Does anyone read "Old style Books" for fun?

Mr_Proctalgia

I love reading old cook books and various versions of Mrs Beeton style books just for the fun of it, for me it has to be Escoffier and Ma Cuisine, but older stuff from the likes of Careme et al are even more interesting.
Apart from buying the "grate a pound of truffles " bit I try to experiment and try some of the ancient recipies, for instance, I have recently been experimenting with "Luting Paste" Good results so far!

Does anyone else go back to the old age style "Old Style"??

jaybee

I've always had a weak spot for cookery (and household) books. Since my mother died earlier this year I have got a stack of old ones to revel in now. Sometimes just the pictures in them make me smile!

chickadee

Although not perhaps as old as Mrs Beeton, etc, my son had a WW2 project at school. He read a wartime cookbook and my sister helped him to make some things from it. Probably the worst was mashed potato marzipan! YUK

Allexie

Luting Paste


Had to do a Google to find out what the flippin' stuff was....




Luting Paste

To make luting paste for sealing you will need:

200g flour
225-300ml (8-10d oz) water

Put the flour in a small bowl. Make a well in the centre, add 225ml of the water and mix with your fingers, adding more water if needed, to obtain a soft paste just firm enough to shape. Do not beat the mixture or it will become elastic and may shrink and crack during cooking.

Turn onto a floured board and roll with your hands into a rope the length of the perimeter of your terrine mould. Put it around the rim and press on the lid. The paste hardens quickly and prevents all steam from escaping.

(You learn something new every day on this site! )

voodoozoe

Yep, I adore old cookbooks and their bizarre recipes. I have some corking recipes such as "Spiced Brandy, a cure for chills and CHOLERA" !!!!!! Also "Toast water", some foul brew meant to be good for invalids made from...yes, you guessed it...toast and water!!! :snow_laug

MATH

I have quite a collection of 1960's cookbooks. The Leisure Gas Cooker Cookery Manual is one of my favs. The pictures are quite scary. I don't know if it's the photography of what but the food is dayglo. I've never seen sprouts quite that shade of glow-in-the-dark green or custard so yellow it would burn-ya-retinas just to look at it.

THIRZAH

I have a small notebook containing recipes which belonged to my great grandmother. There are recipes for cough syrup and teething mixture as well as food. The cough mixture contains laudanum and the teething mixture contains specacuaha wine ( whatever that is!), spirits of nitre and bicarbanote potash!

Mr_Proctalgia

"I've never seen sprouts quite that shade of glow-in-the-dark green"

Put a 1/2 teaspoon of bicarb in the boiling water if you really want weapons grade nuclear sprouts!!!!!!

chickadee

My Grandma used to have a notebook with reciped written in it, but they would be impossible to follw as they say things like "two-penneth of porridge oats". That would make for an interesting experiment. That would be a very small quantity of, say M&S oats, or a container-load of Lidl oats.

Life must have been so much simpler then, when things were the same price for years and years.... Can you imagine what they would have thought about us doing our on-line grocery shopping?

Becles

My Grandma used to give us a mixture of butter, vinegar and sugar on a spoon if we had a cough.

It worked really well, as you were terrified to cough again in case you were given another spoonful :rolleyes:

wigginsmum

I have the recipes of Hannah Woolley (17th century adapted for today). She was born in 1623; she became a school teacher at 15, then successively a governess, secretary, housekeeper, matron and writer on various subjects.

I also have a series of thin booklets I bought at Hampton Court back in the Eighties, recreating successive periods of cooking from Neolithic times onwards.

When I was single and had more time, I would do themed evenings; people would dress up in the costume of the chosen period, I'd do the food as authentic as possible (Apicius for Roman times, for example), and everyone would research and bring a poem or a piece of music.

I also did a Discworld fancy-dress evening a few years back featuring recipes from Nanny Ogg's Cookbook. I have the natural figure for Nanny Ogg, although I can sing a bit better!

Jules