Recipes and Other Legacies – A Three-Book Giveaway for You!
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It is Mrs Beeton who gets all the credit, rightly so, for being the first person to write a recipe book in the style we are now all so familiar with. It was she who introduced the words, ‘Ingredients’ and ‘Method’ into our lexicon and who set out a step by step guide, written in easy to understand language for each recipe.
Before her Book of Household Management it was not unusual for recipes to be called ‘receipts’, with a list of ingredients, roughly in the order they would be added to the mix, written down with a quick guide as to their use. “Lemon peel, strewn into mixture across sugar and eggs, three” is an approximation. It was not unlike reading a chemistry formula in iambic pentameter.
Each household cook, assuming they could write at all, would have their own hand bound book of recipes. It was these precious writings that would inform their every meal, carefully handed down, usually to their oldest daughter. It was not unusual – it still isn’t – for cooks to withhold the secret to their most treasured meals, taking to the grave their recipe for peerless chocolate cake or their world-class lemon meringue pie.
We are so used to a standardised recipe book format that it always comes as a surprise to read the works of cooks who regularly recorded their efforts from a time when there was no call to be so exact. When I come across a book like this, often in dusty second-hand bookshops – I am addicted to second-hand bookshops – I then ask myself whether I should keep it in the kitchen or on the bedside table.
At Home on the Range by Margaret Yardley Potter is one such book.
Known to all who loved her as Gima, Yardley Potter grew up in a wealthy family in turn-of-the-century east coast America and, through illness, a healthy pursuit of partying and a feckless spendthrift husband, steadily reduced her circumstances year by year until her alcoholism-related death in 1955.
And if we left it at that you would have no clue to the generous, joyous and at times quite cavalier way with which she tackled life, hardship and penury, all of which is contained in her book.
Densely written over more than 200 pages, I found myself asking again and again whether it was an autobiography with recipes, or a recipe book with a great story arc woven through it. The two pre-requisites for being a good cook, she advises us, is “a hearty appetite and a sense of humour” and with every sentence she shows she has both in boundless quantities. First published in 1947 while Julia Child was just embarking on her culinary education in Paris, Gima was telling everyone in plain-food post-war US to reconsider their approach to mussels, red wine gravy, omelette au fines herbes, brandied peaches, tomato consommé and not one but three variations on a coffee cake.
But it is her humour that speaks so evocatively through the pages. She was a party gal and she clearly had a deliciously dry wit. During a lengthy chapter on bread making, she advises the reader to
‘Now relax. Sit down, light a cigarette, write a letter or make your own plans for the next 15 minutes while the dough ‘tightens up’ as we bakers say. I generally improve this shining quarter hour by washing the mixing bowl, and like the fisherman’s suspenders in Kipling’s “How the Whale Got His Throat,” which you are implored to remember, you’ll see why later …’
See what I mean? There’s not one dryly worded method in this book. Instead, this book is best read in bed (Gima would approve I’m sure) while you follow her on a journey through making party plans (quite rightly Gima places pre-eminent importance on the correct way to mix a Manhattan), visiting sick friends in hospital (a woman after my own heart, I can never visit friends without taking in food), or suitable picnic or beach fare. Along the way you realise that despite the witty prose and densely written and at times hard to follow recipes, this woman had a damned hard life, moving from place to place often one step away from the bailiffs, and with frequent periods of hospitalisation either for mental illness or alcoholism. She cannily re-purposed and made the best of hand-me down furniture and household items, and always had the last word in kitchen thrift as a brilliantly written chapter on making a meal when friends come round and you have no food to feed them wittily attests.
Densely written with deliciously dry wit – the ingredients for Pumpkin Pie
And yet she was generous. She was funny, had a stream of visitors and friends to her door, never shirked hard work and made the best of every day she had. Her dinner parties, which were more party than dinner, were legendary. Fifty years after she has passed, her great-granddaughter Elizabeth Gilbert (she of Eat, Pray, Love fame) describes how much Gima is still missed by all who knew her. Her legacy includes many recipes handed down across four generations of family that followed. You can’t help wondering, as Gilbert does, what could have happened in the following ten years had Gima lived on for it was in the 1960s that Julia Child dragged the US into a burgeoning love affair with fine food utilising as she did the new medium of TV.
Gima would have been a natural.
Elizabeth Gilbert clearly thought so as well. The great-granddaughter who never knew Gima, she fell in love with her through her writing and it’s not hard to understand why. There are more than 200 recipes throughout the book but it is hard to extract them, so joyously interwoven with her story as they are. Gima only ever published this one book, never travelled to Paris as she longed to do, never got the breaks that other food authors got, but this book deserves reprinting, if nothing else for the autobiography that is attached. Thank goodness it has been re-purposed and published again. Gima would have so approved.
Just make sure you take it into your kitchen after you have read it from cover to cover. Ultimately, that’s where it should reside.
At Home On The Range by Margaret Yardley Potter & Elizabeth Gilbert, Bloomsbury, hardcover, 256 pages is now available in all good bookstores, RRP $35.00
I have a lovely giveaway of three books for one lucky reader, of At Home on the Range by Margaret Yardley Potter and Eat, Pray Love and Committed, both by Elizabeth Gilbert, courtesy of Bloomsbury.
To be in the draw, please share with us your most treasured meal that has been handed down through your family. You don’t have to write the recipe, especially if it’s a family secret, but you know we’ll all love you if you do.
Winner will be drawn by random generated computer selector thingy. Draw closes 7pm EST Friday 8th June 2012.
Impossible pie. My favourite, and still one I’m yet to perfect!
Steamed syrup pudding, yum, especially after a sunday roast with lashings of birds eye custard on a cold wintery English day back then in my childhood!!!
Now this is a hard question mine would have to be a toss up between cristollis or Lasagna.
my mum’s yogurt crumbed chicken!!!! we grew up on it, and now my kids (and my siblings kids) all love it. every offspring of mum’s cooks it regularly
Jam Roly Poly – handed down by my Nan and one that always reminds me of my childhood!
I received a pavalova recipe a month ago from my mother in law. My husband said “mum makes the BEST Pav” so I asked her for the recipe. She said it had been passed down from her great grandmother, and she told me the secret ingredient. I felt so privileged that she passed it down to me. Has now been named “Pott’s Pav”
My mother in law’s ginger cake, my husband raved about it for all our years of dating and finally we have the recipe so he can now make it for me, or if he is lucky my sons and I make it for him as a special treat.
My Nanny’s zucchini slice
always a part of our Christmas lunch
Scones & sponge cake from my G’G'ma, to my G’ma, to Mum and on to me now that I’m a Mum too… And on to my daughter one day
I have dr wood chases book from 1860. It sound very similar to mrs beeton with not just recipes but also medical and farming advice for women who early settlers. Probably not as pretty as a ladies book. Lol.
It belong to my great grandmother who was one of the early settlers of alexandra, the towns midwife, and a hotel owner with her husband…and mum of 10!
She gave it to my grandmother who was a settler in the mallee..both these women faced so many hardships, had to the finest housekeeper and creative cooks. This book is so precious and now very fragile. Its great for recipe ideas or a good laugh….oh my oh my…the things they and the home remedies are truly mind boggling.
Oh and i loved the home made soup from lamb bones, and creamy rice pudding!
But the pressed tongue handed down from each mum, grand mum, great grandmum…will not be honoured. Utterly revolting!
Have so many treasured ones passed down but I have to go with corned beef and white sauce passed down from Nan. I love and miss her so much and still when I prepare the meat then the sauce I always manage a tear. It is eaten by my kids within 10 minutes every time
4th generation family recipe, Mum’s Special Spice Cake,
Was THE only thing she baked!
A VERY special tradition, starting from Thanksgiving to Christmas too!
Friends placed orders in lieu of gifts too!
Always SPECIAL as Mum added extra TLC,
THEN the recipe was passed on to me!
Savored her handwritten recipe card,
Initially thought the recipe was HARD!
So out of respect, for YEARS I did not make,
Then, out of the blue, one day I did bake!
Came out ALMOST EXACTLY like mum’s, TRUE!
Was SO excited, called mum from overseas…she said she knew!
HOW? Was and will now always be a mystery,
As now from heaven, she knows I uphold “the tradition” of her VERY special family recipe!
I love my mums chow mein with cabbage and chicken noodle soup. I must say though my family don’t have quite the same love for it
A Christmas wreath recipe from my Gran-Gran. It is made with rice crispies, green dye, marsh mallows, and red hots! All time family fave!
Mum’s spaghetti bol, which, as young kids, we all called pissghetti by mistake
My Italian grandmother’s Spaghetti and Meatballs. The meatballs were always made with veal and pork mince, ricotta cheese, romano cheese, fresh breadcrumbs, toasted pinenuts, oregano, basil, egg and a few other herbs and spices… As a child at large family gatherings we could always pick out own Grandmother’s meatballs from the other meatballs on the table just by the smell… memories….
My mum was never an adventurous cook and unfortunately her mother died when she was quite young so no recipes passed down from her… but the absolute comfort meal I loved from Mum and I still cook for my family is her humble Meatloaf recipe. Basic but very tasty and full of love and memories
Lasagne – my Mum always made it when we had visitors and it is the only meal she taught me to cook.
My grandmothers home made bread recipe she kept in her head. Delicious. Even better with her home made jam and cream fresh from the cow.
Mine would be Beef Stroganoff a recipe given to me by a friend about 30 years ago. As each of my kids have left home they have all asked for and received the recipe for them to make and carry on the tradition. When Aunty Beth comes home to Sydney from working and living in Melbourne we have to have it as it is her favourite meal and everyone enjoys it
My Grandmothers scone recipe – works every time and tastes amazing!
Lasagne, scrambled eggs and warming fare
with lamb and barley soup and roasted chook
All favourites, these – each made with loving care
and served with love and many a hungry look
But greater far than any one of these
was always Mum’s Mum’s macaroni cheese.
LOL – iambic pentameter, though not chemistry formulae. And Gran’s macaroni cheese was *always* awesome.
My mums mueslie slice- I remember eating it for the first time: tasty, fruity, and a little bit sweet! I try to emulate it every time I bake- but mine is always slightly crumblier than hers!
I do suspect however it is not to be- she used odds and sods from her fabulous pantry to make up the 400g!
2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
400g of ‘stuff’ (my mums words!) dried fruit, chic bits, nuts and seeds, dregs of cereal!
Mix the first 4 ingredients together then add your ‘stuff’. Add more melted butter/slash if milk if it gets too dry!
180 degrees for 20 min or untill brown!
Thanks Mum!!
Oh my grandfathers shortbread recipe, handed down through our clan for generations. So special!
My Great Aunt Helen’s Aunt’s Christmas pudding recipe.
It would have to be my grandma’s Shunkleesha recipe….what’s that you ask? something delicious made from ‘ home made yoghurt, curdled, fridge dried for 4 days, til crumbly , and ingredients like thyme, sumac, sesame seeds, chilli etc etc (not giving away the rest here! otherwise it takes the ‘secret’ recipe out of it!! )are incorporated & eaten on toasted sourdough bread/Lebanese bread with a hot cup of tea,freshly brewed!- or better still, spread onto lamb shish kebabs. Yum! I feel like some now, but it takes 5 days to make, but WELL WORTH IT !!!!
Honey Biscuits – Made by my Nana and Great Grandma Alma. And now made by me every Christmas Time. it’s not Christmas without them.
Definitely my great grandmother’s shortbread recipe. It was passed onto my grandmother and every year she would make it for us at Christmas and we would devour it. Made with ground rice for crunch, she would look down her nose at those who made shortbread with rice flour, it just HAD to be ground rice. After my grandmother died, my aunt (her daughter) inherited the recipe and made it for us every Christmas. Last year, after 22 years, my aunt finally gave me the recipe for Christmas, wrapped up with my wheel of shortbread on its paper plate. So my daughter and I made some and it was just as it has always been. Delicious 5 generations on.
Mum’s Sang Choy Bow is delicious… she even got it published in Woman’s Day.
http://womansday.9msn.com.au/food/readersrecipes/996944/chicken-and-vegetable-sang-choy-bow
Im not really even sure what this dish is called … but we lovingly called it “goop”…its a cross between scrambled eggs and cheese sauce. Handed down from my paternal grandmother many many years ago. Sadly shes passed now, but the lessons learned in her kitchen remain constant in my mind and heart.
Stuffing. We make a kinda that I’ve never seen anywhere else, but that how my mam made it, and her mam etc etc. So very good every other stuffing tasts well ok… i suppose.
What a tuff choice. My maternal grandparents were/are great cooks. I have many from my grandfather and grandmother. I must choose – it would be gran’s cheese and onion scones and followed closely by her caramel slice – both of which she still makes today – and she will be 94 on the 9th. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to win some books to share with her for her birthday.
From my dad’s mum, my Nan, I would have to say her pasta sauce and handmade ravioli.
What a great prize and thanks for the opportunity.
If it was to be an old recipe it would be a pudding recipe. This is made every Christmas and the recipe came down from my great great grandmother. We have many every day favourites though and routinely make Yorkshire favourites especially in winter. it is so difficult as I would be more likely to say the ones i would never ever make!
Thank you for this and I am happy to see your post.
Not a meal but the way my grandmother prepared broad beans – almost in a marinade. They were so yummy and eaten as a snack sitting around her table. The aunts and uncles talking and the children there for the beans.
Yay for you Sandra!!! Our favourite family recipe has to be my Mum’s apple strudel and cheese strudel! She hand makes the paper-thin pastry, stretching it out on her cloth covered bench until you can see through the pastry and then sprinkles the grated apple, cinnamon, sugar and butter all over it, rolls it and then into the oven it goes – oh yum!!! No family event is the same if her strudel isn’t on the table somewhere!
We have a loved recipe for Spanish Weenies. It is basically a sauce of ketsup, mustard, onions, brown sugar and a few other things over hotdogs and baked. Always made with mashed potatoes. My Granny came up with it and passed it to my Grandma, to my Mom then my sisters and me. Mom made it special by serving it by candlelight (first time was because the electricity had gone out after she made it). For some reason we have not found a male, not born into the family that likes it though!!
Mum’s pumpkin scones and pikelets. My mum knows that when my family comes to visit that these 2 things have to be cooked at least once! Love ya mum
Pea and ham soup that my mum would make every Sunday lunch in winter. Now my brothers and I make it for our families:)
My Mum makes a beautiful chocolate zucchini cake, it’s so moist and rich and nobody ever believes how much healthy zucchini they are really eating!
I request it whenever I can because I’ve never been able to make it the same myself.
The wonderful and magical dessert, lemon delicious. Both my Nanna and Mum used to make this, especially in the colder months, best served with ice cream, light and fluffy with a delicious lemon sauce underneath…..I have taught my two older children (now 13 and 16) how to make this, speaking of which, I will have to add it to my menu plan this week as I have ripe lemons, it is cold and I haven’t made it for a very long time!!!
My mom’s coconut cake! It is sooo yummy. I would share the recipe but I have hungry babies right now.
Neither my Grandparents nor my Mum did much by way of cooking (think opening tins and boil in the bag rice) so I’m starting the traditions for my two girls. Their favourite is baked rice pudding – a nutmeg even went into school as a “guess what’s in the mystery bag” item.
My great, great Aunt is originator of my family’s pecan cake. It is thick, sticky, and too delicious for words. Best served with whipped cream or a very light vanilla ice cream because it is exceedingly sweet and needs something to cut through it. Mmmmmmmm….
My mothers meatball recipe that she got from a tupperware woman, it is the best I have always had requests from friends for it
The best kept family meal that has been passed down from generation to generation is scotch broth from the highlands of the east coast of Scotland I can’t give you the recipe Aaron it’s a family secret but safe to say that it’s a winner with my husband who hates soups. Its best served with home made bread straight from the oven.
My grandmother’s apple pie recipe. Sadly not written down or recorded. I am yet to perfect mine to her standard, but I will continue to try!
Nana’s fruit mince pies complete with suet pastry and with the mince being made no later than September to be left in the fridge for several months soaking up the booze and getting a stir every now and again.
Golden Syrup Dumplings
my grandmother makes the best cakes,even now when I’m baking and the scents of the sugar, butter and vanilla being creamed together waft through the kitchen, i think of her( she thinks today’s cakes are far too dense). she taught me that a handful is about 1/2 a cup, you’ll know it’s right when it looks right and if it by chance it doesn’t turn out the way you meant it too, don’t tell anyone and they’ll just think it is supposed to be like that- but but they usually turn out just right! ( even though we never write down recipes and rarely measure)
My grandmother, every year for my birthday, will either make me marinated pork ribs or caramel cups. Every year. I must get the recipes! (actually! I must get more than those, coz she can whip food out of nothing – almost!)
My mums Christmas pudding, a family favorite, she always has to make a few as every one wants to take some home. They are cooked at the start of November & left under the side board in the kitchen & every few weeks they are infused with a little Brandy. Now in Australia I make my mum’s recipe & my bf & family love them too.
My mum’s spinach & feta pie, it’s maybe not a conventional/traditional spanakopita recipe, but I could eat the entire thing each time she makes it.
And my Nan’s coconut crisp biscuits. I have the recipe, but somehow I can never quite get the same crisp-but-chewiness that she could get. Still, it’s fun to make practice batches
OH my Aunty Jill’s burnt butter biscuits,
4oz butter cooked until the butter turns dark caramelly brown
4oz sugar chucked into saucepan
5oz SR Flour
1 egg (make sure mixture is cooling now or egg will pre-cook)
mix together and roll into small teaspoon sized balls, top with one almond (unblanched)
bake until crispy golden.
YUM
Gabriel Gate’s Lemon Delicious pudding. ALWAYS a family favourite, my mum used to be quite competitive with her mother in law who used a Stephanie Alexander Recipe. Gabriel’s will always be my favourite though.
Ahhhh yes. Family Food Wars. I am soooo guilty of this in the past.
I have a recipe that comes from a Swiss g-g-g grandmother called Fleisch Knopfly. Basically it is boiled meatballs served in a white sauce. I do not make it frequently, but it is nice to think how far it has come down the family tree.. My other family recipe is an Apple Crisp from my Mum with alot of rolled oats and brown sugar in the crisp part. I make it all the time in winter.
My family has a special chocolate cake for birthdays. To be more specific, for breakfast on birthdays. It is quite rich and dense but not fudgy. It contains 7 egg whites and no yolks so forms a type of crust on the outside (the best bit really) and isn’t iced in any way. These days Mum makes it with 250g of Lindt dark chocolate as well – so it really is a very expensive cake but so worth it. We serve it with a generous dollop of cream, birthday presents and love.
Almond and Craisin Biscotti. I make this every year for Christmas and my kids and family and friends truly love it, especially my son. I make quite a lot, and everytime he comes over he is in the cupboard looking for it!!!!
My nana’s potato pancakes. You could never pin her down to a definite recipe just a handful of this about that much salt etc.. Now that she is gone I’m trying to find just the right mix.
Lea-Anne
My Dad’s Spaghetti Napoli recipe – always a major weekly event in our house! Lush vegetarian cooking from before being vegetarian was popular. I only recently twigged what the secret ingredient was
Chocolate Caramel slice – a request at every family gathering and the original recipe from my late Nan Mrs Margaret Lewis – a kind and lovely lady- I inherited her slice tin when she passed and I am now known as the maker of the slice. It doesn’t taste the same unless made in Nanna’s tin. Think I might have to go and make some right now yum
I learnt to bake scones, and gem scones and a cake called ‘Belgian Bun’ at my grandmother’s side. It didn’t skip a generation (my mum is a fabulous cook and does the Christmas pudding in our family) but mum nearly had coniptions when she heard me say I was going to whip up a batch of scones for a party recently!
My mother was a passionate cook, she loved good food. Just remembering how tasty her humble baked dinners were make me hungry.
My Mum has never really enjoyed cooking however she used to make a fantastic cheese fondue which is something I now love to make for my family especially in this cold weather. It’s not very healthy but it’s real comfort food – hot garlicky cheese with a hint of wine and crispy warm bread yum….
My Gran’s “Melk tert” recipe – its a traditional South African recipe for a custard tart, delicious!
My Ouma’s ‘melk tert’ recipe – its a traditional South African custard tart – delicious!
Rice balls…the most best Sicilian comfort food.
Corn Pudding! Love, love love it. You can have it as a side or dessert.
Key Lime Pie
Bruschetta Chicken
{Sun-dried tomato vinaigrette dressing, can of seasoned tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and parsley, mixed together and piled high on boneless skinless chicken breasts that have been marinated in the dressing. Baked in the oven at 350′ for about 20mins, flipped and topped halfway through cooking.} Definitely an easy favorite at my household get- togethers.
Mine would have to be Sunday Pot Roast. It came from my husbands step-grandmother. My mother worked full time when I grew up and I really don’t have that many memories of her cooking, except when she would serve sweetened rice for breakfast. I still like it to this day, but I mostly eat brown rice now.
Homeade sausage gravy over made from scratch biscuits.
My treasured family meal is stuffed marrow. The meat stuffing was created by my great, great grandmother in Sri Lanka and this has passed down the line on my mother’s side. Also, my great, great grandmother’s Sri Lankan Christmas cake which includes 25 eggs and no flour – delicious!