Saturday, August 28, 2010

Vintage show-and-tell

Southern Lady's Vintage has proposed a regular Saturday blog tour of fun vintage finds, and the first round is to consist of cookbooks - one of my personal vintage weaknesses.  So without further ado, here's my contribution:
This particular gem is from 1951 (though it's the 21st printing - versions were evidently out there from the late 1930s), and i got it at a bag sale when one of my pet thrift shops was getting ready to move.  (Along with some 1910s and 1920s handsewn garments, and a swell '60s birdcage hat... don't hate me.)

It's got a few recipes that look promising, like this cheddar and ale bisque:

 
And also some that look, well, like nothing i'd ever voluntarily eat, like the Tomato Aspic Buffet Mold below:
But the best part about this cookbook is the table of measures and equivalents, because there it has really useful translations, ones that help decipher recipes in older cookbooks, like that 1914 one i've posted from.  It tells you, for instance, that a "wine glass" when used as a measure, should equal 4 ounces, or half a cup.  It gives you temperatures that correspond to terms like "moderately slow oven" - and THAT is really handy.

4 comments:

Antiques Galore Gal said...

I love vintage cookbooks as well!

Southern Lady's Vintage said...

LOL! Don't know that I could eat that tomatoe bisky thingy either! LOL! Great post!! Thank you so much for joining in on Vintage Love Saturday!! I look forward to next week and hope you will join in again!

Unknown said...

You have a good little book there. I know what you mean...tomato veggie jello....I think its like a solid cream of tomato soup more or less. It was cheap to make in the 30's during the depression and fancy looking from a mold.
8} I still wouldn't taste tho....
picky picky eater....lol...even at my age.

Fripperie said...

Have to admit, i'm not much for Jell-O even when it's in flavors i expect, so tomato is an extra reach for me... i'll stick with the bisque, and maybe try to guess which of the lemon pie recipes is responsible for all the spatters on the pages and the crease in the spine where it falls open to recipe #513 through #517...