Browsing my vintage cookbooks

[spinbaby]

I just love leafing through old church-lady cookbooks. It’s interesting to see how much tastes have changed. Here’s a recipe for "Christmas Aftermath" from around 1915.


Christmas Aftermath

Butter a baking dish and put into it a layer of mashed potatoes; then a layer of leftover fowl meat (chopped), a dozen large oysters, seasoned and rolled in cracker crumbs. Add bits of butter and one cup of milk. Bake for 20 minutes.

This particular book is full of hand-written recipes and bits of paper. One recipe for what may be tartar sauce is on the back of stationery from the Mineola Hotel where rooms start at $2.50.

I love my old cookbooks.

[Walleye]

1. That sounds delicious

[rubbersole]

2. It does!

Shades of my mother's Thanksgiving oyster stuffing (sans the leftover chicken).

[Walleye]

3. Yes, we always had oysters in the winter and rolled them in cracker crumbs

[spinbaby]

4. Delicious, but not much to modern tastes

I think the equivalent modern recipe probably layers stove top stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce. Oysters are no longer a common Christmas item and more people aren’t familiar with these tasty morsels.

[Tom Dyer]

5. I left New Orleans about 9 months ago.

Visited this past Fall. First thing I did was go get an oyster poboy.
Man was it good.

[chowmama]

6. I love them, too

I really like when they are well-loved and have notes in the margins about substitutions, additions, who likes this or that...The small household who's written down the math for a half recipe or the big household who doubles it. Extra points for 'this isn't good' warnings.

My 1943 Joy of Cooking came with a warning that it 'showed signs of use'. Oh, noooo! Wait'll I get through with it.

[AKwannabe]

7. I'm a lover of cookbooks too

Used to have an extensive collection of mostly vintage. Too nomadic for that now tho. I have always checked them out at the library too tho, so that is my MO now. I just borrow. Lots to choose from!

Enjoy

[Retrograde]

8. I collect Fanny Farmer cookbooks

(never got into Joy of Cooking). It's interesting to see recipes and cooking techniques come and go - one of my faves, cream of chestnut soup, disappears after the 1920s. My favorite is the 1918 edition, with a special section from Herbert Hoover on how to save food for our boys Over There with meatless dishes and alternatives to wheat.

Oysters were seasonal treats way back when. One of my favorite dishes is Hangtown Fry, and oyster omelet that supposedly was invented when a goldminer in California wanted the most expensive dish available in what is now Placerville: eggs, oysters, and bacon all had to be brought to the mountains from San Francisco.