Has anyone ever used a really old cookbook?

[food girl]

I just inheirited several old cookbooks (1930's and 1940's). One is a White Lily Flour cookbook. I was thinking of making a cake or some cinnamon rolls.

Is there anything I should keep in mind?

The books are illustrated and the lack of plasic wrap, electric mixers and plastic spatulas is interesting. Considering the amount of LARD in the recipes I don't think they are light.

Lisa

[Robyncz]

I have two cookbooks of my grandmother's that I absolutely treasure, especially because many of the recipes contain her hand-written notes and adjustments. I bake from them frequently with good results, but I've never tried any of the savory recipes. They seem to use huge quantities of lard, oil, and butter--probably due to the fact that there weren't any non-stick pans around at the time. If I were going to make a recipe like that using my own modern cookware, I'd obviously adjust the fat for more modern tastes.

One thing I've noticed in the two books I use is that the proofreading is not as careful as in most modern cookbooks. For example, there's one recipe I use all the time (for banana bread) that calls for eggs in the ingredients list, but in the "method" instructions it never tells when to put the eggs in. But something like that will obviously vary from book to book.

[Chris415]

I have a really old Fanny Farmer book which I bought at a book sale, but is the edition of a book I actually first learned to cook from! I love it, although I don't use it that often. It's more of a nostalgia thing, but I love reading the recipes and seeing what they used to use. Yes, lots of lard! :)
Chris

[katygirl]

My mom has a couple old cookbooks and I think it's a hoot to look through them. Ditto to the lard comment. I'm not too sure they were into cooking light in those days. I also always chuckle at the pictures. There is always a woman in heels serving her husband who is of course wearing a suit.


I have never used the recipes though.

[mecac]

I have some old cookie recipes from my grandmother. The odd thing I found that when calling for butter, lard, etc. Many of the recipes say for example..."1 cup butter part margarine". I talked to a pastry chef friend who was puzzled. The best we could figure is that it means of "1 cup butter" 3/4 should be actual butter and 1/4 should be margaine. I tried it while making a pie crust like cookie dough and it came out great.

[dulcecoeur]

I use the old books for basic things like breads, candies etc. If you stick to the "basic stuff" I think they are usually fine, but even the vegetables in these books often have to be smothered in cream sauces:rolleyes:

I can remember when I was younger my mum using the older books a little more, but usually just for roasts etc - nothing too "wierd" Now I don't eat meat and I usually find a lot of them are very meat based books. But they do sometimes have some really good "candy making" sections and bakery/bread sections. I have never made a "main course" (of course, they are usually meat anyway!)

I always think the pictures are pretty funny, and not very appealing. Last week I was looking through one at my mums showing peas in bologna "cups".