[Sca-cooks] Food for Fifty

[johnna holloway]

I think one reason why we don't see recipes
for old standards in cookbooks today is that
there has been the phenomenal growth in the
numbers of cookbooks published and made
available. If you want a beef recipe, one looks at
an entire book on BEEF or one on MEAT. Or one
thinks I want "an American beef recipe" and looks
at a regional or American cookbook for such a recipe.
Or Thai or German or Latin American recipe for
beef. Or so the thinking grows.

Of course if you want the edition that Mom
cooked from and you learned from while growing
up, you can always look for and buy that edition.
Betty Crocker actually re-released their 1950 first
edition as a facsimile in 1998 with the caveat:
"Eating habits may have changed since 1950, but
the fond memories of sharing delicious recipes from
this cookbook remain the same. Mom or Grandma may have
used more salt, sugar and fat in her cooking than we
do today, and some ingredients and food safety concerns
have changed over the years." After my mom's death,
I bought my sister one of these facsimile editions for
her personal use and took my mom's annotated original
home with me. And I grabbed the recipe cards that we grew
up with that my sister-in-law was preparing to throw away
or bury in the attic. Someone has to preserve the
memories.

Johnna Holloway   Johnnae llyn Lewis



jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
> Hm.. I gave up on newer editions of ANYTHING if they take advantage of
> newer kitchen technology-- snipped
> Before you buy a modern standard cookbook, always look to see if they
> include recipes for standard real foods.>
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa