Cookbooks That Renew Traditions
Most of the foodie mamas I know would gasp at the report that someone who digs food is so not into cookbooks – that would be me.
I appreciate the occassional recipe and am a big fan of getting things just right in the kitchen. But, cookbooks are – to me – a bit of a downer.
My food never looks like the photos and I laugh at anything that take more skills than cutting and stirring.
My mother says it’s because I’m a “Traditional” sort of cook – I love to eat food of all kinds, but at home I am all about the comfort, the flavor and the relax that is invoked in the presence of a dinner table filled with warm soups, fresh veggies, baked meats, sausage, potatoes and more.
So, when a friend asked me recently what my favourite cookbooks are, I only had two – and both of them are filled with old-skool yumminess that makes me feel like I have loved my family with food.
When I was first handed Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions by our holistic pediatrician in California I thought she was insane.
Coping with major post partum and the serious overwhelm of new motherhood, I ran through the table of contents – fermenting vegetables and fruits, making soup stocks, creating cultured dairy products, sprouting grains – and immediately asked our lovely doctor (she really was amazing) if she was on crack.
No matter what the health benefits of recreating these wonderful culinary traditions in my own kitchen, I felt completely inept in the kitchen and was not going to add food failure to the list of things that were piling up on me at that point.
She understood, a bit, yet insisted I take it home.
Life evened out (a little) and eventually, the cookbook came off the shelf – again and again – and I started to use it, regularly.
This amazing old-skool Bible takes food right back to the basics of what used to be done before condiments came in a jar and soup in a can. The theory is that kids need fats – good, healthy fats – for their brains and bodies to work well.
In the end, all people need good fats, natural enzymes and food that doesn’t spend time in a factory.
Fallon gives you the goods with this one – recipes, tips, tools, ideas, facts – a slow foodie’s dream – and it’s focused on family nutrition, which makes it a perfect addition to your daily routine. Note as well that it has some great details about food allergies (a big issue in our house) that we have taken to heart and found effective in combating the effects of overly processed wheat and dairy that wreak havoc in our home.
Am I regularly making stocks, yoghurts and canning…hah. Sadly, no.
But, I do rely on this gem of a cookbook as my love of slow food continues to evolve and I now realize that our doctor in California was simply reminding me that I needed to slow down too, look at what was happening in the kitchen and how I see food every day, and try a different route.
Funny how things end up in your lap at one point and become priceless at another.
The only other cookbook in my life is one that I found BK (before kids, actually, before Ken too) and packed with me through move after move, kitchen after kitchen.
A huge fan of food with a story – especially a story filled with magic and history – I fell in love with Joanne Asala’s Celtic Folklore Cooking 12 years ago and still think I see fairies dancing around the kitchen when I whip up a recipe from its pages.
Seeing that our crew hails from Scotland and Eastern Europe, this book filled with recipes like Shepherd’s Pie, Garlic Pork with Chestnuts, Faerie Cakes and Scotch Eggs makes everyone smile when spotted on the counter. Ah, the food we grew up with.
Complete comfort food, made in the company of fantastical stories of ancient traditions – it’s so much fun.
You won’t be catching me make the Soused Herring (although Ken would love it). But, holy wow is this cookbook ever a joy and you’ll find that many of the foods that are local and plentiful on B.C.’s West Coast make up the yummy dishes Asala details.
So, if you are looking to get back to food that renews warm family traditions, these two cookbooks are a yummy and inviting way to start.
I wish I had one of these cookbooks to give away, but I do have a local one all about cooking with fresh, seasonal ingredients from Vivian Cruise (of Beyond The Kitchen Door class instructor fame) for one random commenter.
The question is what are some of the old skool foods or techniques that make it into your kitchen from time to time?
Carol won yesterday’s giveaway.
Category: CREATE & LEARN, Rainy Day Book Club
About the Author (Author Profile)
Robin is Our Big Earth’s Executive Editor. A journalist with more than 20 years under her belt, she’s worked for newspapers and magazines across North America. Vancouver Island became her home in 2006 when she and her husband ditched big-city life to raise their daughters close to familySubscribe
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I have and still refer to my parents’ Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook – binder edition. I don’t know how old it is because the spine is covered with duct tape but they used it from as far back as I can recall.
This book brings back so many memories of my parents and growing up on the farm. As I flip through the pages there are small slips of papers in my mom’s handwriting of recipes, such as Green Tomato Relish from Nellie, or Chili sauce from Shirley, both neighbours.
I just have to lay it open and it falls to my favourite recipe Sweet and Sour Pork. It’s so easy to find all our favourite recipes because the pages are stained and torned. It’s a lovely and cherished keepsake of my childhood.
An old Cookbook favorite of ours (Canadian, too) is ‘Food that really schmecks, Mennonite Country Cooking’ by Edna Staebler.
I always pull out ‘The Joy of Cooking’ if I am stuck on how to roast something.
A new favorite of our is ‘Lucy’s Kitchen’ by Lucy Waverman.
‘Silver spoon’ is our bible for Italian cooking.
But to answer Robin’s question, my most used technique is bechemel sauce and I can can stuff, in a pinch.
Love the sharing of favourite cookbooks…
The old Better Homes & Gardens cookbook is also one my mom passed along to me when I moved out of the house and one I return to again and again. We also have a special family cookbook created for a family reunion 15 years ago with all of my mom’s side of the family’s favourite recipes–a real treasure!! My Grandma’s borscht and my great aunt’s sweet and sour meatballs are faves!
Recent favourites, include the cookbook series by Canadian sisters, Janet & Greta Podleski, “Loony Spoons”, “Crazy Plates”, and “Eat, Shrink, & Be Merry” are filled with delicious, nutricious, back-to-basics recipes inspired by their own childhoods. A bonus is that the recipe books are full of funny cartoons, spoofs, tips, and information! I am constantly copying out recipes from these books to give to friends and families after making dishes from them.
As for Robin’s question, one of our favourite ‘old skool’ foods is meatloaf!! Quick, easy, and comforting!! Mmmmmmmmmm…. Bonus is that it’s one of the dishes my hubby can make. We make a modified version of his mom’s modified version of her mom’s recipe!
A funny meal I grew up with was called Eggs in a Hole. Take sliced bread make a hole by using a small cup, crack the egg into the hole and fry like french toast, you must toast the circle from the bread, its made for dipping in your egg. This makes my little girl giggle at the name and is something we will serve for an easy supper night.
I have also tried to make my Grandma’s Potato Pancakes, but they jsut aren’t the same!
Sherry – Aussies do that egg thing too, only we do it on a metal-plate BBQ!
Anglo-Celtic comfort food here – but particularly Shepherd’s Pie and Pot Roast. Not many summer traditional dishes though I would love it if my kids liked cream (they don’t) because I sure do miss my mother’s trifle.
Schmecking food is a favourite with us – Go Team Edna!
My other favourite, long lost, was my mother’s copy of the Presbyterian Ladies Cookbook – 1908 edition. Everything, and I mean everything, was explained. Every obscure measurement, every description. And there was no mention of ‘new fangled mechanics’ – not even the fridge. But – butter and sugar content aside – the recipes were without doubt both easy and scrumptious! Haven’t made a good scone since losing that book – never taste the same.
Meanwhile – I’m off to find Robin’s Celtic Folklore Cooking. Three of the four members of our family have Danish heritage but there is only so much pickling (herrings, etc.) one family can endure. We’ll save it for traditional Boxing Day fare.
Now I’m hungry – time to head to DeeKayTee Ranch, methinks. Better wake the kids!
Thanks for sharing your cookbook faves!!!
I just borrowed an old cookbook/ health manual from a friend called ‘We Love Your Body’. It’s great. Lots of easy and healthy recipes with kids in mind. Kind of surprising how forward thinking the authors (both moms of course) were, for being written in the 1980. I guess the challenge of getting healthy food into our kids never changes.
Before I moved out, my mom handed me a stack of cookbooks that she had been collecting for me over the years. Among them was the ‘Five Roses’ and several ‘Company’s Coming’ cookbooks. Current faves include Moosewood, and Rebar.
I often make my Nan’s chili recipe in the crockpot, or once in a while, homemade mac n’ cheese. Also, my great gramma’s cabbage rolls are always a hit (especially with my hubby). The recipes that I cherish the most in my recipe box are the desserts that my Nan always had in the freezer when we came to visit. She made seed cake, eagle brand square and Dad’s cookies. The best!!!
I can say for sure that I am a cookbook girl! All available shelving and a good portion of our counters are filled with cookbooks and recipe boxes and binders. My favourite old-skool meal by far is stew, it was one of the first things I learned to cook and is still a favourite today. I had to watch my nan cook it, as apparently there is no recipe for good “scouse” it all depends on what you’ve got handy.
Another favourite is wiener schnitzle, spaetzle and blaukraut which my oma taught me because, again, “there is no recipe.”
My favourite old skool recipe is something from my mom. They are called apple tarts. They have the most amazing pastry – it is not pie pastry – it is softer. They are filled with homemade apple sauce and then topped with this pastry. They are like mini pies (they are baked in muffin tins). Baked to perfection, served warm and add a dollop of ice-cream or whip cream depending on the mood. They are truly heavenly. They come from a recipe book that was my grandmothers – I have no idea what the cook book is called as the cover is missing, pages are missing, there are grease stains from the butter, splashes of this and that – a lot of history in the cook book.
One of the nicest things my mom did for my sister and I was to create a cook book of all these ‘old skool” recipes we grew up on. She not only typed them all up and put them in a binder, she included great little stories with each recipe. Some include where the recipes came from, great stories of feasts we had as a family and my fav, the rib recipe that stole my dad’s heart. It honestly was the best Christmas present I ever received from my mom.
Mmmm, I’m loving this post! Thanks everyone for sharing you fave cookbooks. I love books, I especially love cookbooks, yet the kitchen and I barely get along. I love imagining all of the lovely things I could make though. I love the Moosewood books and keep telling myself I really need the Rebar cookbook – yum! My favourite recipes though are all of the ones on little scraps of paper that I keep meaning to transfer into something a little more permanent – my mom’s tomato soup, my dad’s peanut sauce, my sister’s nanaimo bars…..
My family is Dutch and there are a couple of dishes that were my favourites as a kid that I will make now and again. First are pannekoeken – dutch pancakes – the size of a dinner plate and filled with apples and cinnamon, rolled up and sprinkled liberally with icing sugar – yum! I haven’t attempted these gluten free yet. Holiday dinners are not complete without my mom’s “stoofperen” (stewed pears) – cooked in wine and berry sauce, they are served as a vegetable dish. My best memories are of the Indonesian rice tables my parents used to make – so delicious and I have yet to master the nasi goreng or saté with peanut sauce. Ok, I’m officially hungry now.
Robin,
All these yummy recipes….. is there a OBE cookbook in the future…….
I read a book last year that changed my life… it’s called “Living More with Less”.
Much of the book talked about food… food and family time, food and budget, food and health, food and home, food and gardening… etc. Something that involved ALL of these connections is this:
put simple food on the table such as:
- loaf of whole wheat bread (home-made if you can)
- toppers such as cheese, spreads etc.
- cut up raw veggies
- cut up raw fruit
Everything about this idea is perfect. We eat healthy, it’s budget friendly, it’s time friendly. We “share” from a loaded cutting board in the middle of the table. and…Everyone is full.
(There is also a cookbook by the same author called “More with Less Cookbook”. Many readers have probably heard of these books as they are super popular…and traditional)
_
Cheers to Homemade perogies!!! The rule growing up in my mom’s house was “no pinchy…no eaty!” And the rule holds at my house now as well. What a great way to spend the afternoon, good friends, hungry kids, the lovely smell of dough and sitting around the table pinching and chatting. Ahh….
Homemade rice pudding baked in the oven for four hours on really low heat…stirred every so often to keep the raisins from settling…served with homemade strawberry jam!!
Using lots and lots of butter is our tradition. it makes things so much tastier. ; ) Also, homemade mixed fruit jam….mmm