Old Recipes

Some memories from the recipe box......

I was invited to a wedding shower and the invitation said to bring a recipe to share.  To pick the perfect recipe is harder that it might seem.  I don't cook like I did when the kids were all home.  Richard and I just eat differently now.  I don't have a garden, which is where much of our food came from when our children were growing up.  I did can tomatoes, tomato sauces, green beans, apple sauce and even jellies.  I loved freezing my own corn and other veggies.  It was hard work, but when winter came, it was so worth it!!!

 I love that this generation of young brides want to cook.  They seem excited about organic vegetables and making things from scratch.  Our sweet young bride to-be seemed delighted at all the kitchen things she received for gifts.  

As for the recipes she received, I don't know if she will try them or not.  What I most loved about the idea,  she has a little piece of who we are on that recipe card.  Lovingly hand written.  One recipe was hand written, it belonged to her Grandmother, who passed long ago.  Just having her handwriting on a recipe card is a special gift.  I also have in my recipe box hand written cards that were shared at my bridal shower forty three years ago.  These recipe cards remind me of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners as a family long ago.  They remind me of people who are no longer with us.   They remind me of family times together, sitting around a big table, laughing and talking.   Little memory jogs are kept in my old recipe box.

Emily and Trisha baking
cookies, 80's

I shared two recipes, the first was our favorite baked cheesecake recipe when my kids were growing up.  The second was from when I was growing up.  It became a favorite in our family as well.   It was a cake I learned to bake when I was a young girl.  The cake recipe came from an old pamphlet cookbook that was printed during WWII.  It was called the Wartime Cake.  This cake was great because it was egg less, butter less and milk less.  Supplies for cooking were scarce and certain items took ration cards during the war.  (I found a few of these ration books in my Grandmothers things.)  The shortening of choice was lard during that time.  Do kids today even know what lard is?  In my day we used Crisco, I think my kids use butter to make this cake now.

The funny story about this cake and me learning to bake was shared on the back of the recipe card too.  When I was learning to cook, everything required salt and pepper.  Well, why would it be different for a cake?  Haha!  I invented what the family called the "Pepper Cake"!  Oh, I only made it once, but it didn't go to waste, I'm sure my brother Brian was the only one who finished the first ever Pepper Cake. 

WARTIME CAKE  - 300* oven    -  50 to 60 min.  (don't over bake)
     1 cup of raisins
     1 cup brown sugar (packed)
     1 cup water
     1/2 cup shortening
     1 tsp. cinnamon
     1 tsp. nutmeg
     1 tsp. cloves
Combine these ingredients in a saucepan, heat to boil, simmer 2 min.  Cool

Sift together
     2 cups of all purpose flour
     1 tsp. soda
     1 tsp. salt

Add dry ingredients to cool raisin mixture.  Pour into greased 9" cake pan and bake 300* for 50 to 60 minutes.  Test with tooth pick for doneness, do not over bake.

From kitchen of  -  Cynthia (DeRemer) McDonald