Definitely the iconic red and white, ring-binder Betty Crocker Cookbook from the 1950's .My mom used it a lot, especially for baking. You could tell what a family's favorite dishes were from whichever pages were splattered with various drops and smears. I've got that one and also found one in pristine condition, looked like it had never been used(I'm sure we've all got plenty of cookbooks like that)
I've got my mom's version, that's falling apart, and another one from the 80's I picked up second hand. I still make recipes from it that I don't even make alterations to (like with most recipes 😉)
I was born in '64 and my Mom and Gran always had a worn copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. It had a red and white checkered cover. It was a 5 ring binder as well. The sections were divided by file folder shaped dividers. It was a great cookbook. Another one was called the The Old farmer's almanac Colonial cookbook. There were several recipes in there that were made over and over. Especially the Corn Chowder ❤
Did you ever see the Gold Anniversary Binder one? That is the one i look for. One cake in it, "Hungarian Poppyseed Torte with Walnut Frosting", is my goal. Is it in any you have? Which Editions?
I’m 43 years old, and growing up it was a mix of Betty Crocker and the Joy of Cooking. There were a few other cookbooks in the house, but those two were probably 95% of what my parents referred to.
My grandmother received a copy of the 1948 edition of "The Joy of Cooking" as a wedding gift and has used it since. She has her favorite go to recipes written with a wood burner on thin oak panels and hung on the kitchen wall so they can be consulted to this day, and the original book in the living room bookcase. She's 94 and still cooking!
My father gifted his new bride with a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook for Christmas 1960, one month into the marriage. Mother was crushed but realized she needed the encouragement. She used it as long as I can remember. Grandma, her mother in law, was a very skilled cook, a master which all of us pale in comparison. She did not use cookbooks, it was all in her head. Never wrote it down unless she wanted you to make it for when got older. We called her our living cookbook. Eastern European influenced cooking mostly. That side of the family loved their food. Obsession really. My maternal grandmother had one cookbook. I have it now. It was published in 1939. The American Home Cookbook. She also had handwritten recipes on scraps of paper, clippings and later, recipe cards. I have those as well. I make a few of hers and my great grandmother's recipes to this day. It was good food, but not the level of the paternal family. They did not understand the food obsession from the other side of my family. They only ate to live, not living to eat. They also were influenced by Eastern European. Also some Irish, Scottish & English. It's all an interesting mix. I love it all.❤
My grandmother gave my mom a "Woman's Home Companion Cookbook" after she married my dad ... she then passed it down to me when I was married ... my dad was the actual cook in our household - cooking from scratch most of the time , learning by watching his Polish mother cook ... Smacznego ❤️
The 1953 edition of the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook was like the family bible. My mom still has it, although many of the pages are discolored, crumbling, or falling out. It is well worn and has served our family well!
My mom has a copy of Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book. She got it new from her mother when she married my dad in the early 60s. She gave me a brand new copy when I got married in 94. I never had any kids, but I’ve carried on the tradition by gifting them to my friends kids as they set up their homes. Very educational.
We had an old Better Homes & Gardens cook book. It was a red & white plaid ring binder book. I know there were many yrs that got printed, 4 or 5 decades if I remember correctly.
My mom learned to cook from - and taught us to cook from - a 1950's gold-colored Fannie Farmer cookbook. I still go back to those recipes when I want a bit of nostalgia as most of Mom's cooking was based on it.
Here in Australia, it was the Common Sense Cookbook. It was the classroom textbook in Home Economics classes for decades, and I'm fairly sure that every household in the country had at least one copy. Also, the Margaret Fulton Cookbook was the kitchen bible of the 1960s.
The cookbook that defines my childhood was my granmother's handwritten one. In the early 70's, she recopied it into a diary book that an insurance agent had given as a premium, with a different category in each month. I have it now, all tattered and battered (literally). Most of the recipes dated from the depression years when she set up housekeeping with more added over the years.
For me, growing up here in Minnesota (AKA "South Canada"), the iconic childhood cookbook was always the Fanny Farmer cookbook series. I have so many great memories of making those peanut butter cookies and cheating by adding chocolate chips to them :D
My grandparents make most of their stuff from memory, along with a sheaf of handwritten recipes copied from various sources. Mom and Dad used several different cookbooks, Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens, plus a couple obscure ones that were lost to thieves years ago after my father passed. (They broke into our storage and didn't find anything they considered valuable, so they just left Dad's couple hundred books scattered about in the pouring rain.) The one that my brother was able to save was the Nero Wolfe Cookbook, by Rex Stout. The 40 minute scrambled eggs are delicious, but a nightmare to make. (Double boiler and whisking while glued to the stove, anyone?)
My family has our own cookbook that has recipes past down throughout the generations. We have some that date back to my great great great grandmothers time. Every couple years some of my family get together to add new recipes to it and update it. My mom currently has our families copy. When she passes away, it will be mine since I’m the baker and cook of her generation. I think that is the book that has influenced my childhood the most. Many cakes, cookies and meals have been made from it growing up.
US - The 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook.(Second printing of the first edition.) The one with the red and white cover. The original is much loved and used, falling apart, but carefully looked after. Many years ago, before ebay and all the other ways to find copies, my brother painstakingly made 4 sets of photocopies of the entire cookbook so that each of us kids had a copy. My mom also had a copy of the 1960s one, and my sister had a 1970s one. Fascinating to see the changes in recipes, and changes in ingredients in recipes.
For my family in the western US it was the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. My grandma has a spiral bound red and white checkerboard cover from the 60’s I believe. When I first moved out of the house to college she got me a copy of the new version. I’ve loved it
My mum had a well loved, dog eared and sticker covered copy of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. Fulton's recipes were well written and easy enough to follow that I was making dinner for my family at 10 years old! It inspired my love of Pastry and bread, which I made my career at 19.
For my family, the 1950's version of the Betty Crocker cookbook and local cookbooks from fundraisers(such as 4-H) made up the majority of the recipes we used. My mother and grandmother taught me to cook from those, which fortunately had thorough instructions. Those cookies look delightful.
I'm from Australia and we grew up eating recipes from the Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook. A true classic, highly recommend picking one up if you haven't already Glen!
Nellie Lyle Pattinson's Canadian Cookbook was widely used as a resource in Ontario's 4-H Homemaking projects. As a result, many of us who grew up in rural Ontario and were involved in 4-H were very familiar with the book and the recipes. I received a copy as an award on achievement of 12 projects in PEC. I still have it and use it regularly for some good solid basic fare. Like you Glenn, these are the recipes of my childhood.
My wedding gift from 1986: Nellie Lyle Pattison’s Canadian Cookbook. Plus we inherited the 1947 book from my husband’s mother’s after she died. Enjoy those old recipes thanks for bringing them to life.
When my mother used a cookbook, it was the iconic "Joy of Cooking". I have her 1930s tattered falling-apart copy with notes here and there and recipes cut from newspapers stuck in some of the pages. I believe it was the only cookbook she had ... I don't remember any others. But a lot of her cooking was intuitive, delicious middle-eastern dishes, because she was born in Lebanon. She also cut out a lot of recipes from newspapers and magazines. Her food was delicious. Also, we can probably all guess how old we are by the cookbooks are mothers used!
In New Zealand in the 1960s it was the Edmond's cookbook. There were different editions which changed over the years including the move to using metric measures. My mother also used community cookbooks like the Women's Institute cookbook. In the 70s and 80s it was the Alison Holst kitchen diaries which had seasonal recipes and her other cookbooks which introduced new techniques and ingredients.
Only cookbook in my mothers house was the Betty Crocker Cookbook published in the 1950’s. I learned to cook from that cookbook. The cookies look good. I love lemon and will have to try the recipe. Thank you.
Weirdly, I would say that I didn't grow up influenced by a cook book. My grandma had boxes and boxes of recipe cards or recipes she cut from boxes or news papers over the years. That said, I do have a lot of church and Odd Fellows community cookbooks from my mom's parents and grandparents.
Me, too! My aunt would also glean recipes from friends. If she tasted & liked it, she'd ask for a copy. My mother had only one large heavy volume. It contained only vegetarian recipes. (I am the oldest of 5 and the only one that doesn't consume meat.)
Joy of Cooking, or as my grandmother referred to it as "Irma". She had a depression-era copy that was sadly lost to the world, but it gave instructions on cleaning and dressing everything from squirrel to possum and preparing cakes and main dishes.
I don’t remember my great grandmother or grandmother using cookbooks but my mom had a well worn Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1950s. And she loved cutting out recipes from the daily newspaper.
My mother just knows how to cook traditional British food, learned from childhood (She's now in her late 80's and still loves to cook) so didn't really use cook books. There was one exception, and that was the Be-Ro cookbook she often used when baking. First published a hundred years ago, it's still in print today in its 41st edition.
In my family it was the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook by Ruth Berolzheimer. My great grandmother, grandmother (and her youngest sister), and my mother (and all her sisters) had this cookbook. I learned how to cook from it My favorite cookbook is the I Hate To Cook Book by Peg Bracken. I have three copies and I often read it for fun (Peg Bracken has a wicked sense of humor), and the majority of the recipes are keepers
i've got a copy of the encyclopedic cookbook - really nice. i haven't seen it since i moved, though. the family cookbook, though is the settlement cookbook - such a selection of recipes and advice.
Growing up my mom always used the Joy of Cooking and the Sunset Cookbook, but by far the most memorable were Edna Staebler's cookbooks which we discovered in the 80's when I was a teenager. Those books made me fall in love with cookbooks. They are still in my mother's kitchen and I read them over and over when I visit.
Going through that cookbook is like a stroll down memory lane. So many of the meals, desserts, and baking came out of that book. I found a copy about 8 years ago and was really surprised at how many of the recipes my Mum made.
Coming from an extended vegetarian family (vegetarian for many generations), my mother had a 1986 Sarah Brown vegetarian cookbook. I still have it, and it feels both comforting and dated. Vegetarian food has come a long way, but I’m still enjoying “savoury millet” now and again.
The cook book I remember most from childhood was the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. I imagine the one my mom had was probably a wedding present, so circa 1960. That was the only 'real' cook book she ever used, but her recipe box - remember those little metal boxes full of 3 in x 5 in recipe cards - was packed with handwritten recipes from her mother, aunts and my dad's mother and aunts.
Growing up in Seattle in the 1970s, we had two definitive cookbooks. The Betty Crocker cookbook was the everyday one my mother used. Then there was The Joy of Cooking, which she used when she wanted to do something “fancy”
I got a new copy of The Joy of Cooking as a bridal shower gift in the early 1980's. That was the "big" book at that time. At the same shower I also received my great aunt's 1965 edition of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, which is my most treasured cooking bible. Don't get me wrong, Joy is a fantastic, well-used book, but FF was used by my beloved godmother who was, by far, the best cook in the family. I am honored she gave it to me. She said it was her best cookbook. Both are great classic American cookbooks.
Growing up Mom had 2 cookbooks she used. 1950's "Dormeyer Mix-Well Cookbook". (Dormeyer was the brand name of the mixer she had), and "The American Everyday Cookbook" Random House, NY 1955. By Agnes Murphy Food Editor, NY Post. Then from work she used "General Hospital" from employee's recipes. I received my first cookbook for my 8th birthday. "Betty Crocker's New for Boys and Girls Cookbook". 1st printing 1965 by General Mills, Minneapolis, MN. My second cookbooks is a set printed in1975, but I got it in 1978 after I married. "The Doubleday Cookbook" Complete Contemporary Cooking Vol 1 & 2. I used Vol 2 the most. All of these recipes books have seen better days, a couple are falling apart, but all very much loved through the decades.
Here in Germany that would be Dr. Oetkers Schulkochbuch, first published in 1911. My mother had the 1952 edition (softcover) in use, and it is well worn. My sister picked up a reprint of that edition, because "it's explaining better than current edition" (it is, after all, a cooking school cookbook) and has different recipes. My 2008 edition (hardcover) was a present from a colleague. Dr. Oetker was a pharmacist, patented a baking powder in 1903. His company still exists and produces baking ingredients, dessert mixes, frozen pizza and the like. The original editions of the Schulkochbuch (up to 1930s) have been written by home economics teacher Emilie Henneking.
Exactly, and to add to this: Dr Oetker “Backen macht Freude” the dedicated baking book for all things cake and cookies, which defined the Christmas baking.
@@lassepaulsen8312 Mom didn't have the "Backen macht Freude", or at least I haven't seen it. Thank you for the reminder to get a copy, probably also a matching reprint edition...
The cookbooks I remember *seeing* were a 1960s version of the Fannie Farmer coookbook and the Purity Flour cookbook... but the "cookbook" I remember my mom *using* was her collection of recipe cards. And if you ask my kids in 20 or 30 years, the "cookbook" they'll remember me using is UA-camrs' recipes (including some of yours!) written on the back of envelopes.
Envelope backs are my go to temporary recipe cards. After I have made the recipe at least once and know I will make again, I copy to regular card and it goes in my file. I add where it came from and when I made it and any suggestions. I have at least 4 of Glen's recipes waiting for their turn, and will add today's.
Born and raised here in the southern part of the United States. Here most of our parents had the Better Homes and Garden red and white binder on the shelf. Besides that, it was Sunday paper, Readers Digest, and believe it or not occasionally the TV Guide. And lets us not forget the recipes cut from labels on cans and boxes of food. Love the show. Made the lemon cookies and they were great. Thanks for all you do. We always look forward to your show.
Glen: Almost all of the meals my grandma made were from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. And then she transitioned to the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. I inherited the first and one of my sister’s got the New cookbook. Still use my copy and have lots of good “down on the farm” memories when I use it. Respectfully, W.S.
My mom couldn't cook & barely tried. Gramma was a GREAT cook but never used recipes. She just threw shit together & it was delicious. The few recipes our family owned were in a wooden cigar box & cut from newspapers, the back of packaging & those grocery store books made by companies with recipes cards that just get pulled apart. And most of these were Pilsbury based recipes. We had a Betty Crocker Cookbook that had been owned by Gramma from the 50s. It was and still is pristine. It's never been used. I read it as a little girl in the 80s but I may have been the 1st person to open it. I still have it & have literally never used it. But it looks nice on the shelf. Gramma- born 1920s Mom- born 1950s Me- born 1980s
I'll hop on the Five Roses cookbook bandwagon. To re-use your hyperbole, also a staple of every Canadian household. I use to watch my Grandmother and Mother cook and bake in the kitchen and I still use their techniques even though I know there are others. Extremely fond memories of those times. When my Grandmother passed, my Mother gave me my Grandmother's copy of the Five Roses cookbook. It resides in my kitchen to this day and, if I have anything to say about it, until the day I die.
If my grandparents had that cookbook I never saw them use it. My granny was loyal to the Five Roses cookbooks. I have no idea what my other grandma used, I think she liked using recipes printed on labels. She made lots of dream whip based and margarine based desserts. On another note, the fort at Niagara-on-the-Lake has an historical actor that makes delicious lemon and lavender shortbread cookies. I wouldn't mind if you guys wanted look up that recipe 😋.
My grandmother learned to cook from her Mother, who I believe couldn't read. So it was all by feel and taste and practice. My Grandmother (and my Mother) made great pie crusts.
My mom didn't usually use a cookbook, but when she did it was the Betty Crocker cook book. Still remember the red and white cover and the broken spine.
A serendipitous moment just now on UA-cam, discovering your channel Glen. Appreciate & Love OLD Cookbook Recipes because there’s often a History behind recipes/ingredients. The 1929 stock market crash leading to the Great Depression, WW1 & WW2 with food shortages, therefore you had to be innovative & creative with ingredient substitutions as Food Rationing was implemented. Thank you Glen for this wonderful channel as I already feel like part of your Family, having only watched this first episode🥰🇨🇦 Great TV Series that you may enjoy…Type: TV series Wartime Farm/UA-cam. Series is 9 x 1 hour episodes. God Bless You & your family Glen.🙏❤️
I have my mom's, grandmother's, and my own Betty Crocker cookbooks. I love going back and using the older ones much more than the newer one (that is 40 years old lol).
So, from my neck of the woods, it is, hands down, the First United Church’s “Bentley Cookbook”. It was the foundation stone of my mother’s cooking and baking repertoire. I’m not sure how far back the first edition went, perhaps prior to the war and certainly confederation, but my mother’s was around 1960. I keep it close by to connect me with my mother and the many happy memories it and she gave to my life. Lovely video and recipe, as always. Thank you!
Growing up in France, "Je sais cuisiner" by Ginette Mathiot was the book my mother was always referring to. She is now in her 80s and she still cooks from it. It was THE book that all young women setting up home would get. Even my sister ,who left home at the end of the 90s, got herself one.
“The proper way is the way that’s comfortable for you”. Never a truer statement. The right way is always the way that works. The Margaret Fulton cookbook was the bible in my house growing up. That thing was huge and about 5cm thick. It weighed a ton. There were some fabulous recipes in there.
My Mom's Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1960's. She got it as a high school graduation gift in 1969 - she took a lot of home economics classes, so I believe my Grandmother bought it for her.
Definitely Betty Crocker and Better Homes. I think I saw them in all my friends' homes when I was growing up in the Midwest in the 70s and 80s. A lot of my favorite childhood cookies come from Betty Crocker. Mom still uses her well loved an annotated version.
I Agree, the Betty Crocker Cookbook was in my grandmother's pantry along with their Christmas Cookie Cookbook and The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks. She also had the "freebie" brand cookbooks by Quaker, Hershey's and Eagle Brand. I still use the Campbells cookbook
One of my favorite cookies I make is a lemon cookie. Took a basic sugar cookie I liked and browned the butter - but with the lemon peel in it then replace the water lost with the juice of the lemon. Makes a fantastic cookie!
My mother always had a copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook in her kitchen. She taught me to cook from it and when I got married she gifted a copy of the cookbook. Even though the cookbook is now old and worn I still use it. My husband's gran always used an old cookbook from the Jewel T Stove Company circa 1900 and a cookbook from the National Grange. The year my husband and I got married Gran gave me a copy of the National Grange Bicentennial Year Cookbook and is still use that too. Both these cookbooks are great and full of taste recipes.
My mother relied on an old green battered cookbook. Mets Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. I eventually pestered her into giving me a new one which came in two red volumes. I still use them on occasion and mine are held together with dictate.
The Woman’s Home Companion Cookbook. I’m not sure of the date, because the front pages and cover are long gone. It was purchased by my mother, then a 16 year old bride, just after WWII. She went into a bookstore and asked for a cookbook. The sales lady asked, “Oh, didn’t your mother teach you to cook?” Mom replied, “Well, I thought so, but my husband disagrees!” The woman laughed and armed her with this volume. It’s the only one she used until she bought the American Heart Association Cookbook after being diagnosed with CHF in her 80s.
I have my Mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook. I received a Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls when I was about 10. I still use it for cookie recipes.
Raised in New Brunswick, my mother and grandmother’s go-to cookbook was the Barbours Cook Book, 3rd edition. The war cake, radio pudding and peanut butter cookie recipes were in high rotation. The book was originally compiled by the NB Carleton County WI in 1942 as the “Victory Cook Book.” G.E. Barbour Co took over publication in 1953. When I got out on my own, I would ask my grandmother “where did you get that recipe”, she would often reply, “The Victory Cook Book.” E-Bay was in its infancy when I started cooking and one of my first book books purchased was a used, tattered Barbours Cook Book. I now have all editions in my library. Elizabeth Driver’s Culinary Landmarks says the Victory/Barbours cook books as “the best-known of all the New Brunswick cook books described in this bibliography” interestingly, the Victory Cook Book’s organizer was Laura McCain, the matriarch of the McCain Foods founders.
You won't regret trying those recipes. I have made a few different ones of his now. And they are delicious. The clam chowder recipe with canned things is a real favorite of ours
The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook was the one for sure! I have my 1976 version from when I was first married. I have my Mom's 1947 version that she used when I was growing up. Then I purchased an even older 1938 version at one of my library's book sales. It is very interesting to see which recipes stand the test of time and appear in all of the cookbooks and also how the ingredients in those recipes changed. I still use mine to make apple pie and macaroni and cheese. And I agree that you can tell which recipes are well loved by the pages with the stains on them! I also have my Mom's cookbook called Economy in Cooking from 1934 published by the Grand Union Tea Company. It has her maiden name and address in it along with her age of 18 and the year 1936. Another cookbook of hers is Operation Vittles from January 1949. It says it was compiled by The American Women in Blockaded Berlin, published by Deutscher Verlag. A lot of the recipes are prefaced with little anecdotes. I have two, both first editions, one much more worn with written notes on the cover and on some of the recipes and another newer one I must have found at a book sale.
Well, I grew up in Atlanta, GA a LONG time ago. My mother had grown up in the country and basically cooked what she already knew how to cook that she had learned on the farm. And she worked outside the home most of my life and got recipes from her co-workers that she used. BUT, when I was getting married and had a bridal shower, THE cookbook that was always given to a new bride in the metro Atlanta area was "Cook and Love It" and I still refer to it some to this day. It was produced by the mother's group (or maybe the PTA) of The Lovett School, and yes the name of the cookbook was a play on the name of the school. Lovett was a private K-12 school in metro Atlanta, but many of the recipes in the book are pretty down to earth and they certainly reflect how folks cooked in the 1970s. The cookbook was popular for many years. And it also included "loving touches" which were basically tips about different things, blessings, etc. It was popular in Atlanta for probably 15-20 years.
For me it’s The American Woman’s Cookbook. A thick green book. My copy is dated 1942 and I recently had it rebound. I grew up on a farm, an early boomer, the youngest of a depression era family. Great war time substitutes section and excellent basic recipes. In my early cooking years I treasured it for its charts on time and temperature for cooking various cuts of meat with options for starting with frozen and its charts for prepping and cooking vegetables. It still has my go to pie crust, lemon pudding, fudge & penuche recipes.
Here in the UK: starting with Mrs Beeton’s household management from Victorian times, we then had the Good Housekeeping cookbook from the 1950s, before the rise of TV cooks - after that Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course became the go to cookbook from the 1970s and it has been through several imprints. I own my mother’s 1966 Good Housekeeping, my Great Grandmother’s Mrs Beetons from 1905 and my own Delia Smith from 1990. As well as a whole heap of others!
My dad - the family cook- had two versions of the Joy of cooking and I greatly enjoyed checking out the differences, which was mainly switching out lard and butter for margarine.
The Betty Crocker was my mom’s favorite. She gave me the 5 ring-binder copy as a wedding gift in 1985. I still make the sausage stuffing for thanksgiving, my children’s favorite, and there are some classic cookie recipes, my favorite is Pumpkin Cookies.
Here in southwest Ohio, the cookbook my mom mostly worked from was the 1950s Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook (sometimes called "Big Red"). For me, it's been Joy of Cooking.
My grandmother used "Woman's Home Companion Cook Book", the pre WW2 version pre-fridgeration version. My MIL use "The American Woman's Cook Book". I used "Here's Fun with Cooking" when I was little and I used "The Pillsbury Cookbook" and "Betty Crocker's New Cookbook" in my own home 😊 Now I have a fun collection of old cookbooks including one from Canada, published in 1887, "The Home Cook Book". I bought it because, as a fan of Anne of Green Gables, this would be a cookbook available to Anne when she was first married ❤️
The main cookbook that we used was my mothers childhood book, and that had been gotten at a 2nd hand thrift. The cover had fallen off before I was born, but she kept it on the shelf. It was purple/maroon with gold embossed letters that were worn away. I still have that book, but not the cover, and my 3 daughters grew up making many recipes from it.❤
Grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania and one of the the standard cookbooks was Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter. Many recipes, some general cooking terms defined, some folklore and a list of food needed for a barn raising (Enough food for 175 men).
I’ve made a similar recipe that also calls for a light lemon glaze that you brush on the warm cookie. Then I sprinkle with coarse decorative sugar. Just found your channel yesterday & am enjoying your content! Thanks! Betty Crocker is the book I grew up with, but if you’re ever looking for a pesto recipe, I found the best one in the The Good Housekeeping cookbook, a wedding gift in 1987.
Better Homes & Gardens 3-ring binder cookbooks from the 1950’s & 60’s. Particularly the New Cook Book in iconic red & white plaid. Still have it, still use it. A classic.
My mother cooked mostly from her experience and recipes from friends. There was a Betty Crocker book in the cabinet, but I don't think she really used it much. Born in 1931, she was the oldest of ten siblings, so she started cooking at a young age, and learned how to cook Depression style. In the late 70's, the Bell Telephone employees (later AT&T) from the state of Mississippi compiled "Bell's Best". It was well used in my family! I was given one for a wedding present, and still use recipes from it today!
I grew up with recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my mother had. Later I received an earlier edition that was my Grandmother's. My mom also used local community cookbooks - one I remember was from the local JayCees in our town. I am now using the BHG cookbook, as well as our own church cookbook we helped publish, and the cookbook my mother made for us. Now that my kids are nearly grown, I have been considering making our own family cookbook.
Definitely the iconic red and white, ring-binder Betty Crocker Cookbook from the 1950's .My mom used it a lot, especially for baking. You could tell what a family's favorite dishes were from whichever pages were splattered with various drops and smears. I've got that one and also found one in pristine condition, looked like it had never been used(I'm sure we've all got plenty of cookbooks like that)
I agree, I have my mom's, and a reprint put out in the 70s or so(?), and the next version, which isn't quite as good.
Are you a quilter?
I had that cookbook (bound, not ring binder. Picked up another copy in an antique store.
I've got my mom's version, that's falling apart, and another one from the 80's I picked up second hand. I still make recipes from it that I don't even make alterations to (like with most recipes 😉)
Yup. Me too. Every mom on the block had that book in their kitchen.
I was born in '64 and my Mom and Gran always had a worn copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. It had a red and white checkered cover. It was a 5 ring binder as well. The sections were divided by file folder shaped dividers. It was a great cookbook. Another one was called the The Old farmer's almanac Colonial cookbook. There were several recipes in there that were made over and over. Especially the Corn Chowder ❤
My mom had a bound version and it got so dilapidated she wrote out all her favorite recipes on index cards and put them in a rolodex XD
Did you ever see the Gold Anniversary Binder one? That is the one i look for. One cake in it, "Hungarian Poppyseed Torte with Walnut Frosting", is my goal. Is it in any you have? Which Editions?
This my mom has this! Our sugar cookie recipe that's kind of like snickerdoodles that's a refrigerator method is a modified version from this!
My mom has a Better Homes and Gardens that is probably 50 years old, when I got married I ended up with 2 different editions of that cookbook.
@@sgmarr I haven't seen that one .. . What a Gem that would be ❤
I’m 43 years old, and growing up it was a mix of Betty Crocker and the Joy of Cooking. There were a few other cookbooks in the house, but those two were probably 95% of what my parents referred to.
My grandmother received a copy of the 1948 edition of "The Joy of Cooking" as a wedding gift and has used it since. She has her favorite go to recipes written with a wood burner on thin oak panels and hung on the kitchen wall so they can be consulted to this day, and the original book in the living room bookcase. She's 94 and still cooking!
My father gifted his new bride with a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook for Christmas 1960, one month into the marriage. Mother was crushed but realized she needed the encouragement. She used it as long as I can remember. Grandma, her mother in law, was a very skilled cook, a master which all of us pale in comparison. She did not use cookbooks, it was all in her head. Never wrote it down unless she wanted you to make it for when got older. We called her our living cookbook. Eastern European influenced cooking mostly. That side of the family loved their food. Obsession really.
My maternal grandmother had one cookbook. I have it now. It was published in 1939. The American Home Cookbook. She also had handwritten recipes on scraps of paper, clippings and later, recipe cards. I have those as well. I make a few of hers and my great grandmother's recipes to this day. It was good food, but not the level of the paternal family. They did not understand the food obsession from the other side of my family. They only ate to live, not living to eat. They also were influenced by Eastern European. Also some Irish, Scottish & English. It's all an interesting mix. I love it all.❤
My grandmother gave my mom a "Woman's Home Companion Cookbook" after she married my dad ... she then passed it down to me when I was married ... my dad was the actual cook in our household - cooking from scratch most of the time , learning by watching his Polish mother cook ... Smacznego ❤️
The 1953 edition of the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook was like the family bible. My mom still has it, although many of the pages are discolored, crumbling, or falling out. It is well worn and has served our family well!
My mom has a copy of Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book. She got it new from her mother when she married my dad in the early 60s. She gave me a brand new copy when I got married in 94. I never had any kids, but I’ve carried on the tradition by gifting them to my friends kids as they set up their homes. Very educational.
"Cookies don't have to be complicated."
Right there with you, Jules.
The Joy of Cooking and The French Chef
"Joy of Cooking" or "Betty Crocker" were in nearly every kitchen I knew. They also updated some recipes with every edition.
My mom learned to cook from Betty Crocker, no complaints from our six boys and one girl siblings.
We had an old Better Homes & Gardens cook book. It was a red & white plaid ring binder book. I know there were many yrs that got printed, 4 or 5 decades if I remember correctly.
Just like Glen I have 3 copies of this from the 40's 60's and 80's my favorite era was the 40's.
My mom learned to cook from - and taught us to cook from - a 1950's gold-colored Fannie Farmer cookbook. I still go back to those recipes when I want a bit of nostalgia as most of Mom's cooking was based on it.
Here in Australia, it was the Common Sense Cookbook. It was the classroom textbook in Home Economics classes for decades, and I'm fairly sure that every household in the country had at least one copy. Also, the Margaret Fulton Cookbook was the kitchen bible of the 1960s.
I think it may have been a NSW Home Economics book more than other states. My mother, as a teacher in NSW, had this in the kitchen.
For me growing up, it was the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. My mom gave me my own copy when I got married. ❤
The cookbook that defines my childhood was my granmother's handwritten one. In the early 70's, she recopied it into a diary book that an insurance agent had given as a premium, with a different category in each month. I have it now, all tattered and battered (literally). Most of the recipes dated from the depression years when she set up housekeeping with more added over the years.
Sounds like a gem👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
For me, growing up here in Minnesota (AKA "South Canada"), the iconic childhood cookbook was always the Fanny Farmer cookbook series. I have so many great memories of making those peanut butter cookies and cheating by adding chocolate chips to them :D
Hello from North north Minnesota!
I live in Thunder Bay Ontario 40 minute drive to the Minnesota border!
That ain't cheatin' -- that's cookin'!
I'm not from Minnesota but I love my copy of Fanny Farmer.
Betty Crocker . My Granny had it, my mom had it, and i gave it to my kids when they moved out.
My grandparents make most of their stuff from memory, along with a sheaf of handwritten recipes copied from various sources.
Mom and Dad used several different cookbooks, Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens, plus a couple obscure ones that were lost to thieves years ago after my father passed. (They broke into our storage and didn't find anything they considered valuable, so they just left Dad's couple hundred books scattered about in the pouring rain.) The one that my brother was able to save was the Nero Wolfe Cookbook, by Rex Stout. The 40 minute scrambled eggs are delicious, but a nightmare to make. (Double boiler and whisking while glued to the stove, anyone?)
My family has our own cookbook that has recipes past down throughout the generations. We have some that date back to my great great great grandmothers time. Every couple years some of my family get together to add new recipes to it and update it. My mom currently has our families copy. When she passes away, it will be mine since I’m the baker and cook of her generation. I think that is the book that has influenced my childhood the most. Many cakes, cookies and meals have been made from it growing up.
Better Homes and Garden. Mom gave me one when I married and it's pretty much all I've used for 52 years!
US - The 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook.(Second printing of the first edition.) The one with the red and white cover. The original is much loved and used, falling apart, but carefully looked after. Many years ago, before ebay and all the other ways to find copies, my brother painstakingly made 4 sets of photocopies of the entire cookbook so that each of us kids had a copy. My mom also had a copy of the 1960s one, and my sister had a 1970s one. Fascinating to see the changes in recipes, and changes in ingredients in recipes.
For my family in the western US it was the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. My grandma has a spiral bound red and white checkerboard cover from the 60’s I believe. When I first moved out of the house to college she got me a copy of the new version. I’ve loved it
Besides the Betty Crocker cookbook, my grandmother's small town church cookbook was the go to in our house..
My mum had a well loved, dog eared and sticker covered copy of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. Fulton's recipes were well written and easy enough to follow that I was making dinner for my family at 10 years old! It inspired my love of Pastry and bread, which I made my career at 19.
For my family, the 1950's version of the Betty Crocker cookbook and local cookbooks from fundraisers(such as 4-H) made up the majority of the recipes we used. My mother and grandmother taught me to cook from those, which fortunately had thorough instructions. Those cookies look delightful.
I'm from Australia and we grew up eating recipes from the Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook. A true classic, highly recommend picking one up if you haven't already Glen!
Nellie Lyle Pattinson's Canadian Cookbook was widely used as a resource in Ontario's 4-H Homemaking projects. As a result, many of us who grew up in rural Ontario and were involved in 4-H were very familiar with the book and the recipes. I received a copy as an award on achievement of 12 projects in PEC. I still have it and use it regularly for some good solid basic fare. Like you Glenn, these are the recipes of my childhood.
My wedding gift from 1986:
Nellie Lyle Pattison’s Canadian Cookbook. Plus we inherited the 1947 book from my husband’s mother’s after she died. Enjoy those old recipes thanks for bringing them to life.
When my mother used a cookbook, it was the iconic "Joy of Cooking". I have her 1930s tattered falling-apart copy with notes here and there and recipes cut from newspapers stuck in some of the pages. I believe it was the only cookbook she had ... I don't remember any others. But a lot of her cooking was intuitive, delicious middle-eastern dishes, because she was born in Lebanon. She also cut out a lot of recipes from newspapers and magazines. Her food was delicious. Also, we can probably all guess how old we are by the cookbooks are mothers used!
In New Zealand in the 1960s it was the Edmond's cookbook. There were different editions which changed over the years including the move to using metric measures. My mother also used community cookbooks like the Women's Institute cookbook. In the 70s and 80s it was the Alison Holst kitchen diaries which had seasonal recipes and her other cookbooks which introduced new techniques and ingredients.
Only cookbook in my mothers house was the Betty Crocker Cookbook published in the 1950’s. I learned to cook from that cookbook. The cookies look good. I love lemon and will have to try the recipe. Thank you.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s so the joy of cooking was always in our collection
Weirdly, I would say that I didn't grow up influenced by a cook book. My grandma had boxes and boxes of recipe cards or recipes she cut from boxes or news papers over the years. That said, I do have a lot of church and Odd Fellows community cookbooks from my mom's parents and grandparents.
Me, too! My aunt would also glean recipes from friends. If she tasted & liked it, she'd ask for a copy.
My mother had only one large heavy volume. It contained only vegetarian recipes. (I am the oldest of 5 and the only one that doesn't consume meat.)
Joy of Cooking, or as my grandmother referred to it as "Irma". She had a depression-era copy that was sadly lost to the world, but it gave instructions on cleaning and dressing everything from squirrel to possum and preparing cakes and main dishes.
I don’t remember my great grandmother or grandmother using cookbooks but my mom had a well worn Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1950s. And she loved cutting out recipes from the daily newspaper.
My childhood is defined by my grandmother's cooking. She was a Hungarian Jewish lady and she got everything out of her head....
My mother just knows how to cook traditional British food, learned from childhood (She's now in her late 80's and still loves to cook) so didn't really use cook books. There was one exception, and that was the Be-Ro cookbook she often used when baking. First published a hundred years ago, it's still in print today in its 41st edition.
In my family it was the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook by Ruth Berolzheimer. My great grandmother, grandmother (and her youngest sister), and my mother (and all her sisters) had this cookbook. I learned how to cook from it
My favorite cookbook is the I Hate To Cook Book by Peg Bracken. I have three copies and I often read it for fun (Peg Bracken has a wicked sense of humor), and the majority of the recipes are keepers
i've got a copy of the encyclopedic cookbook - really nice. i haven't seen it since i moved, though. the family cookbook, though is the settlement cookbook - such a selection of recipes and advice.
Growing up my mom always used the Joy of Cooking and the Sunset Cookbook, but by far the most memorable were Edna Staebler's cookbooks which we discovered in the 80's when I was a teenager. Those books made me fall in love with cookbooks. They are still in my mother's kitchen and I read them over and over when I visit.
Edna’s cook books were schmecking good.
Going through that cookbook is like a stroll down memory lane. So many of the meals, desserts, and baking came out of that book. I found a copy about 8 years ago and was really surprised at how many of the recipes my Mum made.
Coming from an extended vegetarian family (vegetarian for many generations), my mother had a 1986 Sarah Brown vegetarian cookbook. I still have it, and it feels both comforting and dated. Vegetarian food has come a long way, but I’m still enjoying “savoury millet” now and again.
The cook book I remember most from childhood was the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. I imagine the one my mom had was probably a wedding present, so circa 1960. That was the only 'real' cook book she ever used, but her recipe box - remember those little metal boxes full of 3 in x 5 in recipe cards - was packed with handwritten recipes from her mother, aunts and my dad's mother and aunts.
Growing up in Seattle in the 1970s, we had two definitive cookbooks. The Betty Crocker cookbook was the everyday one my mother used. Then there was The Joy of Cooking, which she used when she wanted to do something “fancy”
I got a new copy of The Joy of Cooking as a bridal shower gift in the early 1980's. That was the "big" book at that time. At the same shower I also received my great aunt's 1965 edition of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, which is my most treasured cooking bible. Don't get me wrong, Joy is a fantastic, well-used book, but FF was used by my beloved godmother who was, by far, the best cook in the family. I am honored she gave it to me. She said it was her best cookbook. Both are great classic American cookbooks.
Growing up Mom had 2 cookbooks she used. 1950's "Dormeyer Mix-Well Cookbook". (Dormeyer was the brand name of the mixer she had), and "The American Everyday Cookbook" Random House, NY 1955. By Agnes Murphy Food Editor, NY Post. Then from work she used "General Hospital" from employee's recipes. I received my first cookbook for my 8th birthday. "Betty Crocker's New for Boys and Girls Cookbook". 1st printing 1965 by General Mills, Minneapolis, MN. My second cookbooks is a set printed in1975, but I got it in 1978 after I married. "The Doubleday Cookbook" Complete Contemporary Cooking Vol 1 & 2. I used Vol 2 the most. All of these recipes books have seen better days, a couple are falling apart, but all very much loved through the decades.
"Cookies Don't Have To Be Complicated."
Words to live by.
😊
The Joy of Cooking and The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook
Here in Germany that would be Dr. Oetkers Schulkochbuch, first published in 1911. My mother had the 1952 edition (softcover) in use, and it is well worn. My sister picked up a reprint of that edition, because "it's explaining better than current edition" (it is, after all, a cooking school cookbook) and has different recipes. My 2008 edition (hardcover) was a present from a colleague.
Dr. Oetker was a pharmacist, patented a baking powder in 1903. His company still exists and produces baking ingredients, dessert mixes, frozen pizza and the like. The original editions of the Schulkochbuch (up to 1930s) have been written by home economics teacher Emilie Henneking.
Exactly, and to add to this: Dr Oetker “Backen macht Freude” the dedicated baking book for all things cake and cookies, which defined the Christmas baking.
@@lassepaulsen8312 Mom didn't have the "Backen macht Freude", or at least I haven't seen it. Thank you for the reminder to get a copy, probably also a matching reprint edition...
In New Zealand, it was (still is) the Edmond's cookbook. It's the baking bible for Kiwi's
Joy of Cooking and Good Housekeeping were the staples in my mom’s kitchen.
The cookbooks I remember *seeing* were a 1960s version of the Fannie Farmer coookbook and the Purity Flour cookbook... but the "cookbook" I remember my mom *using* was her collection of recipe cards. And if you ask my kids in 20 or 30 years, the "cookbook" they'll remember me using is UA-camrs' recipes (including some of yours!) written on the back of envelopes.
Envelope backs are my go to temporary recipe cards. After I have made the recipe at least once and know I will make again, I copy to regular card and it goes in my file. I add where it came from and when I made it and any suggestions. I have at least 4 of Glen's recipes waiting for their turn, and will add today's.
Born and raised here in the southern part of the United States. Here most of our parents had the Better Homes and Garden red and white binder on the shelf. Besides that, it was Sunday paper, Readers Digest, and believe it or not occasionally the TV Guide. And lets us not forget the recipes cut from labels on cans and boxes of food. Love the show. Made the lemon cookies and they were great. Thanks for all you do. We always look forward to your show.
Glen: Almost all of the meals my grandma made were from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. And then she transitioned to the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. I inherited the first and one of my sister’s got the New cookbook. Still use my copy and have lots of good “down on the farm” memories when I use it. Respectfully, W.S.
Five roses cookbook. Seemed to be in my whole families cookbook collections
My mom couldn't cook & barely tried. Gramma was a GREAT cook but never used recipes. She just threw shit together & it was delicious. The few recipes our family owned were in a wooden cigar box & cut from newspapers, the back of packaging & those grocery store books made by companies with recipes cards that just get pulled apart. And most of these were Pilsbury based recipes. We had a Betty Crocker Cookbook that had been owned by Gramma from the 50s. It was and still is pristine. It's never been used. I read it as a little girl in the 80s but I may have been the 1st person to open it. I still have it & have literally never used it. But it looks nice on the shelf.
Gramma- born 1920s
Mom- born 1950s
Me- born 1980s
The Edmonds Cookbook here in New Zealand was my childhood staple, many family secret recipes were found in the pages of that cookbook
I'll hop on the Five Roses cookbook bandwagon. To re-use your hyperbole, also a staple of every Canadian household.
I use to watch my Grandmother and Mother cook and bake in the kitchen and I still use their techniques even though I know there are others. Extremely fond memories of those times.
When my Grandmother passed, my Mother gave me my Grandmother's copy of the Five Roses cookbook. It resides in my kitchen to this day and, if I have anything to say about it, until the day I die.
If my grandparents had that cookbook I never saw them use it. My granny was loyal to the Five Roses cookbooks. I have no idea what my other grandma used, I think she liked using recipes printed on labels. She made lots of dream whip based and margarine based desserts.
On another note, the fort at Niagara-on-the-Lake has an historical actor that makes delicious lemon and lavender shortbread cookies. I wouldn't mind if you guys wanted look up that recipe 😋.
My grandmother learned to cook from her Mother, who I believe couldn't read. So it was all by feel and taste and practice. My Grandmother (and my Mother) made great pie crusts.
My mom didn't usually use a cookbook, but when she did it was the Betty Crocker cook book. Still remember the red and white cover and the broken spine.
A serendipitous moment just now on UA-cam, discovering your channel Glen. Appreciate & Love OLD Cookbook Recipes because there’s often a History behind recipes/ingredients. The 1929 stock market crash leading to the Great Depression, WW1 & WW2 with food shortages, therefore you had to be innovative & creative with ingredient substitutions as Food Rationing was implemented. Thank you Glen for this wonderful channel as I already feel like part of your Family, having only watched this first episode🥰🇨🇦 Great TV Series that you may enjoy…Type: TV series Wartime Farm/UA-cam. Series is 9 x 1 hour episodes. God Bless You & your family Glen.🙏❤️
I have my mom's, grandmother's, and my own Betty Crocker cookbooks. I love going back and using the older ones much more than the newer one (that is 40 years old lol).
So, from my neck of the woods, it is, hands down, the First United Church’s “Bentley Cookbook”. It was the foundation stone of my mother’s cooking and baking repertoire. I’m not sure how far back the first edition went, perhaps prior to the war and certainly confederation, but my mother’s was around 1960. I keep it close by to connect me with my mother and the many happy memories it and she gave to my life. Lovely video and recipe, as always. Thank you!
The Joy of Cooking was the go to book in our home.
Growing up in France, "Je sais cuisiner" by Ginette Mathiot was the book my mother was always referring to. She is now in her 80s and she still cooks from it. It was THE book that all young women setting up home would get. Even my sister ,who left home at the end of the 90s, got herself one.
“The proper way is the way that’s comfortable for you”. Never a truer statement.
The right way is always the way that works.
The Margaret Fulton cookbook was the bible in my house growing up. That thing was huge and about 5cm thick. It weighed a ton. There were some fabulous recipes in there.
Millennial here, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (the red checked one in a ring binder) was my influential cookbook growing up!
My mom loved her Betty Crocker cookbooks. My grandmother rarely used cookbooks, only family recipes handed down
My Mom's Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1960's. She got it as a high school graduation gift in 1969 - she took a lot of home economics classes, so I believe my Grandmother bought it for her.
Definitely Betty Crocker and Better Homes. I think I saw them in all my friends' homes when I was growing up in the Midwest in the 70s and 80s. A lot of my favorite childhood cookies come from Betty Crocker. Mom still uses her well loved an annotated version.
I Agree, the Betty Crocker Cookbook was in my grandmother's pantry along with their Christmas Cookie Cookbook and The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks. She also had the "freebie" brand cookbooks by Quaker, Hershey's and Eagle Brand. I still use the Campbells cookbook
One of my favorite cookies I make is a lemon cookie. Took a basic sugar cookie I liked and browned the butter - but with the lemon peel in it then replace the water lost with the juice of the lemon. Makes a fantastic cookie!
My mother always had a copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook in her kitchen. She taught me to cook from it and when I got married she gifted a copy of the cookbook. Even though the cookbook is now old and worn I still use it. My husband's gran always used an old cookbook from the Jewel T Stove Company circa 1900 and a cookbook from the National Grange. The year my husband and I got married Gran gave me a copy of the National Grange Bicentennial Year Cookbook and is still use that too. Both these cookbooks are great and full of taste recipes.
My mother relied on an old green battered cookbook. Mets Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. I eventually pestered her into
giving me a new one which came in two red volumes. I still use them on occasion and mine are held together with dictate.
For me, 1950 Betty Crocker Cookbook. I picked up copy in an antique shop. As a child, I read that cookbook from cover to cover.
I grew up in New Orleans in the 1970s and 1980s and I remember every household having River Road Recipes.
The Woman’s Home Companion Cookbook. I’m not sure of the date, because the front pages and cover are long gone. It was purchased by my mother, then a 16 year old bride, just after WWII. She went into a bookstore and asked for a cookbook. The sales lady asked, “Oh, didn’t your mother teach you to cook?” Mom replied, “Well, I thought so, but my husband disagrees!” The woman laughed and armed her with this volume. It’s the only one she used until she bought the American Heart Association Cookbook after being diagnosed with CHF in her 80s.
I love this channel. The cooking AND the education. Love the presentation style. Thank you. 🙏
Betty Crocker
Yup .... B'Boomer here it was a gift at every bridal shower 😋
Yes, Betty Crocker plus a card file was canon in Mummy’s kitchen in Vancouver. Lots of Mme. Benoit, too!
I have my Mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook. I received a Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls when I was about 10. I still use it for cookie recipes.
@@terryparks4444 Now that's cool... a wonderful thing to pass on to future generations 🥰
Raised in New Brunswick, my mother and grandmother’s go-to cookbook was the Barbours Cook Book, 3rd edition. The war cake, radio pudding and peanut butter cookie recipes were in high rotation.
The book was originally compiled by the NB Carleton County WI in 1942 as the “Victory Cook Book.” G.E. Barbour Co took over publication in 1953.
When I got out on my own, I would ask my grandmother “where did you get that recipe”, she would often reply, “The Victory Cook Book.” E-Bay was in its infancy when I started cooking and one of my first book books purchased was a used, tattered Barbours Cook Book. I now have all editions in my library.
Elizabeth Driver’s Culinary Landmarks says the Victory/Barbours cook books as “the best-known of all the New Brunswick cook books described in this bibliography”
interestingly, the Victory Cook Book’s organizer was Laura McCain, the matriarch of the McCain Foods founders.
I so enjoy this channel, I have a saved playlist for recipes I want to try another day. Thanks, Glen.
You won't regret trying those recipes. I have made a few different ones of his now. And they are delicious. The clam chowder recipe with canned things is a real favorite of ours
The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook was the one for sure! I have my 1976 version from when I was first married. I have my Mom's 1947 version that she used when I was growing up. Then I purchased an even older 1938 version at one of my library's book sales. It is very interesting to see which recipes stand the test of time and appear in all of the cookbooks and also how the ingredients in those recipes changed. I still use mine to make apple pie and macaroni and cheese. And I agree that you can tell which recipes are well loved by the pages with the stains on them! I also have my Mom's cookbook called Economy in Cooking from 1934 published by the Grand Union Tea Company. It has her maiden name and address in it along with her age of 18 and the year 1936. Another cookbook of hers is Operation Vittles from January 1949. It says it was compiled by The American Women in Blockaded Berlin, published by Deutscher Verlag. A lot of the recipes are prefaced with little anecdotes. I have two, both first editions, one much more worn with written notes on the cover and on some of the recipes and another newer one I must have found at a book sale.
Well, I grew up in Atlanta, GA a LONG time ago. My mother had grown up in the country and basically cooked what she already knew how to cook that she had learned on the farm. And she worked outside the home most of my life and got recipes from her co-workers that she used. BUT, when I was getting married and had a bridal shower, THE cookbook that was always given to a new bride in the metro Atlanta area was "Cook and Love It" and I still refer to it some to this day. It was produced by the mother's group (or maybe the PTA) of The Lovett School, and yes the name of the cookbook was a play on the name of the school. Lovett was a private K-12 school in metro Atlanta, but many of the recipes in the book are pretty down to earth and they certainly reflect how folks cooked in the 1970s. The cookbook was popular for many years. And it also included "loving touches" which were basically tips about different things, blessings, etc. It was popular in Atlanta for probably 15-20 years.
I grew up learning to cook from my Mom's 1978 Better Homes and Garden's Complete Step-By-Step Cookbook.
For me it’s The American Woman’s Cookbook. A thick green book. My copy is dated 1942 and I recently had it rebound. I grew up on a farm, an early boomer, the youngest of a depression era family. Great war time substitutes section and excellent basic recipes. In my early cooking years I treasured it for its charts on time and temperature for cooking various cuts of meat with options for starting with frozen and its charts for prepping and cooking vegetables. It still has my go to pie crust, lemon pudding, fudge & penuche recipes.
Here in the UK: starting with Mrs Beeton’s household management from Victorian times, we then had the Good Housekeeping cookbook from the 1950s, before the rise of TV cooks - after that Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course became the go to cookbook from the 1970s and it has been through several imprints. I own my mother’s 1966 Good Housekeeping, my Great Grandmother’s Mrs Beetons from 1905 and my own Delia Smith from 1990. As well as a whole heap of others!
Betty Crocker's Cookbook was my family's go-to.
My dad - the family cook- had two versions of the Joy of cooking and I greatly enjoyed checking out the differences, which was mainly switching out lard and butter for margarine.
The Betty Crocker was my mom’s favorite. She gave me the 5 ring-binder copy as a wedding gift in 1985. I still make the sausage stuffing for thanksgiving, my children’s favorite, and there are some classic cookie recipes, my favorite is Pumpkin Cookies.
I use the zest of one lemon in my snickerdoodle recipe and just omit the cinnamon. Roll in sugar and bake. I called them lemondoodles as a kid!
Here in southwest Ohio, the cookbook my mom mostly worked from was the 1950s Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook (sometimes called "Big Red"). For me, it's been Joy of Cooking.
My grandmother used "Woman's Home Companion Cook Book", the pre WW2 version pre-fridgeration version. My MIL use "The American Woman's Cook Book". I used "Here's Fun with Cooking" when I was little and I used "The Pillsbury Cookbook" and "Betty Crocker's New Cookbook" in my own home 😊 Now I have a fun collection of old cookbooks including one from Canada, published in 1887, "The Home Cook Book". I bought it because, as a fan of Anne of Green Gables, this would be a cookbook available to Anne when she was first married ❤️
The main cookbook that we used was my mothers childhood book, and that had been gotten at a 2nd hand thrift. The cover had fallen off before I was born, but she kept it on the shelf. It was purple/maroon with gold embossed letters that were worn away. I still have that book, but not the cover, and my 3 daughters grew up making many recipes from it.❤
Grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania and one of the the standard cookbooks was Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter. Many recipes, some general cooking terms defined, some folklore and a list of food needed for a barn raising (Enough food for 175 men).
I’ve made a similar recipe that also calls for a light lemon glaze that you brush on the warm cookie. Then I sprinkle with coarse decorative sugar. Just found your channel yesterday & am enjoying your content! Thanks! Betty Crocker is the book I grew up with, but if you’re ever looking for a pesto recipe, I found the best one in the The Good Housekeeping cookbook, a wedding gift in 1987.
I was thinking they'd be good with a simple lemon juice and confectioners sugar icing drizzled on top ... a glaze would be yummy too.
Better Homes & Gardens 3-ring binder cookbooks from the 1950’s & 60’s. Particularly the New Cook Book in iconic red & white plaid. Still have it, still use it. A classic.
Lots of family/friend shared recipes, but also the whole Best of Bridge collection!
My mother cooked mostly from her experience and recipes from friends. There was a Betty Crocker book in the cabinet, but I don't think she really used it much. Born in 1931, she was the oldest of ten siblings, so she started cooking at a young age, and learned how to cook Depression style. In the late 70's, the Bell Telephone employees (later AT&T) from the state of Mississippi compiled "Bell's Best". It was well used in my family! I was given one for a wedding present, and still use recipes from it today!
Two. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Betty Crocker. My mom was a sucker for the community and church cookbooks, and I still have a few of those.
I grew up with recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my mother had. Later I received an earlier edition that was my Grandmother's. My mom also used local community cookbooks - one I remember was from the local JayCees in our town. I am now using the BHG cookbook, as well as our own church cookbook we helped publish, and the cookbook my mother made for us. Now that my kids are nearly grown, I have been considering making our own family cookbook.