Favorite Old Cookbooks?

I picked up a 1962 - 1973 edition of Joy of Cooking. I love it! The text is so funny! It's like a history lesson - not current events but how people really lived. The cooking style applies to homestead cooking much better. I find modern cookbooks to be utterly useless!

Do you have a favorite old or homestead-style cookbook? Please shar what funny things you find in old cookbooks!

Umm.... I defer to Google... I have a couple of cookbooks but I actually don't remember looking at them. So bad. I have the Ball canning guide for when I start canning, but that's about it...

Will be watching this thread though!

I have a REALLY old one that came from mom...it's got to be close to 50 years old. It lives in a Ziploc bag right now because it is really crumbling. I'm not sure, but I think it's a Betty Crocker...the cover is gone. My childhood memory is that it had a red, hardcover that was textured like some kind of cloth.

I'm going to try to remember to dig it out tonight and actually see if it has any identifying information left anywhere. But, it's awesome - it's got instructions for throwing a dinner party and how to set the table for formal occasions and what stemware to use and just tons of old recipes that you never hear anymore. And, some that are still good!

Looked on Ebay and think this might actually be it - or very close to it:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-BE...566800?hash=item3d4d667ad0:g:SwQAAOSwN6JY~-o1

I discovered The Settlement Cookbook when I was around 13. I think my mom had been given it by one of her little elderly ladies she cooked and cleaned for. She had several. I fell in love with the cookbook, and have carried it with me through many years and moves now. It has been through military moves, hurricanes, and 3 children. Now it is old and very fragile. I revisit it from time to time, but it was becoming too fragile to even open anymore. So I looked on ebay and ordered a replacement. same age, but better condition. So I could continue to treasure the original one I had and keep it safe.

https://www.tastecooking.com/the-settlement-cookbook-116-years-and-40-editions-later/

I have a few Hershey cookbooks from the 1970's, one being a reprint from 1930. My great aunt retired from Hershey and when she died, I got the books. I also have a cookbook from 1971 titled The Charlotte Cookbook. It has recipes from the high society ladies of Charlotte, North Carolina. There is a section of meal plans for every holiday, plus dinner parties. Everything is from scratch, no Cool Whip-REAL cream is used in the recipes.

I got Miss Kay's Duck Commander Cookbook. I was a big fan of the Duck Dynasty TV show and they end every episode of the family sitting down to supper at Miss Kay's table. They always raved about her cooking, so I got the cookbook. I was so disappointed. I wouldn't cook that crap, much less eat it. It is all made with canned, boxed or frozen (processed) ingredients. I have never used it.

I have The Eyes Of Texas Cookbook, published 1987. There was a show called The Eyes Of Texas that came on weekly featuring people, stories and events in Texas. I loved the show and never missed it. They asked for family recipes and did they ever get some awesome recipes! My Daddy bought the book and it is signed by several of the cast members of the TV show. There was a large influx of Czech and German settlers in the mid to late 1800's and there are recipes that came from "the old country" along with Tex-Mex, Cajun and family recipes that have been handed down for a hundred years.

I have a Fannie Farmer Baking Cookbook from 1984 and it is full of great recipes. I had at one time a Fannie Farmer Cookbook I got in 1972, but lost it somewhere along the way.

After the first of the year, DH and I are going on The Whole30 diet. I sent for 4 books, 2 of which are cookbooks, 1 has 150 recipes and 1 has 500 recipes. Our son in law and daughter are on it now for his health's sake. He is overweight just enough to be uncomfortable with it and wants to do better. We are both 20 pounds from where we would like to be, so we are going to do it too. There will be no dairy, no grains of any kind, no sugar, no sugar substitutes or sweeteners of any kind. It is meat and vegetables. I am looking forward to it AND all those recipes!

No dairy???? Nooooooooo! The rest I could handle but you're gonna make this goat farmer cry! Lol

I love to cook but having no one to cook for makes me far less enthused. LOL I mean, what do you do with a huge meal several days in a row? Yeah, I cook big and freeze but it isn't the same as when I had 10-15 showing for dinner, or cook out, etc. So it isn't often I go thru the boxes of cookbooks anymore.

Now, as to the new diet, Bay, it's really basically what the "old" farmers ate...meat & veg. But they did do breads (grain) and often dairy (if they had a cow/goat). Sugar was expensive and a luxury. My mom used to say only sweets were holidays and important company Seems jelly was pretty exciting for them & not much made. And much of the meat was wild game -- venison, coon, rabbit, etc. A pig was pretty special for many.

Hmmmm...no dairy, no mac/cheese, no cornbread, no dessert Hope you drink your coffee straight from the pot! I do. Yeah, I'd need a cheat day. A once a week little treat day.

Supposed to be deprived for 30 days, then add things back into the diet in moderation. My husband eats junk, candy, sweets of all kinds AND he brings it home where I eat it too. It pisses me off when he buys bags of candy, because if it's here, I will eat it. He's finally gained enough weight that he's mad at himself so maybe this will work. I tell him that eating 2 loaves of bread a week makes him fat, but he just keeps on eating toast slathered in butter and honey. At the grocery store, he fondles every package of trash food like a little kid in the toy department. And some of it goes home with us.

I can do ok on vegetables and meat. A little dairy thrown in now and then and I am fine. But bags of chips, peanuts, Little Debbie cookies, popcicles, sugar everything, any and everything unhealthy.......WTH I give up and plow into it right along with him. I'm done.

moxies_chickennuggets said:

I discovered The Settlement Cookbook when I was around 13.

Click to expand...

The Settlement cookbook was my mother's favorite cookbook. I used her's often, as I was growing up. Then, when I got married (the first time) in 1972, she gave me a copy of my own. As the years went by, and I learned to cook my own style, I gradually moved away from that cookbook, and developed my own recipes. I also started looking online, as the Internet blossomed and grew. I do still have that cookbook, but I just looked and it is not in my book case. I asked DH and he promise me he wouldn't have donated it when clearing out, before we moved to Texas. He said there are 3 or 4 boxes of books in the loft of the workshop. So I'm hoping it is in one of those boxes.

One of my favorite cookbooks (more for the novelty of it), is the 1899 Edition, of the Whitehouse Cookbook. I've had it for about 20 years, and for the life of me, I don't remember where I got it, except that it was in Rochester, MN, when I lived there. I love the old world ways it tells to do things.


Here is the title page. If you look closely, at the bottom of the page, you can see that it was published in 1899.

Throughout the book, there are portraits of President's wives. This one is the first one, and is Mrs. Cleveland.


First page of the Table of Contents


The middle of this page (on the left) shows a recipe for Boston Brown Bread. A recipe that I would love to try.


The recipe calls for Homemade Yeast. So, below I show how they used to make that.


This is the next page and it shows how to make Dried Yeast or Yeast Cake, which are both used in recipes in this book"


They have a chapter on carving meat: beef, veal, mutton, pig, and this page shows how to carve turkey and goose.

Bay I have the same problem. Honestly, having gestational diabetes is a blessing in disguise because it's changed the way I eat, and it's made me realize that junk needs to go. I always give in when DH and my mother go for the processed junk and sticking my finger 4 times a day has made me realize I need to crack down on that for myself and DD (and future DD, who I hope will never learn the bad habits that need to be unlearned!). The rest of 'em can do what they want but not in my house!