Grandma’s cookbook has right recipes
It was missing but not forgotten. I have few possessions that belonged to my grandparents. One of my prizes was my maternal grandmother’s cookbook, a 1931-reprint issued by Rumford’s, the people who make baking powder and other products. It was especially valuable to me because my grandmother had written on its blank pages her favorite recipes for everything from baked corn to fried oysters.
I enjoy cooking and baking, probably because I enjoy eating. I had collected some of my own recipes, which I carefully placed between the pages of the aging green volume.
So, I was upset that the book went missing when we moved from our home in the mountains east of Uniontown. I remembered keeping the book in a kitchen drawer in our old house along with some other cooking pamphlets. I also remember putting it and the other booklets into a sack containing our food processor.
Somehow the sack went missing in transit. I could buy a new food processor (which I did) but I could never replace grandmother’s cookbook.
My wife and I have searched for the past half-dozen years for that bag. I secretly blamed her for the loss because she told me she said she had placed the cookbook somewhere for safekeeping.
Well, as the saying goes, it was very, very safe because she couldn’t remember where she put it.
On and off, I have rummaged around in boxes stored in the garage and our family room, vainly searching for that precious publication.
Arriving home from work one recent day, my wife said to me, “Guess what I found?’ It didn’t take me long to come up with the right answer since finding that book has always been on my mind.
She had placed the cookbook in with some other old books in an antique trunk resting, forgotten, in our family room, under some other boxes. I was delighted to turn the age-yellowed pages and re-read the recipes my grandmother had scribbled.
During the years before the book was misplaced, I made a number of dishes based on those recipes, seeking some assistance early on in determining the temperature at which to bake each one. The book’s recipes don’t list specific oven temperatures; just warm, moderate and hot.
One of my favorites was grandmother’s own recipe for gingerbread. At the top of the page, in my hand, I wrote “Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Makes two loaves.’
I’ve had a hankering for some homemade gingerbread. With my favorite recipe in hand once more, I began gathering the ingredients.
Sugar, flour, butter, molasses, spices, a cup of boiling water with a teaspoon of baking soda in it, eggs, etc., and I had a pale brown batter ready to pour into a pair of glass baking dishes.
Our oven runs hotter than what its temperature reads, so I left the bread in for 10 minutes less than the instructions called for and still scorched the top of both loaves. I’ll have to note that the next time I make it.
How was it? Despite the overdone parts, it tasted delicious. My wife chided me for leaving it in the oven too long but that didn’t stop her from eating it.
The book contains hundreds of recipes for everything from meatloaf to Welsh rarebit. It even has a section of foods to prepare for those who are ill.
But the best part of all are the folds in the corners of pages where grandmother turned them down, very likely reading the recipes while preparing meals or maybe planning some special dinner.
That explains why I don’t need any other cookbooks. This one will do just fine.
Have a good day.
James Pletcher Jr. is business editor of the Herald-Standard. He can be reached at 724-439-7571 or by e-mail at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com