A happy martyrdom to y’all,
A peanut walks into a bar and gets assaulted.
A baby seal walks into a club.
Wait.
What?
Never mind. That’s the funny stuff out of the way for today.
A pictorial presentation in parts, if you will.
My lovely Gran was kind enough to lend to me, for a little while, her mother’s recipe book. Which makes it my great-grandmother’s recipe book.
And wow, does it make for interesting viewing. Most of the papers in it come from around 1947- 1951. And they come from magazines like ‘Woman’ and ‘Woman’s day’, and newspapers like the Sydney Sun-Herald.
Seems she was a lot like me. She went to the trouble of buying a book and stuck the first two recipes in…
..even write the heading ‘Cakes’ on one page….
..and then, it seems, continued on collecting recipes with the best of intentions, without ever getting around to sticking them in.
Like I said, a lot like me. But I’m kind of glad she didn’t. Because the irony is that the most interesting bits of this book are the ones she didn’t intend to be there. Like the articles…
..the handwritten recipes, strokes of personality on paper (her name was Sadie, so I’m assuming ‘Sadie Fruit cake’ was one of hers)…
..and the ads for services and products that have died out…
..and lots that are still around…
That’s just a teaser for now. I’ll publish Part Two tomorrow. And, to actually fulfill the purpose of the book, and in the spirit of the season, here’s a 60 year old recipe for hot cross buns. Metric measurements at your own peril.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe sarah, maybe… you know what a shocking cook I am! I am looking at the scone recipe though- I'll let you know how it goes.
That's very cool
Are you going to test out any of the recipes?
What a wonderful treasure!
I love this (and the new look blog too), to often we never get to share in the past. How wonderful that you have been able to do so.
It's the best time capsule you could have hoped for. One that was not at all deliberate.
Thanks for sharing! Very cool.
Oh that stuff is GOLD!
I have heaps and heaps of written correspondence and photos of my family from back in the 1940's. It's actually the reason I started my blog – but all I've done is talk about me me me *rolleyes
Oh goddess, Lori, I want to cry. You have no idea how much that reminds me of my Granny Peg. I miss her so much. LOVELY post. xx
It's a beautiful little piece of (family)history isn't it? My mum has one quite similar to this. I scanned it all to disk for her so that if something terrible were to happen to it, she'd at least have a version of all the beautiful old hand-me-down recipes.