Learning from old recipes (NY Times article)

[cakewalk]

I thought this was a lovely article. I've been reading through some old recipes, and what strikes me most is the expectation of a certain amount of knowledge from the cook. The recipes aren't necessarily for the "advanced" cook, but certain things are givens. So take a few eggs and add to it some flour until the consistency is good ...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/what-we-learn-from-old-recipes.html?ref=dining

[Smithy]

I liked the comment that older recipes recognize contingencies (ingredient maybe not available) and that they put cooks closer to the food sources (the season, the weather, the appearance of an appropriate bird). I am personally fond, however, of the structure that lets me check that everything's in place (with or without substitutes) before I begin. It helps me stay organized, and I need all the help I can get. :-)

[cakewalk]

I liked the comment that older recipes recognize contingencies (ingredient maybe not available) and that they put cooks closer to the food sources (the season, the weather, the appearance of an appropriate bird). I am personally fond, however, of the structure that lets me check that everything's in place (with or without substitutes) before I begin. It helps me stay organized, and I need all the help I can get. :-)

Yes, I know what you mean. I also appreciate a detailed recipe, especially for a baking recipe. But sometimes I follow a recipe even when instinct tells me that something is wrong. I've baked enough by now to have developed that instinct, yet more often then not I'll ignore it if the recipe tells me otherwise. And often, the recipe is wrong. (Dang, I knew that was too much sugar!)

[Toliver]

While old recipes have always intrigued me, I've always hesitated making them due to their vagaries ("Add a coffee mug of flour"...what size mug is that?...How many ounces?  ). If my mom, for instance, tells me to bake something in a "slow" oven, I know she means 325°F whereas a slow oven to me would be 250°F. I guess you could say it's all relative.

 

But I enjoy hearing about the history of cooking and recipes. I always enjoyed OldFoodie's posts on eGullet and I also enjoy reading andiesenji's posts about her childhood and her cooking/recipe history.

 

edited to add punctuation!

Edited August 27, 2015 by Toliver (log)

[cakewalk]

While old recipes have always intrigued me, I've always hesitated making them due to their vagaries ("Add a coffee mug of flour"...what size mug is that?...How many ounces?  ). If my mom, for instance, tells me to bake something in a "slow" oven, I know she means 325°F whereas a slow oven to me would be 250°F. I guess you could say it's all relative.

 

But I enjoy hearing about the history of cooking and recipes. I always enjoyed OldFoodie's posts on eGullet and I also enjoy reading andiesenji's posts about her childhood and her cooking/recipe history.

 

edited to add punctuation!

Interesting, I think of a 250F oven as a warming oven! (Unless it's for meringues.) I'm with your mother on slow oven temp. But of course, that's exactly the point. 

 

I'm torn between wanting precision but also wanting the recipe to "talk to me." Am I too greedy in expecting both? One of my favorite books is "Classic Home Desserts" by Richard Sax. I think he did a brilliant job in bridging that gap. What he did is very different than what I see in many cookbooks today, where authors will tell an amusing anecdote before giving the recipe. The stories are not about the recipes at all, and I often find myself getting annoyed by them. (Yes, I'm definitely talking about Ottolenghi!!)

 

I guess part of the difference is that cookbooks were once regional things, so people did have similar vocabulary and reference points. 

[Deryn]

I have a hand written collection of 'recipes' that my great-grandmother used in the 1875-1900 period in Evanston, Illinois. At one time I had an idea that I should find a way to use them in some kind of a 'cookbook' (most probably only for family distribution) but I felt I should try them all out first to be sure they still worked with today's ingredients, etc. They do 'work' for the most part but only because of my own personal experience with cooking was I able to make them work as many of the procedures, timing for baking and amounts of ingredients were indeed missing. And, of course, I cannot be certain they tasted exactly as they might have back then. But, it was a really fun experience to try to cook as she did back in those days - albeit in a modern oven. Luckily, I am mostly an intuitive cook myself though - I am not sure, without me modernizing the recipes, if anyone I might have distributed the books to would have actually used them as I tried to.

My great-grandmother didn't have any little girls (her kids were all boys) so I guess she was not able to pass cooking skills on directly to her own children as was usually done way back when. By the time a young lady was ready to go out in the world with a new husband, she intuitively knew what size of mug to use to measure the flour, how much a pinch was, how long to beat the eggs and what texture to expect from the pudding when it was done. She also knew exactly where in the wood-fired oven to place the roast and how to put up jams and how to make butter. Heaven knows though where the little boys were when Mom was cooking - none of the men in my family have ever done more than start a fire or a BBQ. Perhaps they were out learning how to bag the venison with their fathers.

[Katie Meadow]

I can deal with inexact ingredients such as a pinch of this, a stalk of that, or even a recipe that suggests "one or two eggs," (assuming that the author is trustworthy enough and you feel confident assuming that he/she tried making it at least twice, using different amounts of egg and determining it was okay either way.) Of course the egg thing is complicated by the fact that eggs are generally much larger than they used to be.

What I find annoying is when the ingredients are buried in the text so deep that you either miss one of them when you make your shopping list. That said, the historic or nostalgic value of a handed-down prose-like recipe has its own reason for being. However, that NYT article for the pickled shrimp, which I did in fact make, all but admitted that the editorial staff went out of their way to make the recipe seem....old. That's kind of stretching the charm factor.

[cakewalk]

However, that NYT article for the pickled shrimp, which I did in fact make, all but admitted that the editorial staff went out of their way to make the recipe seem....old. That's kind of stretching the charm factor.

I didn't see that recipe. (Don't eat shrimp.) Was it good at least? I do think old recipes are worth preserving, warts and all. But making a recipe "seem" old, well, that's a horse of a different color, no?

[Katie Meadow]

Horse of a different color, you betcha.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Having actually cooked in and on a wood oven, a Franklin stove to be exact, I'm most appreciative of modern ovens. Even my 1970's GE model with a broken thermostat. It has to be tended much like a wood fire, but turning the power dial on and off with an oven thermometer and a timer to assist sure is a lot easier than stoking wood, cutting wood, stacking wood, trucking out ashes, etc.

 

I just love old recipes. Our species has been cooking for millennia without the aid of thermometers, precise measurements, sous vide, and other specialized equipment.

 

I sure am glad I had a little guidance from other cooks, and modern beginner's cookbooks though. These days the tradition of handing cooking skills down has pretty much disintegrated. The precise instructions in modern books are a necessity.

[Norm Matthews]

Sometimes I am annoyed by a recipe that is too precise and sometimes amused by one that tries to be exact but actually is very vague, like mentioning the amount of flour by grams and amount of liquid by %hydration, then being oblivious to the fact that there are different kinds of flour that make those measurements useless.  Last week I used a recipe that measured some ingredients my metric and others in tablespoons. (British, Australian or American Tbs.?) It also used 2 punnets of cherry tomatoes and half a head of cauliflower, 2 large sprigs of rosemary and a few pinches of some other ingredients. 

 

Having said that, I have a fascinating two volume cookbook from 1949 called Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking.  It has a section on game that includes health of the animal, prompt and adequate bleeding, dressing and evisceration, removal of shot, removal of feathers, removal of fur, fat & glands, scrubbing and washing, storage and cooking.  It includes bear and beaver.  The first 400 pages address "what every meal planner ought to know", breakfast, luncheon and dinner suggestions for every day of the year, canning & preserving, buying food, both fresh and canned & frozen. There is a two page color picture of 24 different kinds of apples. There is a section on entertaining as well as lots more really interesting recipes and insights into those times. 

Edited September 2, 2015 by Norm Matthews (log)

[cakewalk]

Sometimes I am annoyed by a recipe that is too precise and sometimes amused by one that tries to be exact but actually is very vague, like mentioning the amount of flour by grams and amount of liquid by %hydration, then being oblivious to the fact that there are different kinds of flour that make those measurements useless.  Last week I used a recipe that measured some ingredients my metric and others in tablespoons. (British, Australian or American Tbs.?) It also used 2 punnets of cherry tomatoes and half a head of cauliflower, 2 large sprigs of rosemary and a few pinches of some other ingredients. 

 

Having said that, I have a fascinating two volume cookbook from 1949 called Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking.  It has a section on game that includes health of the animal, prompt and adequate bleeding, dressing and evisceration, removal of shot, removal of feathers, removal of fur, fat & glands, scrubbing and washing, storage and cooking.  It includes bear and beaver.  The first 400 pages address "what every meal planner ought to know", breakfast, luncheon and dinner suggestions for every day of the year, canning & preserving, buying food, both fresh and canned & frozen. There is a two page color picture of 24 different kinds of apples. There is a section on entertaining as well as lots more really interesting recipes and insights into those times. 

I go bonkers when recipes call for flour in grams and then say "1/2 cup sliced apples" or something like that. 

 

That Modern Encyclopedia does sound fascinating. Do you find it informative still for our times, and not just those times? (Other than the game section, which of course still might be helpful to many.)

[Norm Matthews]

 

 

That Modern Encyclopedia does sound fascinating. Do you find it informative still for our times, and not just those times? (Other than the game section, which of course still might be helpful to many.)

Sometimes it is quaint, sometimes I find recipes there but I now usually look for recipes online in places like here and Foodily.  It's really interesting to see that there are so many things known back then that I didn't realize people knew about.  There are lots of cheeses that I didn't know when I was young that are listed in the book.   There are 2 recipes for pineapple upside down cake -one is a sponge cake-as well as upside down cakes for Dutch cherry, peaches, blueberries, apricots and 8 different butter frostings.  Every time I open the book I get caught up in one thing or another, like just now.