COOK BOOKS

 

Although I don't collect cook books as a hobby I have accumulated quite a few over the past sixty one years.  There are my favorites and then there are the ones I just love to look through every now and then.  So many of them are from church groups from long ago.  It is fun to look back and remember all the people who shared their favorite recipes. 

 

 

This one is probably the oldest that I have.  It is a collection of recipes from Woodrow Wilson's wife.  This book was in my mother-in-law's home and she gave it to me when I was a young bride.  The recipes are hard to follow because of the way ingredients were measured at that time.  Wilson was president from 1913 - 1921.  There is no publishing date in the cook book but it probably dates back to the early 1900's.  The pages are very fragile but I still enjoy very carefully going through the old yellowed pages of times past.  





As you can see, the dessert pages were well used as seems to be the case with all cook books.

These are the ones that I have use the most.  The Anne Byrn American Cakes is a gift from my son that includes cakes through the years of our nation from the 1700's.  It is a delight to use with beautiful pictures and easy to follow old cake recipes.  The Good Housekeeping Cook Book was a shower gift before our wedding.  The Woman's Home Companion Cook Book was one I inherited from my mother who was a wonderful cook.  I remember sitting at the kitchen table as a young child and looking at the beautiful colored pictures scattered throughout the book while my mother was doing the cooking.  I was  probably dreaming of the time to come when I would be doing all that kind of stuff.

The two cloth bound books are where I keep all the loose recipes that I use almost daily.  They are the ones I find on the internet or that friends give me.  You know, the ones on old recipe cards, scratch paper, envelopes, magazine clippings, newspaper clippings or whatever was handy to write on at the moment.  Some of them are hand written by my mother, my aunts and my many friends.  They are inserted into plastic sheet covers and can be removed from the books so they are protected from all the drips of cooking.  The one with the red floral fabric is nothing but desserts and the other one is everything else.  Needless to say, the dessert book gets the most attention in my kitchen. 

Read, Cook and Enjoy!!