Friday, October 9, 2015

Time machines!!!



Proverbs 31:25-28   Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

There is a chill in the air, Autumn is closing in all around us here in Kentucky. Which always give me a cozy feeling inside, a feeling of wanting to snuggle in at home. With detail house cleaning, knitting and lots of baking and comfort foods!! Which gives me a yearning to read my antique cookbooks. Looking for a new recipes to try. I think of my antique cookbooks as time machines, because they take me back in time when I read them. When ever I open one, and begin to read it. I think about the woman who owned it 150 years earlier. About how she cared and nurtured her family with it.  Maybe what her kitchen might have look liked, and exactly how did the food she made from that book taste. It is a time machine in my hand. I love getting a glimpse into the past. Time traveling while sitting in my comfy chair at home. Women from the past encourage me. To be a better wife and Keeper at Home.  They took seriously their roll as a Mother, wife and Keeper of the Home!! Cookbooks usually were more than just recipes. They were full of chapters on nursing your family when sick, tip on cleaning your home, doing your laundry, to making homemade paint. I keep them in a wooden box. I'd like to share them with you all. So we can all travel together. As we go though the books I will have to help you interpret them. You see, cooking and baking back then was different then now. They used different measurements then we do. They used quarts, pints, gills, jills,wine glasses, tea cups, coffee cups, They cooked over the fire, in dutch ovens, and or on a wood burning stove, so temperatures and cooking times will be different. and the ingredients were sometimes different also, like they made their own yeast for bread making.  plus several other things I will explain later if they come up. The recipes were even written differently than today. They wrote them in paragraph form, without the list of ingredients. So all and all it is like another world than ours. Like I said time travel in my own home.

My Wooden box. Where I keep most of my Antique cookbooks


I found this written in one of my cookbooks, I found it very interesting how important the mother-homemaker was to the home!!
To attend to the nursing, and at least, early instruction of children, and rear a healthy progeny in the ways of piety and usefulness: – to preside over the family, and regulate the income allotted to its maintenance: to make home the sweet refuge of a husband fatigued by intercourse with a jarring world: to be his enlightened companion and the chosen friend of his heart; these, these are woman’s duties! (Rundell 7).


Here are just a few of the books I own. My cookbooks range from 1845-1950's.

Here is a few more of my collection. The Improved Housewife is my oldest cookbooks I own 1844.


I love love this picture! It show just what a early to mid 19th century kitchen would look like. This is a look back in time. If you look close you would see a lot of things they use from day to day. There is a chair by the fire, which they would have sat in to maybe turn the chicken that will be inside that reflector oven in front of the fireplace, or maybe use the hand held bellows to start a fire, that are hanging on the wall next to the fireplace. There is a iron crane swung over a fire in the fireplace, with 3 different size S hooks and a large cast iron pot hanging on it, maybe cooking a hearty stew. On the  mantelpiece there is a clock for them to watch the time when cooking something, also on the mantel is a box probably full of loose leaf tea, a candle stick, several assorted bowls, and a measuring cup. I also see different kinds of meat, fish, and animals hanging on the walls waiting for use. The woman on the left is preparing a chicken to be put in the reflector oven. You can see the long iron pole that she will put the chicken on to roast it in the reflector oven. It is  leaning up against the chopping table next to her. The other woman is making pie dough to cover the fruit filled pie pan that is in just front of her. Then under her table are two large footed kettles, and a wooden bucket. And last but not least the large basket over flowing of fruits and vegetables in the middle of the room. I found this very interesting picture inside one of my cookbooks, it's called New England Economical Housekeeper and Family receipt book, by E.A. Howland. It was written in 1847.


This is Miss Eliza Leslie, She is my MOST favorite Cookbook author!! She writes in such a way that it is like she is right there teaching you, very detailed instructions. 

Since Eliza Leslie is my favorite author, her's will be the first book I share with you all. The only book I own of her's is Miss Leslie's New  Receipts For Cooking.



Here is the weights and measures that Miss Leslie uses in her cookbooks.
Just to make sure you all know, I will clarify a few of these measurements.

Liquids
4 quarts=1 gallon 
1 quart=4 cups
1 pint=2 cups
1 large coffee cup= 1 cup
1 jill or gill=half a cup
 1 wine glass=1/4 cup

Dry 
1 pound of sugar=2 cups
1 pound of flour=4 cups

Hope this helps!





Here are a couple receipts for you to look over, I will decipher them for you all so you can make them if you want to. I call them receipts instead of recipes because that is what recipes were call up to the early 20th century.
 This is the first page of  Beef Steak Pot Pie. 

Second page of Beef Steak Pot Pie.

Beef Steak Pot Pie
2 pounds of tender beef steak cut up in small pieces.
Salt and pepper to taste
5 Tablespoons cut up and rolled in flour.
1 dozen small or 8 large potatoes cut up in med size pieces
mushrooms cut up if desired 
I think corn or peas add to this would taste rather good also.

Pie Dough(paste)
3 cups lard little more if needed 
12 cups flour
salt to taste
little water
2 cups of warm water

Season cut up meat with salt and pepper. and put in a pot with the butter rolled in flour, with just enough water to cover the meat. Let them simmer slowly for 1 hour. While the meat simmers, cook the potatoes in another pot until done. Now to make the dough. Rub the suit and the flour in a bowl completely. Then add salt and enough water to form a lump of dough. Divide the dough in half. Roll out on lump thicker than the other. Line the sides of a iron pot 1/2 to 2/3rd up with the thin dough. In the bottom of pot put some gravy that was made in the meat pan while it was cooking. Then some meat, then some of the thicker dough cut up in long squares strips,then some potatoes, then repeat until all is in the pot. Then just before putting last layer of dough on top, all the last of the gravy, and 2 cups of warm water. Then cover the top with one large piece of dough. Making sure that the top is not sealed around the edges. Then put on the stove on med heat and cook for 1  1/2 hours.


Pumpkin Indian Pudding
3 cups of cold baked and mushed pumpkin
3 cups of corn meal
1 1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger
4 cups milk
1 2/3 cups dark molasses

Mix the pumpkin and the corn meal together in a large bowl. Then  Add the ginger to the pumpkin mixture. Now in a large pan bring the milk to a boil. Then take from the heat and add the molasses to it. Then gradually add it to the pumpkin mixture. Then beat it hard and well. Have ready on the stove  a really large kettle of water already hot and boiling. Dip a large square cotton cloth ( pillow case will do fine) in the hot water. Then ring out and lay out on a table and cover it with flour. Not to much not to little. Pour the mixture in to it. Then gather it all up. Leaving a fist full of room between the batter and were you are going to tie it. This will help it when it swells. Then tie it and but it in the boiling water. Making sure you have a plait in the bottom of the kettle to make sure the pudding won't burn if it goes to the bottom of the pot. This is very important!! Let it boil for 3-4 hours turning it every 1/2 hour. Then when done gentle turn it out on to a plate and eat it with molasses sauce.

I hope you decide to give these recipes a try !!!

 This is a list of  Miss Leslie's cookbooks. 

Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes and Sweetmeats (1828) 
Domestic French Cookery (1832)
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (1837)
The Indian Meal Book (1847)
The Lady's Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families (1847) 
Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt-Book (1850)
Miss Leslie's Directions for Cookery (1851)
More Receipts (1852)
Miss Leslie's New Receipts for Cooking (1854)
Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book (1857)


Here is a link to all her books so you can read them for yourself for free!! 

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Leslie%2C%20Eliza%2C%201787-1858


Well Ladies This post has been longer than I was planning, Hope you were blessed by it!! God bless

Kelly


Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth




you can find this post linked up at these blogs, come by and join the fun  http://www.maleviksrosentradgard.blogspot.se/2015/10/saturday-show-off.html         http://ohmyheartsiegirl.com/friday-features-linky-party-28/
http://thecharmofhome.blogspot.com/2015/10/home-sweet-home-241.ht
http://www.themodestmomblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/blog_button2.jpg
http://www.themodestmomblog.com/2015/10/modest-monday-and-a-link-up-123/
http://bornagainfarmgirl.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/simple-saturdays-blog-hop-october-10.html
http://strangersandpilgrimsonearth.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-art-of-home-making-mondays-please_12.html
http://momstheword--livingforhim.blogspot.com/2015/10/making-your-home-sing-monday-linky-party.html
http://mstoodygooshoes.blogspot.com/2015/10/best-of-weekend-101615.html
http://aspiritofsimplicity.blogspot.com/2015/10/summer-church-in-rye-n.html

39 comments:

  1. Lovely! I still have my Grandmother's Mrs Beeton cookbook which is beautifully written . My daughter was intrigued by my own recipe book begun in 1960 and falling apart now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you liked the post. You should try to make something from your Grandmother's Mr Beeton's cookbook. I have one a Mrs Beeton's also. God bless
      Kelly

      Delete
  2. Hello Miss Kelly,
    Thank you for visiting me at Harvest Lane Cottage. You have a wonderful collection!
    Thanks so much for sharing it with us.
    Have a wonderful autumny evening!
    Laura of Harvest Lane Cottage

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are welcome, I enjoyed my visit. I plan on sharing more of my antique cookbooks later. God bless
      Kelly

      Delete
  3. i don't do recipes, but glad you enjoy them and the antique books. love the illustrations and the wooden box!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So glad you stopped by! I love old Victorian illustrations also as you can tell. And the wooden box is from a time my life when I used to do 18th century reenacting. It's a little trinket from that time. and it's very good for protecting my books.

      Kelly

      Delete
  4. I love these old recipe books. They are so interesting and full of history from the spelling to the methods of cooking. Beautiful blog! Thanks for visiting. Have a blessed Sunday.
    Pam

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for coming by! So glad you enjoyed the post! God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  5. Lovely blog! i just love it! have a blessed sunday♥️

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much!! I did have a blessed Sunday!! The Lords day is always a day of wonderful fellowship!!

      Kelly

      Delete
  6. your antique books are a treasure, i really like how you described them and illustrated them. it was fun to get a peek inside. i enjoy cooking, baking and crafting and i am inspired by pinterest, the more modern way of finding great recipes.i am also a committed knitter. i learned to knit on a farm about a year ago and i am completely hooked.

    keep those books safe in that beautiful box, they are really a treasure!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so glad you stopped by, and that you enjoyed my post! You should come back again, because I plan on posting a lot more receipts in the near future!! I love my wooden box too!! I use to keep my antique cookbooks on a shelf in my kitchen, but we had to move this year and it seems to protect them so well I haven't taken them out of it yet. That's funny, I love to knit also!! And I also just learned last year!! Well God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  7. Hello Kelly,

    Thank you so much for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment.
    I have enjoyed my time reading your most recent posts. I too enjoy antique books and the history of women in America. Although not an antique book, "Pioneer Women The Lives of Women on the Frontier" by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith was given to me as a gift a couple years prior to our move to the Montana prairie. When we moved to this barren, vast and open land, it really brought the historical accounts shared in the book to life. Along with other books, I continue to enjoy re-reading it during our long winters.

    I look forward to my next visit.

    Blessings,
    Mrs.B

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Mrs B, You are welcome, I love stopping by your blog, So glad you came by here for a visit!! Those books you mentioned sound very good!! I will have to look into adding them to my library. Please stop by soon! God bless
      Kelly

      Delete
  8. I enjoy old cooking books also...they are fun to browse through :o) mari

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by Mari, and I agree with you, It's very enjoyable to read cookbooks. God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  9. Thank you for sharing your love of cookbooks Kelly. I love how they wrote back then. That Pumpkin Indian Pudding sounds tasty!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So glad you stopped by Jane. I haven't heard from you lately. Glad you enjoyed your visit! I will be posting more old recipes in the near future so please stop by again soon!! God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  10. Kelly, your old cookbooks are just wonderful. I enjoyed your description of the first print very much. I can see you pay attention to detail! The wooden box you keep your cookbooks in is perfect for them. I enjoyed my visit very much. You have a lovely blog. ♥

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh thank you for your kind words. I agree the wooden box is perfect for them, Every time I oven it, it feels like I'm opening up a treasure chest!! haha. So glad you enjoyed your visit! Please come by again soon!! God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  11. Thankyou for sharing your precious antique cook books with us. I'm from Australia and have a few cook books given to me by my grandmother ranging from WW2 to the 60's. Like you I also enjoyed reading the recipes and looking at the illustrations. I found the ration cook books very interesting where they were forced make substitutions for many ingredients. In another book aimed towards homestead cooking they describe how to use all parts of an animal including the head. When looking at the advertisements in one book I was intrigued to see the first models of common day kitchen appliances touted as the forefront of technology, including a model of a wood fire box that was in the house I was living in at the time. Looking forward to seeing more books in the future.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are so welcome, I love sharing the things I love with others. Your grandmothers books sound very interesting!! Thank you for telling me about them! Yes please come by again soon. I plan on sharing a lot more recipes soon. I'm so glad you came by for a visit!! God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  12. Love this!!!! Looking forward to more time travel! :) Where do you find your cookbooks? And love the idea of how you store them!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I's so GLAD you enjoyed you visit!! I bought most of my cookbooks from ebay, believe it or not!! I have payed anywhere from as low as $5 - $165 for any one book. I'm so glad you like my wooden box, I bought it a 18th century reenactment were there was lot of 18th century venders. It was a great find! Please come back soon!! God bless
      Kelly

      Delete
  13. These are some really cool old cookbooks.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hello, Dear Kelly - I enjoyed this post and the beautiful illustrations and recipes. I often think of all the women who came before us and what their lives were like, especially as wives and mothers. I love reading books about pioneer women, especially, and are always amazed at their resourcefulness and ingenuity in keeping a home and family during such difficult times. I have a few old cookbooks, but none as beautiful and old as yours - what treasures! I love the beautiful chest that you keep them in. The recipes you shared sound delicious. I make chicken pot pie often, but have never made a beef pie, although I don't know why. This recipe could easily be adapted to modern ingredients. The Indian Pudding is an old New England favorite where I grew up, but I have never tried it. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to seeing more! xo Blessings - Karen

    ReplyDelete
  15. Wow! thanks so much for taking the time to share so extensively from your lovely cookbook collection! My mom has several old cookbooks, but none as old as yours. They were her mom's, and so she holds tightly to them as one would expect. So glad you are enjoying yours and appreciate that you use them!

    ReplyDelete
  16. What a neat post! I love vintage books and would love to dig through your supply with you! Thank you for taking us back in time today on the Art of Home-Making Mondays! :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love vintage cookbooks and you have shared some wonderful resources here. I really like the Pumpkin Indian Pudding recipe. I would like to try that. Thanks for joining Home Sweet Home! I will feature this tomorrow at the Home Sweet Home party! I just went and viewed the recipes and she is amazing. I know what you mean about the detail in the recipes. I was so impressed in the Cake and pastry cookbook she even had French Macaroons! Wow!
    Sherry

    ReplyDelete
  18. Very neat to see your old cookbooks especially the illustrations...and what a quote about womanhood; people really had a different worldview back then. My grandma gave me a couple of my great great grandmother's cookbooks. I'm not sure of the date for the one, but one is from 1927 and has such beautiful color illustrations. It's neat how back then even some cookbooks were works of art.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I love old books! Your cookbook collection looks so neat! It makes me want to go buy some vintage books too! :) Such a neat wooden chest to keep your books in!

    I've greatly enjoyed browsing through posts here, you have a lovely blog! :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. I love the images and recipes in vintage cookbooks! Wow, can't believe you have one that is that old. Some fun and interesting measurements that I had never heard of. Thanks for sharing with SYC. I'm sure it's not intentional, but I'm not seeing a link back to the party.
    hugs,
    Jann

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so glad you enjoyed the post!! So sorry about not linking!! I fixed that now though!!! God bless

      Kelly

      Delete
  21. Helo I will be a new follower i love old vintage and your cook books are very nice. Im tempted to try the recipes but a bit nerves lol. The pudding sounds a bit different. I love all the measurements thank you for sharing them with love Janice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Janice I'm so glad you came by for a visit!! Now that you are a follower I hope you will be back for many more visits! You should give the recipe a try!! Please tell me if you liked it!!

      God bless
      Kelly

      Delete
  22. Good morning! Just a note to let you know that we have FEATURED this post today on the Art of Home-Making Mondays. Thank you for sharing with us :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. your collection is quite impressive. I think I used to have a version of The American Woman's Cookbook from the late 1930s. I lost 4 antique cookbooks when I moved but none of mine were as old as yours.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I also like old cookbooks. It seems that we like many same things.

    ReplyDelete