A glimpse into the past

[spinbaby]

I’m browsing my late husband’s grandmother’s recipe book. She was born in the late 19th century and lived most of her life on a farm in West Virginia. For decades, she wrote everything down in a little black notebook. There were a great many pie and cake recipes,, as well as a fair number of cookies and custards. Some canning and pickle recipes. The main dishes were largely hearty fare with hamburger, chicken, macaroni, and canned tomatoes. So many canned tomatoes.

Some of the recipes were vague—no more than a few quick notes:

Straw Berry Pie
1 box strawberry jello
2 cups sugar
2 quarts water
6 tablespoons cornstarch
Mix everything together

But most interesting was a note detailing the cost of butchering one of their cows:
Butchering $5.00
Paper $1.65
Cut Beef up $14.00

[pansypoo53219]

1. i found a 1/4 size changed bill for my aunt's 1948 birth. they forgot $50 for the nurse.

i have grabbed recipe books + boxes from estate sales. OH! + a vintage wis ethnic recipe book + i tried the richly beef. hungarian or something. sort of like something my great-aunt made, but w/ onions. i added lemon pepper.
my grandma taught herself to cook using the settlement cookbook.

[spinbaby]

2. I love the Settlement Cookbook

It’s on my vintage recipes shelf along with a whole lot of church lady cookbooks

[Retrograde]

3. Did she leave out a major ingredient

namely the strawberries? My father always insisted on a strawberry pie for his birthday (he didn't care for cakes), and my mother made it with real strawberries - which were at their peak at that time of year - and some sort of binding. It may have been Jell-O: there was definitely something holding all the strawberries in place!

[spinbaby]

4. My guess

I think this is meant to be cooked on the stovetop to make the gel that holds the fresh strawberries together in a strawberry pie. Many of the recipes are like this—they just assume you know stuff.