jokir44

I live reading old cookbooks, especially the ones that have household hints. Two things I can remember just offhand. One said, " take a piece of butter about the size of a walnut". My thought was I wonder if it is with or without the green husk. The other thing I remember is washday instructions where the lady said when the wash is done to carry the wash water outside and throw it on the porch to scrub it down. Oh sure, like I'm going to do that. Not even if I had the wringer washer and tubs!

Needles

My grandmother did, she put it on the wagon and took them to the porches and porch stoops. Old homes didn't have outside faucets, they were lucky to have inside faucets with running water. My grandma had a hand pump at an old sink in her kitchen, even after they put in running water. Grandpa used that to clean up after milking and chores. They had no indoor bathroom until 1956. So see, it's not surprising to me to hear that lingo was written in a cookbook under household hints. Farm life was 'different' than city life.

SuzzyQ

We finally got one of the church ladies to stop writing minutes as Mrs. John Sonso instead Marybeth Sonso. It's like these women didn't exist before they were married.

illinois

In the "olden days", it seemed to be so common to refer to a woman as Mrs. John Homebody and it really messes a person up when doing genealogy. It must have been a more formal distinction. But just sharing--my grandmother was a stickler for being proper. Her reference was that a woman is Mrs. John Homebody, not Mrs. Betty Homebody. Mrs. only refers to the husband's name, not her own.--not married to herself!

Teddybear Lady

My mom is 84 and used to cook all the time. She would sometimes have me type up her recipes to give to her friends. She would list the ingredients by brand name and the size of her pans or bowls. I would get a kick out of typing them. One time she wanted me to type up her instructions for making her chicken and dressing. It took me three pages because she wanted every step written down just like she made it. haha
She has severe memory loss now and doesn't even know what a spatula is. I stay with her sometimes while my 86 year old daddy has to go run an errand. I only live 5 minutes down the road from them. We don't leave her alone now. She'll show me a box of Hamburger Helper and wants me to help her make it. She can't even understand the instructions on anything now. It's sad, but we've still got her.

Watson

I'm a chef and unlike a lot of chefs I don't mind sharing my recipes.

When I write them out, I put the ingredients that go together in groups and put a bracket with a number beside them. Example: I'd put butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs in a group and bracket with a #1 and flour, baking soda and salt in another group and bracket #2 etc.

A lot of people don't realize that these things need to be mixed separately before they are mixed together.

I then explain the directions in steps.

Turn the oven to 350.
Spray your 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
Do "whatever" with group #1 in "X" size bowl
Mix together group #2 in X size bowl
Add group #2 to group #1, etc, using a spatula or whatever....
Being really specific.

People really don't know how to cook and especially how to bake, anymore.

I also wrote a full page essay that my friends asked me to do for them on how to cook a turkey. Everything from where to find the neck and giblets to how often to wash your hands between steps so you don't cross-contaminate anything to how to make gravy. That essay has been passed around so much that I ran across it on the internet!

Watson

tranum

Speaking of detailed instructions - our daughter was a new Mom and asked me to watch the baby for a couple of hours at my house. She brought him along with 2 pages (front & back) of written instructions. I still have them someplace.

heronlady

Add me to the group who wishes the quantity of ingredients was given in ounces. There are many recipes that call for one or two squares of baking chocolate. The squares used to be an ounce apiece, but five years or more ago, they started making the squares a half ounce apiece, with eight wrapped squares in a box. Big difference. Took me a few tries til I figured out what was going on, lol. Even box cake mixes are a few ounces less now, yielding fewer cupcakes per batch. And the list goes on. Guess they don’t want to raise the prices as much as they would need to so they just give you less product.

madamekelly

My favorite after dinner process is to make what ever bone broth I can, put the bones in water to cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour or so on low. Remove the bones, and allow to boil to reduce volume by half. Allow to cool, covered, then place either into ice trays and freeze, then store, in a gallon zipper bag. or pour cooled broth into sandwich size zipper bags, and freeze flat. When you want to make home made soup in the cold of winter, pull out a zipper bag, peel the zipper bag off, and start adding what ever veggies make you happy, season, simmer for a little while and serve. Yummy.

grannie cheechee

I have a funny about my granny. She use to write down recipes that were given over the radio. I was looking up recipe in one of her old cook books, and ran across one she wrote for No Fail Egg Noodles. It had a big X across it with They Failed.