Finding an Old Recipe

My wife dug up the last of the carrots in the garden last week. She was probably just in time because winter has suddenly arrived here. Yesterday she was processing a large amount for freezing. While she was working away she said it would be nice to bake something sweet which brought up the idea of carrot cake.

Years ago I had a recipe for a great carrot cake and started looking through a box of my old recipes. While looking through the box of recipes I came across my grandmother's cookbook which my mother had given me about 20 years ago. This is the 1938 version of the Five Rose Flour cookbook. Both covers are loose along with several front and back pages. An old elastic band keeps the book together. My mother used a version of the same cookbook published around 1960 which I have and use as well. My grandmother added recipes to the book. Some are just written on empty spaces in the book, some are taped here and there and some are just slipped in loosely. Many of the taped in recipes are from "The Lethbridge Herald" in the 1950's. Some have classified ads on the back which offerred basement suites for rent at $50 to $65 per month. One recipe had the date from the top of the newspaper page; December 8, 1953. I found the family Christmas cake recipe written in my grandmother's writing which means I have the same recipe written in my mother's writing.

Eventually I remembered that the recipe for carrot cake I was looking for used Hellmann's Mayonnaise and Goggle brought it up quickly. Lots of memories brought up though and a reminder that I must buy the 2003 version of the cookbook to make it three generations.

Nice memories in cookbooks for sure! I have cut and pasted (the old fashioned way) a lot of my mother in laws recipes which were very old and handwritten into my "book".

I also have my mother's 5 Roses cookbook, I think it is mid 60's, it was a wedding present to her at her wedding shower, I do use it lots (as she did, so those are some of my childhood fave recipes,) what I find amusing about it, is on the back cover (now held on with elasic band as well!) she wrote down how many pounds and cups and packages of foodstuffs she canned/processed every year for a few years, made me cringe at one time as I never could compete with her on that but now I find it quite endearing!

I have a favorite carrot cake recipe of my mother in laws that I would be happy to share if anyone would like it(no hellmans mayo) but it has almost equal amounts of shredded apple along with the expected shredded carrot... it is amazingly moist without a lot of oil..

When my grandma passes away and we were dividing her things, the only thing I was adamant about was her box of cook books. Some of them are very old, passed to her from her mother. I have one old church recipe book that was hand bound with string. The recipe's did look photocopied, but were all in handwriting. Some of the handwriting is so bad I can hardly read it. Lots of the recipes are the ones I remember her making for us when we were kids.

I love food, not only because I love to eat, but taste and smell are 2 very potent memory enhancing "drugs". There is noting more powerful to provoke a memory than a smell or a taste.

I really love the old books that give a history to every recipe and tradition around it. Time to dig it out again and make some memories for my kids...

These are very pleasing things to read about, memories,yes, smell and taste...Miry, I would love the recipe for the carrot cake, the amount of apples caught my interest, I have boxes of apples....have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

My grandma died last week
And this reminded me that I would love to have her old cookbooks. She had so many handwritten recipes in a binder as well that I remember her cooking for me when I lived with her one summer. She is the reason I garden and have animals now.
I hope her husband will give them to me...unfortunately she left everything to him and only told us verbally what she wanted us to have...but seems he has no intention of giving us anything of hers. Sigh.
But cookbooks and her sewing machine and photo albums she wanted me to have...and hopefully I will get soon.
Sorry for the depressing addition to this thread guys

I likely have the cookbooks because I was the only one of three boys (no sisters) to do any cooking. My mother started to teach me to cook while I was still in elementary school because she worked full time. If I wanted to play sports or do other activities in the evening supper needed to be ready when my parents got home from work. I have kept a finger in the kitchen all my life although in recent years my wife and DIL do most of the cooking. I sometimes help at such times as Christmas and Easter. I make a few family favourites that the other cooks don't make. There is a recipe for turkey stuffing in the Five Roses cookbook that I have made for many Christmas meals.

I have some photo albums, an old table and chairs and the cookbooks as good memories of my family. Unfortunately I do not have any relationship with my brothers or their families. That ended when my mother died six years ago.

I love old cookbooks, have my grandmothers and my great grandmothers as well as many hundreds of very old ones some dating back to the 1850s, because of my buisness I even have old five roses and blue ribbon as well as others in the original shipping envelope never touched. I look at them for ideas and always look at Grandmothers, that is were my pickle and other canning recipes.

HiddenAcresBC wrote:My grandma died last week
And this reminded me that I would love to have her old cookbooks. She had so many handwritten recipes in a binder as well that I remember her cooking for me when I lived with her one summer. She is the reason I garden and have animals now.
I hope her husband will give them to me...unfortunately she left everything to him and only told us verbally what she wanted us to have...but seems he has no intention of giving us anything of hers. Sigh.
But cookbooks and her sewing machine and photo albums she wanted me to have...and hopefully I will get soon.
Sorry for the depressing addition to this thread guys

Sorry to hear of your loss, hopefully you can get some of those special things but the best thing are the memories and noone can keep those from you...

mirycreek wrote:

HiddenAcresBC wrote:My grandma died last week
And this reminded me that I would love to have her old cookbooks. She had so many handwritten recipes in a binder as well that I remember her cooking for me when I lived with her one summer. She is the reason I garden and have animals now.
I hope her husband will give them to me...unfortunately she left everything to him and only told us verbally what she wanted us to have...but seems he has no intention of giving us anything of hers. Sigh.
But cookbooks and her sewing machine and photo albums she wanted me to have...and hopefully I will get soon.
Sorry for the depressing addition to this thread guys

Sorry to hear of your loss, hopefully you can get some of those special things but the best thing are the memories and noone can keep those from you...

Sorry for you loss, what has happened to you happens over and over again, it happened to me with my father and in my line of work I see it all the time,greedy uncaring people. Our prayers are with you.

Rosewood, how lucky for you to find a buried treasure! There is something almost sacred about holding the cookbook that was held in the hands of a loved one. Those same hands that kneaded bread dough and stirred cake batter and iced those same cakes. The work of feeding a family is so under appreciated, but so central to what a family is, sharing a meal, breaking bread together. Yellowed pages, or ones stuck together with four and butter...a true treasure. I write notes in the margins of my fave cookbook (that's not very many!) and if daughter ever inherits them, she will find in their pages what I served for Christmas dinner 1994, who was there, what the weather was like and who was the first to bring up a poilitical topic over dessert and coffee. I am happy for you, you've been visited by spirits passed.

HiddenAcres, I am sorry for your recent loss. It is no comfort for me to say this but I will. While something in your hand might be an appreciated rememberance, a talisman, it is what you keep in your heart and mind that is the true treasure. No one can take that away from you ever. Not flood, fire nor theft. The most precious things, your memories and knowledge learned, travel with you all the time right beside your soul.

HiddenAcres, I am very sorry for your loss. I can only hope that your Granny's husband is reacting in the pain of his own loss, and that he will come around and share some of the physical memory items that you hold dear. Let us know how it goes, and in the meantime, please share some of your memories of your precious Gran.

When I had to go help pack up my Mom's condo last year so that we could put it on the market, I found the old 1953 Better Homes & Gardens cookbook that used to live in the utensils drawer of my childhood home. The same book brought back floods of olfactory memories, along with floods of tears, as I flipped through the pages. Same thing - many hand-written and clipped additional recipes filled the pages, and I remembered my Mother as a younger woman feeding us, her family.

It was one of the few things I took from that condo, but I open that book and use it whenever I can, and sometimes I just open it to remember some of the scents of my childhood. I feel very lucky to have that particular item from my past. Pity I have no kids to pass it on to. Maybe one of my nephews will be the lucky one.

I took some time today to compare the recipes between the two different editions. The popular turkey stuffing recipe is not in the 1938 edition, but the wonderful pumpkin pie recipe is in both. The source of one of my best goofs is only in the 1960 edition. Shortly after my first marriage ended I invited my parents over to show them I really could manage on my own. The planned menu was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Some how in making the Yorkshire pudding I put in five cups of "One Rose Flour" instead of one cup of "Five Rose Flour". The Yorkshire pudding did not turn out quite the way I planned. Right close to the front of the 1938 edition my grandmother has written in "Mrs. Reedman's Yorkshire Pudding". Mrs. Reedman would have been my Auntie Beryl's mother-in-law from Blind Bay, BC.

The carrot cake was really good.

CynthiaM wrote:These are very pleasing things to read about, memories,yes, smell and taste...Miry, I would love the recipe for the carrot cake, the amount of apples caught my interest, I have boxes of apples....have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Here you are:

Lunch Box Carrot Cake

(makes 1- 9 x 13 pan)

1 cup sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 eggs

1 cup allpurpose flour
1 cup wholewheat flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp cinnamon

2 cups grated carrot
1 1/2 cups grated apple
1 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans are good)

Blend sugar, oil and eggs, beat until slightly thickened. Sift together the dry ingredients then stir them into the egg mixture.
Stir in the carrots, apple, raisins and nuts.

Pour into oiled and floured 9 x 13 pan (I use a glass one) and bake 35-40 minutes at 350 F or until done.

Ice with cream cheese icing:
1/2 package of cream cheese (softened)(4 oz)
1/4 cup butter
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
Beat well together and spread on cooled cake!

( I often freeze grated carrots and apples in order to make this cake more quickly)

Thank you Miry, that sounds very good, I especially like the addition of apples!! Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.