My recipe collection and my cookbooks are a history of life in the 20th and 21st century. From handwritten recipe cards to internet printed recipes, things certainly have changed in the culinary world. In fact, I think that my daughters don't have recipe books at all -- they save everything on their computers.
Now, while that is probably most efficient, very searchable, and with little possibility of being splotched or torn -- it's just not the same.
I have the hand written recipe cards from my mom, and one from my aunt. I don't have any recipe cards from my grandma because I don't think that she wrote much down. My grandma had only a 6th grade education, and writing and reading never came easily to her.
But boy was she a good cook! I remember her peanut bars, the roast pheasant (remember my family is from South Dakota!) the fried catfish, the kolaches, and the jars and jars of canned tomatoes, pickles, and watermelon, to name a few. It makes me smile to think of it.
Making food for our families is a mother's love language. And though my cooking, and my recipe keeping may have changed over the years ... that's one thing that never will.
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