ancestral cookbooks

[sarasuperid]

I have been cooking recipes out of the cookbook of a spiritual ancestor, vs a genetic ancestor. I am finding using her recipes is connecting me to her. In one of the stories associated with her recipes the author mentions her husband saying she was a very good cook. My husband is not the type to compliment but after eating one of the meals I prepared with one of her dishes in it, my husband praised my cooking in a similar manner. I have noticed other more personal things, but I took it as a good omen.

 

Does anyone else cook old recipes as a part of their connection with ancestors? How does it feel, any special experiences doing so?

[Aloe]

I do! Mine are from blood ancestors though, not spiritual. I love using them, especially since so many of the recipes I have in these are uncommon these days, and the measurements are wonderfully approximate. Getting the ingredients in the same manner as they did (butchering, wildcrafting, home canning, etc.) also connects me to them and sometimes I receive messages from them in regards to the processes. The books are hand written.

 

Excellent topic Sara

[sarasuperid]

I do! Mine are from blood ancestors though, not spiritual. I love using them, especially since so many of the recipes I have in these are uncommon these days, and the measurements are wonderfully approximate. Getting the ingredients in the same manner as they did (butchering, wildcrafting, home canning, etc.) also connects me to them and sometimes I receive messages from them in regards to the processes.

 

Excellent topic Sara

 

That is so excellent, the recipe I had yesterday called for herbs that I had in my garden, but not in my cupboard, so I harvested them that way. Luckily it didn't call for much because my garden is still budding. And the chicken I baked was raised in my friends backyard and she butchered in her kitchen. (I had to pull the skin off myself, boy is that a f*&%r, but very moisturizing). It really helps me associate with my ancestors to live more closely to how they did.

 

 

I have a recipe book of traditional Irish recipes. It was a bit of a revelation to learn how sour cream is made (leave cream out on the stove to curdle) in comparision to how sanitized our lives our now.

[Belwenda]

I Can always feel my Grandmothers standing over my shoulder when I use their recipes. The witchier one hand wrote one cookbook for me-its so tattered now I should scan it

Anyway it is a strong connection and a wonderful heirloom

[Evergreen47]

I totally see what you're talking about, Sara. I've felt that connection (mostly to my grandpa, he's so wonderfully around) when using family recipes, but I've never thought to do it with spiritual ancestors. But if you think about how much of a peoples' culture can be reflected in their food, it makes perfect sense. I'm a bit of a foodie, so I will focus on one cultural cuisine at a time to get the full experience. Perhaps, that would be a good time to explore the spirituality and magic of that culture. It may be a very interesting way to connect with those particular powers that be....

 

I love that you brought this up.

[CelticGypsy]

Oh yes I do. I have to totally agree with all my Peers thus far when using recipes from the floured hands of my people. Knowing that back in that older century, just to purchase a cook book, was great value to the females of my line, and how they tweeked a recipe for their experimenting pleasure, or they just didn't have access to that particular ingredient in their pantry, and chose to substitute. Still have a delicious outcome.

 

Sounds like a bit of Witchery.......... now don't it ?! :happy:

 

 

 

Regards,

Gypsy

[Abhainn]

This thread inspired me to make something that my grandmother used to make for me every year for my birthday since I moved to Texas: Chicken and Noodles. Homemade noodles, lots of chicken, and good kinda thick broth. No veggies, just good comfort food. So my house smells kind of like my gramma's kitchen. She showed me how to make this dish when I was in high school/college, and I remember little visual details...like her noodles. Still can't get them right.

[Vermillion]

Abhainn, this reminds me of a French Canadian dish that my grandmother makes for us. It goes something like this: cook a chicken. make stock from chicken carcass. reserve fat. mix fat with flour and salt. roll out dough and cut or pull apart. boil in stock and add chicken. simmer for... until "done". Something like that?

 

I love to cook, and I was lucky enough to get the copy of The Joy of Cooking from my father's mother or grandmother (my sister and I each got one, dad still refuses to tell us which is which), and luckily there are several newspaper-clipped recipes tucked into it with handwritten notes! Thanks for the reminder to try them out. :cauldron04:

 

And yes, CG, I find cooking to be a direct link to my inspiration sometimes. When I can't figure out how to work with a situation, I just start pulling out ingredients and bang around pots and pans. Either by the end of it I've thought it out, know what to do and have a tasty meal, or, I've figured out what to do and it's done through the cooking, or both!!

[BookySoul]

I adore cooking traditional dishes from my own blood ancestors and from those cultures in general. I collect old cookbooks and recipes as well. Lately, I have been working with some to make them healthier, but I treasure knowing the old ways. We garden, can, freeze, and fish. If I had suitable property, I'd raise some chickens and such as well. I usually only cook Italian, Irish, English, French, Swedish, Scottish, and German dishes to draw from the origins of each family member's ancestors. Although, I do enjoy the odd Chinese, Thai, and Mexican meal.

[Whiterose]

I don't have an ancestral cookbook but I collect different recipies from my living relatives. My favorite ones I remember by watching my mom make them. Every so often I will visit with someone and go home with a recipe card. I have a fancy little notebook where I copy all these down, I do keep the cards, as I want to keep their handwriting as well.

 

Another cool thing is randomly at work, people will give me recipies. They are always Indian (from India). In New York, there was a mother and her daughter I used to chat with at work and after a few visits she decided to pass on some cooking tips and dishes. Down here, another lady did the same after I helped her find a computer. All three acted like they were imparting forbidden knowlege. I don't know how the culture is for Indian women and cooking, but it made me feel honored that they trusted me enough with their "cooking secrets". I consider these of value to put in my little recipe book as well.

 

What about any of you? Do random strangers give you recipies?

[atewsley]

One of my grandmas as well as my husband's grandmother never wrote anything down. If you wanted to learn to make it, you showed up to learn! Lol

 

I have an extensive cookbook collection and at least 80% are handed down from relatives. They go back several generations. I love and cherish them and protect them. One could get, um, damaged trying to borrow one not to mention what would happen if someone tried to steal one! Seriously, you wouldn't believe how many people will try to put the arm on a good cookbook! :nono:

 

I lose myself in my cooking as a rule, but never more than when I'm sharing one of their recipes. It's very intense but calming at the same time. Does that even make sense? Lol I feel like I'm concentrating at the work at hand but always come away with some insight or answers.

 

I keep most of them put away, at least out of sight and away from harm. I also try to keep my relative's favorites and mine copied down and in a recipe box or two for easy access. You'll make yourself crazy searching thru 200+ cookbooks for a recipe! :cuckoo:

[ettrick]

This is so great guys. You've now reminded me to get my ass to back to work on saving the fragments of my family's recipes before they die out. Family idiots clearing out the homes of the beloved deceased I've thrown too many scribbles and notes on the fire.

 

A little while ago I was lamenting over this and the loss of connection. I'd been eating a lot of seaweed for some reason and one evening I felt drawn to pick up a book which mentioned my ancestral village had once been the best place to harvest kelp on the North Coast. Every little lady would have her kelp hanging by her keg of salted fish (and that was only a few generations ago). I had never known that before and it made me instantly feel my feet grow roots. I'm determined to have something complete to hand to the future generation as the recipe book that should of happened but sadly didn't. I can feel my beloved dead on the other side cheering me on.

[builtTOUGH]

My grandmother was such a great cook, and passed some recipes down to me mother who teaches me whenever she makes them. They don't really come out tasting just like grandma's, but just having her in our minds is enough :D.

 

My mother is a great cook also and I wish she'd create a cookbook for me and for me to pass down. I may ask her to. She has dreams of starting her own bake shop!

[Archabyss]

Not hand written as per say but I have been promised my mothers cookbook which was given to her when she was young by her father. All of the recipes that are family favourites came from that book or the loose papers held within it. And yep I had to pull the I'm the eldest card regarding my sister wanting it also but as she only cooks from a Jamie Oliver book...meh.

 

My mum can't do pastry but I can and apparently her mother and nan used to have a light touch with it, so some things skip a generation sometimes.

[Sarafina]

I really hate that niether of my grandmothers ever wrote anything down. My mom's mom (Italian) did not pass down anything. It's such a shame because so much of my great grandmother is now lost. It's like my grandmother was ashamed of her heritage. I would love to connect to my past in a cooking way as I love food so much and cooking from scratch vs. canned, frozen, store made.

 

If anyone would be so generious as to share some recipes I would be greatfully indebt.

[Ally]

I am currently putting together a family heirloom cookbook. Three of my aunts and uncles married siblings. So, I have double first cousins who I've just met over the past year. As I started locating them all and meeting everyone, we eventually planned a family reunion.

 

This happened to inspire me to gather recipes from the two families...and put them together into one back. We have recipes going back about 3 generations that have been passed down thru the generations.

 

I'm also including biographies of everyone who submits recipes and pictures. The book is going to have a chapter on family lore. We have lots of neat stories. Some funny...some scary. Lots of ghost stories..which are fun. And lots of genealogy too.

 

Also...old remedies that our great grannys used and moon phase planting by our grandfathers.

 

It's becoming very big..but, it's worth it. There is so much to learn about one another...our traditions, our cooking, and our remedies.

 

I don't absolutely love to cook...but, I do alot of it! I am loving trying their recipes they send in for the book..they are actually really good. I do enjoy being creative in the kitchen and trying new things..so, this is working.

 

It's pretty neat reading the recipes that my great great grandmother wrote...the lack of measurements and the words they used are pretty funny sometimes.

 

I love the idea of these cookbooks and I'm definitely looking forward to passing down this book to my children and to our family members.

[Aloe]

Three of my aunts and uncles married siblings.

 

 

LOL I had to read that about 5 times before I realized what you meant! ;)

 

Your book sounds like a lovely project, I bet your daughters will really cherish that.

[ElizabethNicks]

No ancestral cookbooks yet but have been promised as well one that belongs to my deceased grandma. All her handwritten notes. What I do have, on related note, is her old pyrex mixing bowl. I never had opportunity to meet my grandmother but wearing her wedding ring and using her Pyrex bowl, I honestly feel she is with me in my kitchen.

 

I also , even though I live in Canada, seem to spend a lot of time cooking from old Southern and Caribbean cookbooks...I have some pull to this heritage. Apparently i am not the only person who loses themselves in cooking!

[Aurelia]

MW11: That sounds like a fantastic project :) Like Aloe, I did a double (or quintupple) take at the line about your aunts and uncles lol!

 

My Mom has a cookbook that she put together herself, I think it has some of my Grandma's recipes in there but I'll have to find out - I don't have that cookbook yet so I don't know all of the contents. I'd definitely like to have a generational cookbook that can be added to as it's passed on to future generations. My grimoire (although I don't call it that) is much the same way. I think having biographies, pictures and stories in a cookbook are great additions, MW, cooking and pretty much everything done in the kitchen has a link to family and/or community so having a good laugh at an old story, or just reminiscing about the past is such a great thing to include.

 

I always find when I think about ancentral "anything", I automatically think about Mom's side of the family. So I guess I should have a look into Dad's side too - other than my grandparents and an uncle, I haven't really met any of them!

[Jukauz]

All my life growing up my maternal grandparents lived with us or we lived with them depending on your point of view. On my mother's side it has always been that the generations lived together down through the years from when her family came from England in the late 1600's until my mother's death in 1987. I would say this was a Southern thing but it's probably an agricultural thing. Well we were Southern, owners of large amounts of acreage and unfortunately part of that horrible period of slavery. However, by the time my grandmother came along her people were merchant/farmers. They owned a mercantile in the city and grew cotton on their farm in the country. During planting season through harvest my grandmother lived at the farm with her 7 surviving brothers and sisters, her parents, her maternal grandparents, aunts and uncles who came and went, and hired hands that numbered between 10 and 20. The men and the hired hands worked the fields and managed the live stock, etc. and the women cooked and cleaned. And mostly with that many mouths to feed they primarily cooked. My grandmother said she started cooking when while standing on a wooden crate she was tall enough to cook on the stovetop.

 

My grandmother was a wonderful cook but she would say she couldn't hold a candle to her mother's cooking. I believe I got more dates in high school than I probably should have because once the word got out that if you dated Jukauz her grandmother would invite you to dinner.

 

I had the great privilege to learn to cook from her. She too didn't use written recipes. My mother wasn't as interested in cooking as other things so I do have some of her written recipes. My father liked to bake bread, make soups, and experiment. He also did all the canning. On weekends our kitchen could get quite crowded. And if it was canning season pack in a couple of great aunts and all my daddy's sisters kids in tow, scatter about a few uncles watching ball games with my grandfather and it became the best of parties. As soon as I was old enough I was expected to help. This wasn't dreaded but was a rite of passage. Not only did I learn canning I heard all the good stories!

 

I miss those times. . .

 

All this long-winded rambling to say if you're looking for a particular recipe, especially a Southern one, there's a good chance I may have it.

Then there are my own recipes. ;)

 

I love to cook and I hope I'm doing my grandmother proud.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Jukauz

[Rhonda]

I do, it is my maternal grandmother's book of recipies, it's wonderful all handwritten in her lovely cursive writing. I miss her so very much and find it comforting since it bring back a load of memories. One day it will go to my eldest daughter's first daughter since she has shown an interest in cooking...

 

I seem to take after Grammy since she loved to bake and that is my favourite especially now that I've grandchildren...

 

Recipies to me are for guidence, sometimes I find myself adding some of this or that.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Teacup Witch

[Stacey]

I am currently putting together a family heirloom cookbook. Three of my aunts and uncles married siblings.

 

You know, that is not that strange. Doing my family tree I've come across ancestors marrying first cousins, some right down to one of my mother's aunts (and let me tell you, the ancestors in my maternal line certainly knew how to breed). But anyway, I don't have any blood ancestral recipes, for reasons I'd rather not go into, my associations with any family is minimal (and that is being generous), my maternal grandparents I never met so getting any sort of heritage that way is gone as I don't associate with the rest of my family (on both sides pretty much). However my predominant ancestry is British and Irish, a tad of Scottish, teensy bit of Spanish, German way way way back, a West Indian, an African American slave..... I have a pretty interesting ancestry I'll admit but it's fairly mixed but I do tend to cook more simple and plain dishes. I would love to know what my ancestors cooked, I imagine I could do the historic research for early Australian settler food and see what was available and what was cooked.

[Palemoon]

My mum was a terrible cook and my dad always used recipes form books etc. I have a file of clipped recipes they kept!

 

My maternal grandmother had a cookbook which my mum had, and when mum died last year I got it. It had a few of my childhood favourites in it, but the real shock was to find loads of meat and fish recipes - both my grandparents were vegetarian. I realised though that this was down to my granny cooking for her "favourite" guest, a local batchelor....there was a bit of a complicated menage a trois thing going on in my grandparents household.....

 

I am making my own cookbook though to hand on to my kiddies!

Edited September 14, 2012 by Palemoon