It’s so true. It’s how I operate, especially during the holidays with my family-famous cookie gifts. I have hand-written recipes from Mom, Grandmother, and Mom’s sister, my beautiful Aunt and Godmother. Seeing their hand-writing brings them into the kitchen with me which is so precious. Mom and Grandmother had passed away and visiting my precious Aunt one day, I had a panic attack for the acquisition of her famous New York Cheesecake recipe. If you haven’t had this recipe, you haven’t lived. Anyway, I asked her to write it down for me. She would not, could not that day due to an arthritic flareup. “You snooze, you lose,” slapped me hard that day. She got out paper and pen and said, “You write it, I’ll dictate.” So I wrote her words exactly. The women in my family had a way of expressing themselves and telling stories that were engaging, inspiring, interesting, and often hilarious. Step one of Aunr Dot’s New York Cheesecake, “Beat the hell out of a pound of cottage cheese, and I mean beat it! Whip it good.” I was laughing so hard tears splattered my copy. This only egged her on to further description of the cheesecake process. I got it all down as best I could. The cheesecake, sadly, is no longer dietetically recommended, so I don’t make it very often anymore, but whenever I get out the recipe in my own hand, my beloved Aunt appears in my head and heart to dictate and kibitz the process. Recipe collections are precious souvenirs of history, family, and expressions of love.
...cheese straws...made from rolled out dough, and HAND cut into strips, baked and stored in quart mason jars...a tea cake recipe, hand written, over 100 years old. A friend had this one matted and framed for her daughter.
A friend of mine got her grandmothers "Tea Cake" recipe. They were small little cookies that would melt in your mouth. She wrote it down on a piece of paper when she was in the hospital. When she went by to check on her she gave it to her because she always asked for the recipe. She also told her not to share it till "it was time". I have had the tea cakes and they are great but when asked about sharing the recipe? She just say "it's not time to share".
I have my Swedish Nana’s meatball recipe she wrote for me on a 3x5 index card about 60 years ago framed & hanging in my kitchen. I see it everyday & am reminded of climbing up into her big “fluffy” lap & snuggling for what seemed like hours listening to her tell me stories of the “old country”
Now my other Granny’s recipes were never written down but the one I remember her making, or trying to make was Pecan Pie. She only made it once because she sliced 1 piece from a whole frozen store bought pie & put it on a cookie sheet, placed it in her oven & cooked it 45 minutes. She was surprised when she opened the oven door & found a massive burnt disc of pie filling! At least she tried so when I eat pecan pie now I still giggle to myself
My mom was a great cook & my daughter has some of her recipes framed & hanging on her own kitchen walls now.
Gosh, I sure to miss those three strong women in my life.
My 11 yr. old granddaughter had to write a story about her favorite things to do with her grandmother (me) for school and she wrote “I love cooking with my Nana & she makes the best biscuits. I also love to read & write just like she does” to me there is no higher compliment from a grandchild.
Love you Millie, my Sassafrassafroozie & see you later this month.
I have several of those cookbooks too. They are treasure troves. Invariably all the recipes ‘turn out’ and all the ingredients are readily available. Most likely they’re already in your pantry.
We have a humongous book store outlet in Crawford Virginia. You can spend an entire day there. Most weekends some organization is selling lunch out front. Green Valley Book Fair is a gem in the Shenandoah Valley whatever your favorite genre.
One favorite section was cookbooks, I’d usually come out with an armload. Some by famous chefs but others are more obscure and some very specialized types of cooking.
Back when Food Network was in the business of teaching, there was a special about campfire cooking in the vein of the old west cattle drives. How I would have loved to been a taste tester!
I have recipes in my mother’s beautiful hand. Some I’ll never attempt like ‘Holiday Mincemeat’, that was truly a labor of love. Or the ‘Souse’ she made at butchering time. Oh the memories, filled with love.
Yes, lean beef along with beef suet. I suppose the fat imparts flavor. I remember mom removing it once the filling was cooked then chilled. It would form at the surface.
I just looked up the ingredients in jarred Nonesuch mincemeat and beef was listed. It must be puréed, I’ve not seen anything in it resembling beef. Our kids didn’t like it, but it grew on me, an acquired taste, I suppose. It’s not Christmas in our household without mincemeat pie, at least not to my husband.
It sounds like a weird combination doesn’t it? Mom made it every Christmas, I remember it was quite a process. Mom has a note beside the citron, she omitted it because she didn’t like the taste. I’d have to agree, I think that’s the vile ingredient in those store bought fruit cakes, lol!
Cookbooks are legacies. They're handed down usually to the eldest but it doesn't have to be and definitely won't be if said eldest doesn't show any inclination to cook. I was so happy to receive my great grandmother, grandmother and my mother's cookbooks and after 45 yrs of marriage, raising kids, working full-time and cooking, I was even MORE overjoyed when my only daughter took great interest in cooking, thank you Lord and thank you Betty Crocker!
"If the house is burning down when I'm not home, FIRST GET ALL THE HOUSE DOGS TO SAFETY..THEN, SAVE MY RECIPE BOX!!!"...Sixty years of recipes, most of them, "From Scratch," crammed into a single box and secured by a huge rubber band. The vast majority are vintage southern comfort food, but I fondly remember the freezing April of '79 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and being introduced to, and falling in love with RHUBARB...in the form of an Oatmeal Crumble Rhubarb Pie. Too bad we can't grow it down here. Publix in Dothan sometimes has fresh rhubarb, over a short window of time in June, and I jump on it like a hound dog on a biscuit! On the extremely rare occasions that I saw it as a child, I thought it was just strange red celery.
Also reminds me of the time I brought a styrofoam cooler-ful of rhubarb home from Alberta Canada for my sister-in-law. At the border the official asked me if I had anything questionable. I said “Just a cooler of rhubarb”. He looked at me kind of oddly and said “oh man, me too”. I’ve never really figured out what he meant by that but it’s been good for a laugh many times. He let me go and I transported it safely home.
Sure enough! The sweet from the strawberries cuts the tangy of the rhubarb just right to make it real good. Surely PU would have an open mind enough to try a piece if we made it for him. For sure now that’s he’s past 8 yrs old by a fair piece 😄
I collect old community, church group, junior league, and regional cookbooks, too. I love just reading through them, although I sometimes ask, "What were they thinking?" when I read some of the recipes. Other times, I try a recipe and it's so good, it becomes part of the regular rotation.
I, too, have a lot of cookbooks. I’m like my Mama was. If I had cooked one recipe from each cookbook I own, I could feed a third world country. Mama is cooking in Heaven now and I inherited most of her cookbooks and hand written recipes and news paper clipped recipes and recipes cut from the back of boxes, bags, and magazines. But my most treasured book is one published in 1951, the year before I was born. Daddy bought it for Mama as they were newlyweds living in Union City, TN, where I was born. He was a bricklayer and even wrote his name and address on the outside of it. Which is quite funny because Daddy barely knew how to use a toaster. Until later in life, he could grill the best pork steaks in the world. Yeah, I said it. All the recipes were submitted by ladies in the Jaycette Club but not a one of them used her given first name. They were all identified as Mrs. (Insert husband’s first name) (insert surname). Not one recipe had their first name. And now I shall peruse this book for a dish to cook for supper tonight. We eat supper at 6 p.m. Dinner is the middle of the day meal, in case you’re confused.
In my world, Leigh, dinner was always a big meal involving a hot stove, lots of pots and pans and bacon grease. Supper was leftovers, if there were any. Lunch was usually a sandwich or something cold from the kitchen that didn’t require the above mentioned utensils used for dinner. Not gonna use the French term for happy eating but gonna say what we say in Tennessee — dyaeat yet?
Absolutely true, on the name submitted by the Recipe. I have a "Pastor's Wives Cookbook" (Texas, 1960s-'70s) and nowhere in it is the given name of the lady submitting it. Each marvelous recipe is labeled thus: Mrs.Browning Ware, First Baptist Church. I have always thought that the job of Pastor's Wife was a much more difficult role than that of Pastor.
And aren’t pastor’s wives all so different from each other? We had a pastor whose wife never invited anyone into their home and rarely attended any fellowship at the church. We had a pastor whose wife freely and frequently opened their home to any kind of gathering she could think of. A wife who worked at a secular job and the pastor husband did all the cooking and housekeeping in their home. A wife who worked so closely beside and with her husband he depended on her for almost everything. I agree with you, Suzanne, a pastor’s wife has a difficult job. Or maybe we should say “calling.” I have a very good friend whose husband announced he had been called to preach. She told him, in a joking way, “If I’d known you were going to be a preacher, I wouldn’t have married you.” But now, she’s one of the greatest Pastor’s Wives I know!
Yes. The page I found used 1 jar of Vlasic spears, 1 package of "red" Kool-Aid, and 3/4C of sugar. Pour the pickle juice into a bowl. Leave the spears in the jar. Mix the juice, Kool-Aid, and sugar until dissolved. Pour it back into the jar with the pickles. Let it be for 1 week. Rotate the jar once a day to evenly distribute the "juice". https://tornadoughalli.com/kool-aid-pickles/ I'm going to try it but I won't let my daughter know what I have done. She is an organic/healthy/fresh/kale freak. d
Oh good grief! I think I'm going to try it on my girlfriends, just for giggles! We get together once a month and play games - but mostly eat and laugh! Thanks!!
Yes! My daughter-in-love makes her Aunt Peggy’s jello salad in the bowl that her great aunt always used. I’m pretty sure that is all it is used for anymore!
Oh how this column spoke to me. I have reduced my cook book collection to just under 800. Kept all the old community books..because they are food documentaries and I love them. The saddest thing to me is going to an estate sale and seeing the recipe box for sale. Seriously? Nobody wants to keep the culinary history of that family?? I’ve bought several. Those hand written recipes are delicious..but the comments are the prize….who likes it best…if it was made every year for a birthday or holiday…any tweaks made over the years. It breaks my heart to see a family throw that part of their history away.
OMG..that is exactly how all the recipes I have from my grandmother are…and amazingly they still work and taste so good! Haha…we all ate crisco and here we are, still alive!!
some of us have to use different methods...I don't cook, but I do enjoy eating. I do actually make delicious bar-b-que shrimp, chocolate truffles and cornbread. All the food groups.
Adorable column! I just downsized my cookbook collection…..hard thing to do! I love my pumpkin pie recipe written in my grandma’s cursive. Beside published editions, I have my own homemade cookbooks. My Aunt Patsy’s fudge sauce is one of my favorites with her noted comment, “Keep stirring and don’t leave the sauce pot until done!” We fought over my mother’s handwritten recipes and made the decision to divide them between us. I wrote two pages of notes on how to make my Aunt MC’s dressing while she was telling me over the phone……step by step….chop by chop…and day by day preparation until the time you bake it. It is now a fully typed page I rely on each year. Flawless! Our Baptist Church published a recipe book which was a community best seller! To date you can not purchase one…they sold out quickly! The added bonus to this cookbook was the short comments and stories included by the cooks. Our pastor’s intro included that Jesus, in His resurrected body, fried fish and drank hot coffee with His disciples on the shore! Truly, a cookbook is a plethora of cooking history over the ages! A treasure trove to delight today and tomorrow!
Just in case you have a SQUIRREL handy...You start out with a MEATY RABBIT...Don't ever low rate MULLET!...DOVES that are out of this world...Makes you hungry enough to gnaw the woodwork...You'll practically eat yourself to death...Serve this; you'll have a stampede...Will warm the cockles of your heart...Food for the gods...Now IF YOU ARE SMART, you'll double this recipe! Her comments were even better than were the recipes of SARA SPANO, long time Food Editor, Columbus Ledger-Inquirer. You are a young thing, Sean, but betcha a whole bunch of us old geezerettes among your readers have a well-worn copy of her THROUGH THE YEARS cookbook. (Deviled Eggs...with Eggland's BEST, and either Hellmann's or Duke's mayo, are my forte. Used to carry four or five dozen to high school class reunions; these days, am making them for "Comfort Food" at Celebration of Life services for loved friends...got such an event coming up next Sunday, and 100 miles away. Will get up real early, to make them fresh.)
My mom always told my brother and I that if we were not going to eat what we hunted don't kill it. Mom was a country girl. She cooked squirrel, rabbit, doves, duck, geese, deer and others. She even tried some new recipes for wild game on us and let's not forget fish!
Paul, my grandfather had a couple of LC Smith 12 gauge shotguns (which I have inherited - wish they could talk!) and they no doubt provided high quality protein for the family, especially helpful during the Depression. One aunt, as a child, particularly relished squirrel brains. (A neurologic disorder informally labeled "Mad Squirrel" Disease, seen in rural Kentucky, has been described in medical journals.) My grandfather absolutely loved a Baked Possum. I remember it, head intact, grinning...floating in yellow fat on a platter, surrounded by sweet potatoes, and with greens on the side. The aroma permeated the kitchen and wafted down the hall into the "sitting" room. Earl Scruggs, in his proposal to "Pearl," admonished her, "Don't you marry Lester Flatt, he slicks his hair with Possum Fat..." That Sean surely can evoke those long-buried memories!
That really brought back memories. My brother and I used to take my grandfather duck hunting when he got older. We asked what kind of shotgun he had. He just said he bought it years ago at the local Western Auto store. We asked why he he didn't buy a newer shotgun. He told us ducks and deer can't read. He was always filled with wisdom to share.
It’s so true. It’s how I operate, especially during the holidays with my family-famous cookie gifts. I have hand-written recipes from Mom, Grandmother, and Mom’s sister, my beautiful Aunt and Godmother. Seeing their hand-writing brings them into the kitchen with me which is so precious. Mom and Grandmother had passed away and visiting my precious Aunt one day, I had a panic attack for the acquisition of her famous New York Cheesecake recipe. If you haven’t had this recipe, you haven’t lived. Anyway, I asked her to write it down for me. She would not, could not that day due to an arthritic flareup. “You snooze, you lose,” slapped me hard that day. She got out paper and pen and said, “You write it, I’ll dictate.” So I wrote her words exactly. The women in my family had a way of expressing themselves and telling stories that were engaging, inspiring, interesting, and often hilarious. Step one of Aunr Dot’s New York Cheesecake, “Beat the hell out of a pound of cottage cheese, and I mean beat it! Whip it good.” I was laughing so hard tears splattered my copy. This only egged her on to further description of the cheesecake process. I got it all down as best I could. The cheesecake, sadly, is no longer dietetically recommended, so I don’t make it very often anymore, but whenever I get out the recipe in my own hand, my beloved Aunt appears in my head and heart to dictate and kibitz the process. Recipe collections are precious souvenirs of history, family, and expressions of love.
Thank you for taking us to Aunt Dot’s house the day you got her New York Cheesecake recipe. Loved every detail.
...cheese straws...made from rolled out dough, and HAND cut into strips, baked and stored in quart mason jars...a tea cake recipe, hand written, over 100 years old. A friend had this one matted and framed for her daughter.
Yum! cheese straws. My mom made the best. I don't know if I have the recipe. eeeek!
A friend of mine got her grandmothers "Tea Cake" recipe. They were small little cookies that would melt in your mouth. She wrote it down on a piece of paper when she was in the hospital. When she went by to check on her she gave it to her because she always asked for the recipe. She also told her not to share it till "it was time". I have had the tea cakes and they are great but when asked about sharing the recipe? She just say "it's not time to share".
Handwritten recipes are memorable and beautiful keepsakes! Very special to me!
I’ve been working on an essay about recipes from family and friends.
Stopped halfway through with the holidays and such.
Funny to think that I used to write a column a week when I was working in newspapers!
(I would never be able keep up Sean’s pace!)
I need to get back into practice.
You can do it Sy Anne!
Pu
I’m halfway there.
Just not enough hours in the day.
Love it, recipe prep old world style!
Yep. Changing a family holiday recipe is life changing, like exile from the future events kinda changing in my family. 😉
We are made of the same thread, thank you for this comment, it made me feel good and "taste" our family favorites too! 🥰🎂
I have my Swedish Nana’s meatball recipe she wrote for me on a 3x5 index card about 60 years ago framed & hanging in my kitchen. I see it everyday & am reminded of climbing up into her big “fluffy” lap & snuggling for what seemed like hours listening to her tell me stories of the “old country”
Now my other Granny’s recipes were never written down but the one I remember her making, or trying to make was Pecan Pie. She only made it once because she sliced 1 piece from a whole frozen store bought pie & put it on a cookie sheet, placed it in her oven & cooked it 45 minutes. She was surprised when she opened the oven door & found a massive burnt disc of pie filling! At least she tried so when I eat pecan pie now I still giggle to myself
My mom was a great cook & my daughter has some of her recipes framed & hanging on her own kitchen walls now.
Gosh, I sure to miss those three strong women in my life.
My 11 yr. old granddaughter had to write a story about her favorite things to do with her grandmother (me) for school and she wrote “I love cooking with my Nana & she makes the best biscuits. I also love to read & write just like she does” to me there is no higher compliment from a grandchild.
Love you Millie, my Sassafrassafroozie & see you later this month.
Another winner chicken dinner JL!
Yo PEB
Thanks my friend. Doesn’t food &/or recipes bring back the best memories?!
I have several of those cookbooks too. They are treasure troves. Invariably all the recipes ‘turn out’ and all the ingredients are readily available. Most likely they’re already in your pantry.
We have a humongous book store outlet in Crawford Virginia. You can spend an entire day there. Most weekends some organization is selling lunch out front. Green Valley Book Fair is a gem in the Shenandoah Valley whatever your favorite genre.
One favorite section was cookbooks, I’d usually come out with an armload. Some by famous chefs but others are more obscure and some very specialized types of cooking.
Back when Food Network was in the business of teaching, there was a special about campfire cooking in the vein of the old west cattle drives. How I would have loved to been a taste tester!
I have recipes in my mother’s beautiful hand. Some I’ll never attempt like ‘Holiday Mincemeat’, that was truly a labor of love. Or the ‘Souse’ she made at butchering time. Oh the memories, filled with love.
Loved reading your comment….this was an excellent column today and stirred our hearts….pardon the pun!😄
“Stirred our hearts”…that’s a good one🧑🍳
My husband loves mincemeat pie.
Does your mother’s recipe have meat in it?
I cheat and used the bottled kind, it’s okay with him because that’s what his mother used, and it is modern day mincemeat—no meat!
Yes, lean beef along with beef suet. I suppose the fat imparts flavor. I remember mom removing it once the filling was cooked then chilled. It would form at the surface.
I just looked up the ingredients in jarred Nonesuch mincemeat and beef was listed. It must be puréed, I’ve not seen anything in it resembling beef. Our kids didn’t like it, but it grew on me, an acquired taste, I suppose. It’s not Christmas in our household without mincemeat pie, at least not to my husband.
It sounds like a weird combination doesn’t it? Mom made it every Christmas, I remember it was quite a process. Mom has a note beside the citron, she omitted it because she didn’t like the taste. I’d have to agree, I think that’s the vile ingredient in those store bought fruit cakes, lol!
Yeah Leigh, whars da beef? Mincemeat is pig Latin Fer Rhubarb!
PEB
Nice story Dolores!
Pu
Food brings families and friends together and that right there is love thank you for sharing my dear friend 🙏
Cookbooks are legacies. They're handed down usually to the eldest but it doesn't have to be and definitely won't be if said eldest doesn't show any inclination to cook. I was so happy to receive my great grandmother, grandmother and my mother's cookbooks and after 45 yrs of marriage, raising kids, working full-time and cooking, I was even MORE overjoyed when my only daughter took great interest in cooking, thank you Lord and thank you Betty Crocker!
Love this #276 Sean…
We have three metal boxes of hand written recipes on cards in my grandmother’s, my mother’s, and my mother n laws hand writing.
Carol and I read them periodically. What I love about them are the splattering from the greases, oils, eggs, and gravy’s….☺️
I c an always tell the page for brownies in my Huntsville Heritage Cookbook - it has lots of chocolate smudges!
Mine isn't chocolate, it's on my mother's spaghetti sauce recipe! It's almost orange, there is so much tomato sauce splattered on it!
I have that same chocolate “bookmark” on my brownies page!
I have it on the Christmas cookie page.
Cute❤️💚 My Christmas Cookie page is smeared with smashed cranberries!
"If the house is burning down when I'm not home, FIRST GET ALL THE HOUSE DOGS TO SAFETY..THEN, SAVE MY RECIPE BOX!!!"...Sixty years of recipes, most of them, "From Scratch," crammed into a single box and secured by a huge rubber band. The vast majority are vintage southern comfort food, but I fondly remember the freezing April of '79 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and being introduced to, and falling in love with RHUBARB...in the form of an Oatmeal Crumble Rhubarb Pie. Too bad we can't grow it down here. Publix in Dothan sometimes has fresh rhubarb, over a short window of time in June, and I jump on it like a hound dog on a biscuit! On the extremely rare occasions that I saw it as a child, I thought it was just strange red celery.
Better scan them and put ‘em on the “cloud”! The recipes, that is. You’d still need to pull the dogs out in the event of a fire... 😅
Good plan MB!
Yo PEB
Also reminds me of the time I brought a styrofoam cooler-ful of rhubarb home from Alberta Canada for my sister-in-law. At the border the official asked me if I had anything questionable. I said “Just a cooler of rhubarb”. He looked at me kind of oddly and said “oh man, me too”. I’ve never really figured out what he meant by that but it’s been good for a laugh many times. He let me go and I transported it safely home.
No offense, but Dat rhubarb is some nasty SHE you know IT. MY GREAT AUNT from Long Island served me some rhubarb pie and it was rough on an 8yo!
Pubert Earle
💕 rhubarb strawberry pie!
Sure enough! The sweet from the strawberries cuts the tangy of the rhubarb just right to make it real good. Surely PU would have an open mind enough to try a piece if we made it for him. For sure now that’s he’s past 8 yrs old by a fair piece 😄
I collect old community, church group, junior league, and regional cookbooks, too. I love just reading through them, although I sometimes ask, "What were they thinking?" when I read some of the recipes. Other times, I try a recipe and it's so good, it becomes part of the regular rotation.
I, too, have a lot of cookbooks. I’m like my Mama was. If I had cooked one recipe from each cookbook I own, I could feed a third world country. Mama is cooking in Heaven now and I inherited most of her cookbooks and hand written recipes and news paper clipped recipes and recipes cut from the back of boxes, bags, and magazines. But my most treasured book is one published in 1951, the year before I was born. Daddy bought it for Mama as they were newlyweds living in Union City, TN, where I was born. He was a bricklayer and even wrote his name and address on the outside of it. Which is quite funny because Daddy barely knew how to use a toaster. Until later in life, he could grill the best pork steaks in the world. Yeah, I said it. All the recipes were submitted by ladies in the Jaycette Club but not a one of them used her given first name. They were all identified as Mrs. (Insert husband’s first name) (insert surname). Not one recipe had their first name. And now I shall peruse this book for a dish to cook for supper tonight. We eat supper at 6 p.m. Dinner is the middle of the day meal, in case you’re confused.
When I was growing up, we had breakfast, dinner, and supper, too!
When I started school, the midday meal there was called lunch.
In my world, Leigh, dinner was always a big meal involving a hot stove, lots of pots and pans and bacon grease. Supper was leftovers, if there were any. Lunch was usually a sandwich or something cold from the kitchen that didn’t require the above mentioned utensils used for dinner. Not gonna use the French term for happy eating but gonna say what we say in Tennessee — dyaeat yet?
NO!...JOO???
I done et.
Love it!!!
Absolutely true, on the name submitted by the Recipe. I have a "Pastor's Wives Cookbook" (Texas, 1960s-'70s) and nowhere in it is the given name of the lady submitting it. Each marvelous recipe is labeled thus: Mrs.Browning Ware, First Baptist Church. I have always thought that the job of Pastor's Wife was a much more difficult role than that of Pastor.
And aren’t pastor’s wives all so different from each other? We had a pastor whose wife never invited anyone into their home and rarely attended any fellowship at the church. We had a pastor whose wife freely and frequently opened their home to any kind of gathering she could think of. A wife who worked at a secular job and the pastor husband did all the cooking and housekeeping in their home. A wife who worked so closely beside and with her husband he depended on her for almost everything. I agree with you, Suzanne, a pastor’s wife has a difficult job. Or maybe we should say “calling.” I have a very good friend whose husband announced he had been called to preach. She told him, in a joking way, “If I’d known you were going to be a preacher, I wouldn’t have married you.” But now, she’s one of the greatest Pastor’s Wives I know!
Do you think we’ve hijacked Sean’s column? Lol
It is 0300 here. I’m up. Looking for your post. I had to start my search for all the recipes because I am sure Google has all of them.
You had me at KoolAid Pickles. We are a pickle family. Yes. I am going to try them. Why? Why not!
Then I’m headed straight to Baptist Crack. d
😆Those caught my taste pallet too!
Is there really such a thing? Sounds intriguing!
Yes. The page I found used 1 jar of Vlasic spears, 1 package of "red" Kool-Aid, and 3/4C of sugar. Pour the pickle juice into a bowl. Leave the spears in the jar. Mix the juice, Kool-Aid, and sugar until dissolved. Pour it back into the jar with the pickles. Let it be for 1 week. Rotate the jar once a day to evenly distribute the "juice". https://tornadoughalli.com/kool-aid-pickles/ I'm going to try it but I won't let my daughter know what I have done. She is an organic/healthy/fresh/kale freak. d
Oh good grief! I think I'm going to try it on my girlfriends, just for giggles! We get together once a month and play games - but mostly eat and laugh! Thanks!!
Oh! And that Cornflower Blue Corning dish with the handles is ONLY for Great Grand Bessie’s Giblets Gravy. Don’t mess that up!
Yes! My daughter-in-love makes her Aunt Peggy’s jello salad in the bowl that her great aunt always used. I’m pretty sure that is all it is used for anymore!
Dem giblets 'll kill ya!
Pu
Oh how this column spoke to me. I have reduced my cook book collection to just under 800. Kept all the old community books..because they are food documentaries and I love them. The saddest thing to me is going to an estate sale and seeing the recipe box for sale. Seriously? Nobody wants to keep the culinary history of that family?? I’ve bought several. Those hand written recipes are delicious..but the comments are the prize….who likes it best…if it was made every year for a birthday or holiday…any tweaks made over the years. It breaks my heart to see a family throw that part of their history away.
So true about the comments. My aunt's instruction for one recipe called for "Crisco about the size of a hen egg..."
OMG..that is exactly how all the recipes I have from my grandmother are…and amazingly they still work and taste so good! Haha…we all ate crisco and here we are, still alive!!
You're so right Carl!
Pu
Thanks Sean for sharing this column and for the nice end line!
I loved all southern traditional cuisines including cornbread!
Surly, old culinary cook books give readers the appreciation and a glimpse into the past!
some of us have to use different methods...I don't cook, but I do enjoy eating. I do actually make delicious bar-b-que shrimp, chocolate truffles and cornbread. All the food groups.
One of my more outlandish friends claimed to eat from his FOUR FOOD GROUPS...SUGAR, SALT, ALCOHOL, AND GREASE...
❤️💕
hope you had a good week-end
I did, son from TN came to take me back home with him to meet my latest and 10th great grandchild a beautiful, healthy baby boy!💕
That’s fantastic. Going to Arkansas next week to see my mother.
Conway, Arkansas?
Nice town indeed.
Adorable column! I just downsized my cookbook collection…..hard thing to do! I love my pumpkin pie recipe written in my grandma’s cursive. Beside published editions, I have my own homemade cookbooks. My Aunt Patsy’s fudge sauce is one of my favorites with her noted comment, “Keep stirring and don’t leave the sauce pot until done!” We fought over my mother’s handwritten recipes and made the decision to divide them between us. I wrote two pages of notes on how to make my Aunt MC’s dressing while she was telling me over the phone……step by step….chop by chop…and day by day preparation until the time you bake it. It is now a fully typed page I rely on each year. Flawless! Our Baptist Church published a recipe book which was a community best seller! To date you can not purchase one…they sold out quickly! The added bonus to this cookbook was the short comments and stories included by the cooks. Our pastor’s intro included that Jesus, in His resurrected body, fried fish and drank hot coffee with His disciples on the shore! Truly, a cookbook is a plethora of cooking history over the ages! A treasure trove to delight today and tomorrow!
Just in case you have a SQUIRREL handy...You start out with a MEATY RABBIT...Don't ever low rate MULLET!...DOVES that are out of this world...Makes you hungry enough to gnaw the woodwork...You'll practically eat yourself to death...Serve this; you'll have a stampede...Will warm the cockles of your heart...Food for the gods...Now IF YOU ARE SMART, you'll double this recipe! Her comments were even better than were the recipes of SARA SPANO, long time Food Editor, Columbus Ledger-Inquirer. You are a young thing, Sean, but betcha a whole bunch of us old geezerettes among your readers have a well-worn copy of her THROUGH THE YEARS cookbook. (Deviled Eggs...with Eggland's BEST, and either Hellmann's or Duke's mayo, are my forte. Used to carry four or five dozen to high school class reunions; these days, am making them for "Comfort Food" at Celebration of Life services for loved friends...got such an event coming up next Sunday, and 100 miles away. Will get up real early, to make them fresh.)
My mom always told my brother and I that if we were not going to eat what we hunted don't kill it. Mom was a country girl. She cooked squirrel, rabbit, doves, duck, geese, deer and others. She even tried some new recipes for wild game on us and let's not forget fish!
Paul, my grandfather had a couple of LC Smith 12 gauge shotguns (which I have inherited - wish they could talk!) and they no doubt provided high quality protein for the family, especially helpful during the Depression. One aunt, as a child, particularly relished squirrel brains. (A neurologic disorder informally labeled "Mad Squirrel" Disease, seen in rural Kentucky, has been described in medical journals.) My grandfather absolutely loved a Baked Possum. I remember it, head intact, grinning...floating in yellow fat on a platter, surrounded by sweet potatoes, and with greens on the side. The aroma permeated the kitchen and wafted down the hall into the "sitting" room. Earl Scruggs, in his proposal to "Pearl," admonished her, "Don't you marry Lester Flatt, he slicks his hair with Possum Fat..." That Sean surely can evoke those long-buried memories!
That really brought back memories. My brother and I used to take my grandfather duck hunting when he got older. We asked what kind of shotgun he had. He just said he bought it years ago at the local Western Auto store. We asked why he he didn't buy a newer shotgun. He told us ducks and deer can't read. He was always filled with wisdom to share.
Sunday dinner at da Barfeteria Doc!
PEB