Old Cookbooks – People Really Ate That?

I can't believe that I'm the only one who looks in her kitchen and wonders where some of her cookbooks came from. Seriously. In my ongoing effort to actually "own" what I own, I've decided to go through all my cookbooks and assess if they add any value to my life and if they don't, they're out. Going through these cookbooks, however, is becoming quite the adventure. I have some cookbooks that I assume I somehow inherited from my mom, but at the same time, I can't imagine her making most of the recipes I find in them. What do I mean?

Well, take this 1962 edition of Betty Crocker's Quick & Easy Cookbook. The opening page has an introduction about how the recipes are designed with the "modern" woman in mind. There are a lot of recipes that use Bisquick and cake mixes. (Brand tie-in, anyone!)

Divided into Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner rather than food groups, it has ideas for feeding teenagers, ladies luncheons, etc. Sounds reasonable, right?

Let's look at the first breakfast feature: Cereal & Milk! What? You think I'm joking. Sadly, I'm not. Ideas for cereal and milk in a recipe book?

But, wait! Instead of milk, it suggests pouring eggnog, flavored milks, softened ice cream, whipped cream, softened fruit flavored sherbets, or cinnamon sour cream over your cereal. They advise skipping the sugar on top at that point. (Seriously? Someone thought these were good ideas to serve to your family to make breakfast more exciting?)

The kids and I, however, were dumbstruck by this "yummy" dinner recipe.

What about you? Ready for some "Frankfurter Supper Dish"? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Hmmm...maybe eating the way we used to in the "good old days" isn't quite what we thought it was? I can't imagine eating most of the stuff I found in this cookbook and it will be heading off to Goodwill now that I've shared it with you.

What about you? Do you know what is lurking in your cookbooks?