good eye out at car boot [yard sales to you over the pond I think] and in and charity shops - we have found some wonderful books for just pennies. Trouble is the shelves in the kitchen are full and we keep buying more !
 
This may appear a little bizarre, but bear with me. When I did my English degree, one of the components of the course was linguistics, during which we were often asked to compare texts. One of the texts I studied was Italian Food, a cookery book by Elizabeth David. I found it fascinating - the book was published in 1954 and Italian food would have been very exotic at the time, certainly to the British reader.
 
A few years ago, my fiance bought me a cookbook that the church elders in North Dakota put together. It contains a whole bunch of old farmer recipes from back in the 1800's even though the book itself is new. I love to look through it from time to time and ocassionally make a recipe from the book. Food preperation was so much simpler in those days, but yet it almost always tastes good.
 
I love going through my grandmothers old cookbooks! But even more than that, I love going through her old, well-worn hand written recipes that are on scraps of paper or notecards. A lot of them are family classics, or favorites that her friends used to make - and then the recipes were passed on to her. They're the tried and true things that I know will turn out great when I recreate them. I think the more worn a recipe looks, the better it is - because you know it's been used so many times!
 
Yes! Old cookbooks are the best for finding those wonderful, comfort food recipes. If I am missing a family recipe, I try to find a similar one in an old cookbook. It usually works out pretty well. I also think old cookbooks are great for new cooks.
 
The house I grew up in was built around 1900, so I love the history of old buildings, and my family and I all love old cookbooks. I have one like this, and it's my oldest cookbook. I haven't tried to make anything from it, I just enjoy owning it, but someday I might attempt it.
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I love the old cookbooks also. I had several that got damaged in a basement flood. I hope to find more of the same type of books when I go to the Goodwill. The recipes in the old books seem to be more flavorful, and the Jel-O recipes I love. There is one I made for my kids, the Poke Cake, I haven't made it for a long time.
 
Pat said:
I love the old cookbooks also. I had several that got damaged in a basement flood. I hope to find more of the same type of books when I go to the Goodwill. The recipes in the old books seem to be more flavorful, and the Jel-O recipes I love. There is one I made for my kids, the Poke Cake, I haven't made it for a long time.
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You can make that poke cake with bourbon, too, but not for the kiddies. :p::laugh::cheers:
 
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