Holiday Genealogy Gift Ideas Pt. 2: Old Fashioned Recipe Book

Introduction: In this article, Mary Harrell-Sesniak presents a holiday gift idea: a project to create a recipe book of vintage dishes your ancestors might have prepared. Mary is a genealogist, author and editor with a strong technology background.

If you’re looking for a fun gift idea for the holidays, put together an anthology of your ancestors’ holiday recipes. You can find thousands of recipes in old newspapers, such as GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives. Assemble them as gifts or surprise the family by cooking a meal with vintage recipes.

Here are some ideas:

• Make an old fashioned cookbook
• Create recipe cards
• Assemble dry ingredients for soups into clear jars & attach the recipe card with glue or string to the exterior
• Bake sweets & treats the way Grandma did
• Put on your apron & cook the meal the old fashioned way (or do it faster with modern conveniences)

To demonstrate how simple it is to find old fashioned recipes in historical newspapers, I’ve assembled a selection from the GenealogyBank archives to get you started—such as this one for strawberry ice cream. Doesn’t this sound delicious!

1897 Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 pint of milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 pint double cream
• 1 quart perfectly ripe strawberries
• 1 cup sugar
• liquid carmine for coloring (vegetable dye or extracts)

1918 Health Bread

In 19th century America, homemakers made their own bread. Here is an old health bread recipe invented by a woman from Aberdeen, South Dakota.

Ingredients:

• 3 pints potato water
• 1 cup mashed potatoes
• 1 cake yeast foam
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 sifter dark rye flour
• 2 cups white flour
• 1 cup corn meal
• 1 tablespoon beef fat or Crisco

1898 German Christmas Cookies

Ingredients:

• 7 ½ ounces butter plus a small amount to grease a pan
• 10 ounces powdered sugar
• 4 eggs
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 14 ounces sifted flour
• icing

1850 Corn Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ pints sifted meal
• 1 quart buttermilk
• 1 teacup sugar
• ½ cup sour cream
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon saleratus (baking powder)

The following 1878 recipes for lemon and sweet potato pies came from the same publication. The recipe article also included tantalizing cream cake, snow ball cake and early frosting recipes.

1878 Lemon Pie (1^st variation)

Ingredients:

• 1 lemon
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• ½ cup boiling water
• 1 egg
• butter the size of a walnut
• 1 crust

1878 Lemon Pie (2^nd variation)

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• piece of butter the size of a small egg
• 1 egg
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 crust

1878 Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup finely-mashed sweet potatoes
• sugar to taste
• 1 crust (no top)

1855 Rabbit, Hare or Venison Soup

Soup is best simmered over a hot stove. Start the soup six hours prior to serving.

Ingredients:

• 3 large, young and tender rabbits or 4 small ones
• 6 mild onions
• half a grated nutmeg
• fresh butter or cold roast veal gravy
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon whole pepper (pepper corn)
• 1 teaspoon sweet marjoram leaves
• 4 or 5 blades mace
• 3 large sliced carrots
• 4 quarts boiling water
• 6 grated hard boiled egg yolks
• diced bread or buttered toast

Additional ingredients required for hare or venison soup:

• 2 glasses Sherry or Madeira wine
• 1 sliced lemon

1874 Beef, Chicken, Oyster or Veal Soup

This recipe was “extracted from the manuscript recipe book of an old and famous Virginia housekeeper,” who, unfortunately, was not named in the newspaper article.

Ingredients:

• meat of one’s choosing, such as a large shank bone of beef
• a lump of butter
• a selection of herbs & vegetables of one’s choosing
• water
• salt & other condiments
• flour

1878 Vinegar

If you’ve ever wondered how to make vinegar, try this recipe.

Ingredients:

• potatoes
• 1 pound sugar
• 2 ½ gallons water
• hop yeast or whiskey

Now, before we end on a “sour” note from the vinegar recipe, you really must know that America’s favorite Snickerdoodles are not a modern-day invention.

1932 Snickerdoodle

Where do snickerdoodles come from?

A “Culinary Jingles” column from the Lexington Herald of 27 May 1932 reminds us that snickerdoodle is an adaptation of a foreign recipe, much like a quick coffee cake. The author of this newspaper article reported the origin was Dutch, but my Dutch contacts at Facebook tell me this is wrong. It is not a Dutch recipe, but more likely of German or Pennsylvania Dutch origin.

Oh darn! Guess you can’t always believe what you read. I was imagining the ancestors sitting by an Amsterdam canal exchanging holiday greetings while munching on their favorite snickerdoodles! (Note to self: change that mental image to Germans along the Rhine!)

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ cup milk
• 1 ½ cups self-rising flour
• 1 ½ tablespoons cinnamon mixed with 1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar

Happy Holidays to one and all, eat well and good luck with your holiday gift projects!

Related Recipe Articles:

• Find Grandma’s Recipes in Old Newspaper Food Columns
• Holiday Recipe Ideas for Good Old-Fashioned Home Cooking
• Newspaper Recipe Contests: Was Your Ancestor a Contest Winner?