At last count, and this is a very rough count, I have in the range of 2,500 recipes spread out between various and sundry cookbooks, magazines and Internet sites. It was while looking through a pile of books that I came across two quite old tomes… 1) Perfect Cooking by Parkinson (Birmingham U.K. printed in 1950) and 2) Canadian Cook Book (Ryerson Press Toronto Canada printed in 1953).
One of the things I found really interesting was the title page for Perfect Cooking because it says that the book was “Written and compiled by Miss Gwen L Hughes. Diploma, of Domestic Science Melbourne (Emily McPherson) College of Domestic Economy Senior Lecturer and Demonstrator of the Parkinson Stove Co. Limited. ” Diploma of Domestic Science and a College of Domestic Economy……. imagine that. As for the Canadian Cookbook I found a footnote in it’s title page that says “Recipes must be adapted for higher than normal altitudes.” Were they perhaps expecting this book to go into space at some point?
What is going to be entertaining about these two books is looking at the old recipes from approximately 60 years ago and seeing how things have changed….. or stayed the same for that matter. What I also plan to do is periodically feature a recipe from the books so that we may all be entertained and, perhaps, learn something as well.
One thing to keep in mind is that due to the age of the books they may contain things we can only guess at for instance the Perfect Cooking book makes reference to “Adjusto” settings and I can only guess that it means oven temperature but what temperature will remain a mystery. Oh and there are no pictures accompanying the recipes so I have no idea what they are supposed to look like.
This should prove to be an interesting journey and I hope you will tag along to see what recipes get posted.
Bon Appetit
gardensandgrills 