With the holidays over and winter in front of us, it’s a good time to review your family recipes. (That is, if you didn’t already do that last year while quarantined.)
Like a puzzle, a recipe can be rendered useless if some of the “pieces” are missing. Many older cooks didn’t bother to record all the specifics. Fine for them, but a problem for a cook new to the recipe, unless there’s someone around to ask.
While I bake cakes and cookies and make candy, I don’t make a lot of pies. So a few Christmases ago, when Mom started to make our family’s favorite chocolate pie, I decided it was time to learn. Good thing, too, since one of those recipe “pieces” was missing.
I scanned the ingredients listed on the stained and faded card. “Butter? How much butter?”
Thankfully, my parents are still with us, and Mom knew exactly how much to add. However, as we grow older and our parents and grandparents pass away, we lose their knowledge. If it’s not recorded now, it will be lost forever.
So, whether you cook or not, take the time to review your family’s recipes. Make sure the favorites are complete and can be preserved and passed on to the next generation. Don’t be the last family member to enjoy them.
Great “Did You Know” and so true! I sure wish I would have asked Grandma about more recipes!
I hear you, Talitha. Even though Mom and Dad are familiar with most of the family’s recipes, when we went through my Grandmother Unkel’s recipe box a year or so after her death, there were several we found that were either undecipherable because of her handwriting or had ingredient amounts missing. Recipes lost forever because she wasn’t there to ask.
Ask your mom and dad about the men’s cake baking contest for our Sunday night after church social back in about 1980. My pound cake had baking soda instead of baking powder and was as hard as a rock. Needless to say, it was not the winner! Carol had watched me put all the ingredients in and never said a word.
I’ll definitely ask them, Felton. Sounds like Carol didn’t want you to win. What had you done to her to make her keep quiet about your mistake? Lol