I love community cookbooks that were put together by small towns and churches. Sometimes I go thru and I wonder if there was ever any animosity after it was printed. Like, "I can't believe that b****, Susan, submitted a taco salad recipe. She knows that's MY specialty."

Anyone else ever go thru these things?

I have a few. I find it interesting how they change over time. Not only the recipes, but how the names are presented. You might see "Mrs (husband's name)" in the old ones.

I love old cookbooks. One of my favorites is one from when I was stationed in Japan. The spouses from all the squadrons in our group put one together. What I love is that its from people all over. They included recipes for the same thing even though they are a bit different.

I am working on making my own version. I want a high-quality family cookbook (from both sides of the family). I am most likely going to use a an Adobe InDesign template. I had too much going on and started too late this year to be ready for Christmas.

The premise is that family members (extended and close friends) would submit each recipe along with any photos (of the food or family eating it) via a Google Form. I should be able to extract the info from the spreadsheet automatically, then just clean it up the grammar & formatting. I will take some stages shots of some of the dishes over the year using light tent so that there will be a mix of pro shots and old family photo and stories.

A few of us will pitch in and get a few printed to give as gifts. The beauty is that it's a PDF and be shared easily.

Finally, scroll about halfway down the page after clicking the link. Years ago, the outdoor board made a cookbook, and you can download it here: https://texags.com/forums/67/topics/2938081/replies/51397878

These two are great.....from Baton Rouge folks

I even love the names of dishes in old cookbooks. This post had me browsing through the cookbook again. Names like Senator Russell's Sweet Potatoes -- My Grandma's Vanilla Sponge Cake with Cannoli Cream -- Home EC Enchiladas make me smile.

Who was Senator Russell?

If I make the cake, is it now "My Grandma's..."

I asked my high schoolers if they knew what "Home EC" or "Home Economics" was; they had no idea. They were blown away you would learn how to cook, sew, shop for a family and balance a check book in high school.

I thought I was the only one that collected those. I have a bunch from my grandmother and the First Baptist church ladies from the 80s. I look for unique ones at estate sales as well. When we travel I also try to buy a regional cookbook to add to my collection as well.

My favorite is Cotton Country by the Junior League of Monroe LA. So many good recipes in there. My kids have won some baking contests at the Fair using old school recipes I have found in some of the church cookbooks that I love to look through.

Rattler12 said:

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These two are great.....from Baton Rouge folks

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I have those River road cookbooks. I also have some from the little community in Northeast Louisiana My family is from. Several from Mangham several from Newelton.

lol NONE. My kids are picky and I've got ADD. I'm a pro at flipping through books and finding a couple of recipes that would work for what I need and I'm on to the next.

I have a complicated relationship with my family's cookbook. Its sentimental because my Oma gave me the only spare copy she had left when I got married. She told me my brothers could fight over her copy when she's dead! It was put together by her and her cousins/aunts in 1987. Oma is one of the younger cousins and she will be 90 this year so there aren't too many folks left to ask questions about the recipes. The folks that put it together all spent their childhood years in the Texas panhandle and south plains during the dust bowl/great depression/WWII. Lots of the recipes reflect the need to feed a large family on the cheap. There are way too many recipes for salads that include mayo, jello, or a mixture of the two. Very few of the recipes titled salad include greens. Depending on who sent the recipe in, it may be perfectly formatted and the instructions clear... or it might be like my favorite ice cream recipe which list all the ingredients, steps, and then finishes with the line "add a pint of whipping cream before freezing" despite the fact that the ingredients listed above did not include whipping cream! The cake/pie/cookie/dessert recipes are generally all great but I am glad I didn't grow up eating some of the mains in this! Here are a few excerpts. Notes in red are from my Oma:



There is a handy index at the front that includes all the stuff that I assume was taught in home economics back in the day. The height/weight standards do not hold up to today's body positivity movement!

I never once ate gumbo with my family growing up but the recipe is in the cookbook. This answers the debate on white vs. dark. Just use the whole bird!

Brisket the Texas panhandle way. Because why are you going to burn the only tree in town just to cook lunch?

The "Main Dish" will forever live as a recipe I never try. There is another in there called "Melvin's Main Dish" that sounds equally as awful.

The vinegar pie confuses me. It sounds like you drop biscuit dough in boiling liquid so maybe it's a riff on dumplings?

Lastly, the beverages and miscellaneous section of the book. In true Baptist fashion, none of the drink recipes include booze.

Scroll up to the post from Koko Chingo Jan 2. They linked to the cookbook.

Replying to myself RE the vinegar pie. Did some googling and I think I found the gist of the recipe. Dumpling-esque recipe. https://www.southernplate.com/vinegar-dumplings/


Other musings as I flip through this cookbook... I mentioned the cookbook to my mom and she told me that most of the family(her grandparents generation anyway) raised pigs to sell but chickens to eat. From what I've heard, raising and slaughtering pigs is unpleasant enough that lots of the folks didn't enjoy pork, aside from bacon or sausage occasionally. I don't think there is a pork recipe in the book, but lots of chicken and plenty of fancy recipes that clearly were invented when folks started to move to the city(the metropolis of Friona, TX) and had access to "fancy" canned foods and refrigerators. As I go through the recipes more things become evident.

I've learned that I speak a completely different language than these people. One recipe calls for "snizzerle" parsley. That word turns up zero results on google or duckduckgo. This might be the first time snizzerle has been typed on a computer! Lots of the recipes call for a "flat can", "No. 3 can", or a "peck" "bushel", or "gross". Most of the recipes I look through call for crisco, shortening, or "oleo" instead of butter. This makes a little sense because between cigarettes and cholesterol the older generations of my family just about all had heart attacks, and often fairly young in their lives. That fancy processed stuff was bound to be better for you than butter back in the day! It also appears that we were a miracle whip family . That shows up much more regularly in the "salads" than mayo.

My family was not keen on spicy things. There are a few salsa recipes. One recipe includes 1 jalapeno and cautions "Keeps for several days but may get too hot after a couple of days". The other does include 6 jalapenos per 8 cups of chopped tomatoes but recommends wearing gloves to handle the peppers and this recipe includes a few drops of red food coloring for keeping things pretty once canned. It's been fun reading through these and I am more thankful than ever that I don't have to eat this way!

I have an old one from the Daughters of the Confederate Rose that includes some recipes from my granny. Her's are the ones that require 1-3 medium squirrels.